The Cuckoo Colloquium

44 - Nini

"You've got a pimple on your lip," the goat said from beside the pool.

Nini sneered, feeling for the blemish on her upper lip. "Can't you ever say something nice?"

"Skinny girl, fat head," the goat jeered. Sometimes it spoke in complete sentences, and sometimes it just said, "Baaah!" But Nini appreciated the goat's company, even if it was ill-mannered.

She had stripped off all her clothes and luxuriated in the pools, and swam under the cascading waterfalls. And she did it all buck-naked, too-the goat wouldn't care.

"You know what I think?" She let the question hang and disappeared under the surface of the calm water, coming up again ten seconds later, gasping for breath, like she been under for a full minute.

"It doesn't matter what you think," the goat answered, "it's what you do."

She waded to the boulder-lined edge of the pool, marveling at an orchid adorning a nearby tree trunk, with its pink, fleshy pods and wondrous, waxy leaves. "I was going to say that everybody makes such a big deal out of what they call 'teen dysfunction', but there's nothing wrong with being smart, that's all."

"Baah!" the goat said, and Nini took that as disagreement. She didn't question the goat's ability to speak, figuring her jungle dementia was probably at fault, and she'd might as well enjoy the repartee, even if it came from her own mind.

Darkness set in, slowly surrounding her, and soft, moving shapes seemed to dance almost everywhere. The jungle was very alive at night, and it didn't intimidate her anymore-except for spiders and ants.

She got out, grabbed her smelly pile of clothes, and the goat followed her as she trudged naked-with the exception of the handkerchief over her eye-to the small hut, passing a fiery-pink Rafflesia.

"It's parasitic, by attaching itself to the grape vines, "the goat offered in its tinny voice, reminding Nini of something routed through bad speakers at the shopping mall.

Inside the little airfield office-she supposed it was some kind of office, though the hut was barren, with only a few faded Malaysian magazines in the drawer of the old desk-Nini leaned back against the wall in the chair. Still naked, she poked a toe at her sad, yellow underpants; she hated dressing after she had cleaned-putting on those fetid clothes again. The old wooden kitchen chair wobbled underneath her as she lifted the other leg and flopped it on the old desk like a tired fabric roll.

"We can agree to disagree on the point of this colloquium, but that limits the pool of possible topics," she said, "and you're stuck with me until somebody comes."

"Or you stop breathing." The goat lurked lazily in the doorway, flicking its white ears, as if deciding whether it was worth it to enter the hut, running some kind of plus-minus rubric in its head.

Nini picked at a little brown bump on her forearm. "Do ticks spread typhus or typhoid? - Those two diseases always confuse me."

"Ants."

"Ants don't spread disease."

"Fire ants."

"Are you working on some kind of metaphor?"

"No, stupid-ANTS!"

Her good eye blinked and then pop-eyed, looking like a big lima bean-the winnowing blanket of blackness had become an army of invaders, slipping right through the cracks in the walls of the hut!

"No, no no!" she yelled, scampering out the open door, swatting at a few who were venturing up her leg.

Squatting in the mud, she peered back inside at a massive floor rug crawling of its own accord over the old chair and desk, with its faded magazines.