Right Hand of the Resistance

“I must do this for my daughter's life,” she said aloud as the icy cold river water passed her waist. “For my daughter,” she repeated with each thrust of her leg into the thick black mud, and again lifting it from the knee-deep vacuum created underfoot that pulled it back down. “My daughter,” her hand recoiled from the sting of the rope burn, scaling into the dark jungle ravine.

Only three days earlier, she had thought her life was bad in the single-light room, sweltering in the sticky heat, waiting for the shuttle North. But now, it was worse. Her imagination was full and rich, yet she could not envision anything more difficult than this.

Between the heat, Varanian jungle cats, Yetsain purple spiders, and hiding from the regional raiders known for raping, skinning, and then killing their victims, she couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Her shoes began to melt from the muddy rot halfway up a basin wall, where the millions who had walked before her had kicked each step into the sides, forging a trail for her to follow. She watched as the stitching of the welt separated her sole from the insole. Near the top of the wall, the sole flapped like a tongue, forcing her to raise her leg higher to make the next step. Exhausted from the struggle of the mud fields, she strained, with only enough energy to clear the top and say, “daughter.”

The guide, whom she and the other twenty-eight souls had paid to help them escape North, finally allowed them to rest. There were only twenty-three remaining after the giant Dionaea muscipula snapped up the weak and the slow.

It was day four of what was promised to be a two-day hike through “The Gap,” the frontier before edging North. North was the promise of a better life. North, where everyone was treated equally and fairly. North, the promise of freedom from the gangs, tyrants, drug lords, and kidnappers. North would mean freedom for her daughter.

“How much longer?” one asked the guide.

“Two days,” was his only answer to anything.

She wondered if these were the only words he knew. “What color is that tree? Two days. How high is that mountain? Two days. What is your name? Two days.” She understood the need for separation, the coldness the heart must maintain to survive. It was the focus and determination of going North. The guide had his own promises to keep. Anything else was a waste of energy. Everything outside of that was a waste of time to get there in “two days.”

While others rested, lying back to back in support of one another, to keep watch for raiders or unknowns, she removed the long needle and twine from her pack and started to restitch the welt. She followed the original holes. She barely had enough spit to wipe away some of the mud. With extreme caution, the metal needle went through a hole to the other side. Her skin, thick from years of labor, would puncture easily. It would get infected. She would die. Her daughter would never be released, or worse. She was careful to find each hole, push through, and pull out the other end without a scratch.

For a few moments, she found rest. No one had her back, but she was able to close her eyes for a few moments. Just as she started to drift off, “Two days!” She stirred and stood up, making sure she had all her belongings. No pickpockets or flashy fingers had managed to lift anything from her.

She had believed in the concept of “family” for so long. An experience like this should bring people closer together. Spirits would bond through such life-altering adventures. A “collective” would form to keep them close forever. Growing up, she had heard the term “Comrade” overused to the point where it had lost any meaning. Words like family, comrade, collective were supposed to bring people together. This was not the case, at least on this trip. They were strangers going North, surviving to arrive in the North. This was all the group of twenty-three, wait, now twenty-one, could focus on. Something happened while she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to ask, knowing the answer already (two days).

When the eighteen souls of her group first saw the jungle's edge, their hearts lifted. It would be possible to go North. They had made it so far in those seven days. The guide took them to a staging area where others, just like them, waited for the perfect moment to face “the Beast.” When mingling with these others, they seemed much lighter of heart, high in spirit. These groups had bonded over the experience. They had helped one another to make it all this way. She heard tales of bravery in rescuing those trapped so none were left behind.

Her guide was nowhere to be found. In asking another guide, he shared the scariest of ghost stories. The tale of one guide, the one who took the longest routes through the jungle, went days out of the way to their destination, and while pilgrims slept, would butcher and feast. The horror of the cannibal guide was ‘only a myth,’ the guide explained. He was never seen. They had only gotten word from the few survivors.

She believed that she was a survivor. She would not give up until her daughter was free and safe.

As darkness arrived in the late hour, movement towards the North started again. With no guide, she would follow the masses North under the warnings of a tangerine sky.