The Cuckoo Colloquium

27 - Nini

...Closer, and she could see the top covers of the jars were glass. Looking down, Nini saw the fleshy pink-grey layers of abandoned fetuses, bodies of ill-born, not stuffed, but packed with care into the big jars; the tops, screwed back on, the spirits of the dead children released with the wind, the bodies swinging freely in their capsules.

Butterflies then appeared and fluttered about as if confused by their two visitors. A cicada began to cry out with a sound so loud it deafened Nini's ears, and she led the way out of the rambling graveyard with gritty steps, up a thin trail that zigzagged along a small rise.

With the help of the hilltop they scanned the area in every direction, but they saw no village. The graveyard appeared to be out in the middle of nowhere.

Soon, the jungle began to squeeze in on them once more. Thin strands of vines slapped at them as they walked, and gluey plants popped up from the ground, forming a lattice of vegetation, again forcing Nini in a different direction.

She stopped only once when Puso took off his boots, and she tried not to watch as he let ooze a watery puss from his feet before putting the boots back on.

The Buddhist temple that sat in the back of Cuckoo Camp snuck up on them after they cleared a thick copse of prickly rattan trees. The psychedelic pinks and oranges, the overpowering reds and greens, greeted them like old acquaintances.

They were back! Nini's heart pounded-They had been saved!

Never had a place looked so attractive, so inviting, and they raced past the multihued Buddha statues toward the large room, where they had sat for the culture dance.

But the room was empty, with only the small stage sitting idle at one end. There were no bamboo poles, no electronic devices for the pre-recorded music; the room had been stripped bare, and only the hard benches remained. Even the crepe-paper taped to the wall, which said 'Positive New Attitudes!' had disappeared.

Once again, they crossed the gulley on the old plank, and then plowed through the liquid mud, heedless to whatever splashed onto them, now running by the manicured grove of palm trees that led the way into Cuckoo Camp.

And then stopped.

A heavy silence greeted them. The thatched-roof, open-walled visitor's lodge, its adjacent kitchen, the small shacks that dotted the clearing, everything sat dead-still, ill-omened.

The camp had been deserted. They were alone.

On the path in front of the steps into the visitor's lodge, Puso puffed his chest with a heroic look. "You stay here."

He hopped up the steps before Nini had a chance to rebut his sudden chauvinism, slipping off his boots and sliding onto the hardwood floor. A few seconds later, he barreled back down, shoe-less, to her on the path.

"No, no, no, no, no!" He bent over next to her, panting for breath like an old man with no lungs.

Puso didn't have to say anything-She could hear the sound, like angry buzz saws, coming from deep within the visitor's lodge, and then a few of them circled the perimeter of the empty room-the golden glimmer of wasps, fairly big ones.

Still bent over, Puso looked up at her as if begging for understanding. "The poison's still in me from the last attack, I'm allergic to them!" He craned his neck, exhibiting what Nini took to be small, red spot. "I've blown up like a golf ball on my butt, too- they're venomous, you know."

"They're protecting their cone, their queen."

"Right, take their side."

So now what? They walked around the visitor's lodge to the back door of the kitchen, the only room that, she reasoned, might hold supplies.