Paco Valdez
BU
Despite what your olfactory senses are telling you, you decide to be polite and drink from the sacred wooden bowl.
You lift it carefully to your mouth and take a larger swallow than you intended. It tastes like compost water and burns all the way down your throat to rest in a pit of fire in your stomach. Tears rim your eyes and you fight the urge to vomit, figuring that would be more than a little offensive to these men.
You pass the bowl back to the elder and nod your thanks, still not quite trusting yourself to speak less the contents of your stomach spill forth.
The elder looks pleased with you as he sips at the drink. He passes it on to the next elder in line and speaks to you in a suddenly husky voice. "You handle the drink well." He says to you, announcing his approval. "How did you like the taste?"
Honesty spills from your mouth before you are able to stop it, your voice deep and echoing in your ears; "Might be the most revolting thing I've ever tasted."
The men around you laugh. Their laughs surround you like an echoing cacophony which envelopes you in its grasp. The noises wrap around you like a blanket while your vision blurs.
The laughter gets louder in your ears and drums begin pounding rhythmically around you. The drums dominate all that you hear and overtake you until the point that you swear your heart is keeping time with the beating of the drums.
After some time of swaying back and forth with blind eyes while the exulted natives dance around you, you open your eyes to find a lizard staring up at you in front of the fire.
Now normally a lizard in the desert is no odd occurrence, but this one is somehow different. It seems to glow inwardly, light radiating out of its pores.
More than that, though. You get the impression while looking into its eyes that it knows you, that it has always known you.
Then it disappears and you blink your eyes a few times trying to figure out if it was there in the first place or not.
The rest of the night is a blur of pulsating images and resonating sounds which echo long into the night and fill your dreams with a lingering catatonic quality which is somehow peaceful.
Despite what your olfactory senses are telling you, you decide to be polite and drink from the sacred wooden bowl.
You lift it carefully to your mouth and take a larger swallow than you intended. It tastes like compost water and burns all the way down your throat to rest in a pit of fire in your stomach. Tears rim your eyes and you fight the urge to vomit, figuring that would be more than a little offensive to these men.
You pass the bowl back to the elder and nod your thanks, still not quite trusting yourself to speak less the contents of your stomach spill forth.
The elder looks pleased with you as he sips at the drink. He passes it on to the next elder in line and speaks to you in a suddenly husky voice. "You handle the drink well." He says to you, announcing his approval. "How did you like the taste?"
Honesty spills from your mouth before you are able to stop it, your voice deep and echoing in your ears; "Might be the most revolting thing I've ever tasted."
The men around you laugh. Their laughs surround you like an echoing cacophony which envelopes you in its grasp. The noises wrap around you like a blanket while your vision blurs.
The laughter gets louder in your ears and drums begin pounding rhythmically around you. The drums dominate all that you hear and overtake you until the point that you swear your heart is keeping time with the beating of the drums.
After some time of swaying back and forth with blind eyes while the exulted natives dance around you, you open your eyes to find a lizard staring up at you in front of the fire.
Now normally a lizard in the desert is no odd occurrence, but this one is somehow different. It seems to glow inwardly, light radiating out of its pores.
More than that, though. You get the impression while looking into its eyes that it knows you, that it has always known you.
Then it disappears and you blink your eyes a few times trying to figure out if it was there in the first place or not.
The rest of the night is a blur of pulsating images and resonating sounds which echo long into the night and fill your dreams with a lingering catatonic quality which is somehow peaceful.