Jake Fonko M.I.A. by B. Hesse Pflingger

Author:B. Hesse Pflingger
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Tinderboxed Press
Published: 2013-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

7

I’VE NEVER BEEN much of a city person. After two months cooped up in hotel rooms, my cramped little office in the Saigon Embassy, abandoned shophouse flats, dungeons, torture chambers and Khmer Rouge villas, did it feel great to be back outdoors again! Soh Soon and I basked under the overhang of that waterfall for nearly an hour after the sun disappeared. But as gloriously cool and refreshing as our little nook was, the falls filled it with so much racket that we couldn’t have heard anyone sneaking up on us. Reluctantly, we backtracked to the tunnel and took it over for the night. It was a tight fit and a little stuffy, but comfortable enough if we slept end-to-end. I preserved our blood supplies by rigging a tent around us with the mosquito netting Sarge gave me, plus massive application of bug repellant (also courtesy of Sarge—that son-of-a-gun thought of everything).

Soh Soon had spent enough time in tunnels that sleeping there didn’t bother her, so she positioned herself furthest in. I had my head at the opening, the rifle stowed against the wall beside me. The night passed without incident. The morning frog/bug chorus of peeps, cheeps and gribbits awakened me to a clear sky and cool, still air. A random cloudburst had drifted over us before dawn—just enough rain to spritz everything down. The tunnel entrance overlooked the stream from fifty feet up, and through the tree trunks I could make out the ridgeline and thick foliage on the far side of the drainage. Rods of bright morning sun pierced the drops hanging on the branches and leaves, creating a magical gleam and glitter that reminded me of Mexican glassblowers’ displays.

Jungle has a beauty unlike any other—lushness, plants of every possible size, shape, texture and shade of green: an overwhelming sense of teeming life. At first glance it looks like an impossible tangle, but with time you begin to figure it out. Creeper vines, low bushes, ferns and big-leafed plants cover the floor like a foot-deep shag carpet, colorful mushrooms of fantastic shapes peeping out here and there. At the next level up you notice the low palms, the tree ferns, the shrubs, the thorn bushes and the banana plants with umbrella sized leaves (in a pinch they’re okay umbrellas). Thick tree trunks stretch upward from sharply ridged, buttress-like roots toward the high canopy, some covered with shaggy bark, others smooth, with slippery smears of fungus. Massive banyan trees spread their branches widely over sheltered clearings, dropping new roots to dig their way into the dirt. Millettia trees tower high above, flashing brilliant purple blossoms, closing off the sky shoulder-to-shoulder with feathery clove trees and bushy ironwoods festooned with big white flowers. Strangler figs wrap themselves on hapless trunks and struggle their way toward clear sunlight, eventually killing their encased hosts. Thick vines drape down, inviting Tarzan-like swings from branch to branch. Parasitic ferns and orchids droop out of knotholes and limb crotches. And throughout it all, delicate forest flowers shyly beckon to cruising insects, hoping to lure them to their pollen.

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