Week 11 Story - A Wild Time in the Jungle

This story is now on my portfolio, which is HERE! :)

Inside Ezekiel's Mind: This terrain is tough. Poisonous snakes everywhere and rocks tripping you up at every step. I just wish I was back home, at least there I wasn't worried about breaking my damn neck on rocks every five seconds. 

Running through the vast jungle are Ezekiel and his men. They weren't running for pleasure, but to escape the men chasing them. You see, Ezekiel and the boys were accused of stealing something, something really precious to the group of men chasing them. However for you to fully understand, you need to know about where they were and the community they were bunking with. This will be portrayed in the perspective of Ezekiel. 

Ezekiel: It is too damn early to be up right now.

The sun had just risen and the locals were already hooping and hollering outside Ezekiel's, well ... I guess you would call it a tent. 

Ezekiel: We have been here for months and I still feel no closer to the end of book than when we arrived. "Come to New Guinea," they said. "You'll find SO much inspiration," they said. Well, I'm here and I haven't. Worrying about poisonous snakes and mosquitoes really stunts the creative process. 

Ezekiel goes out and joins the men by the fire. They are roasting what Ezekiel can only assume is some sort of rat with the locals. Both the locals and the men say that it's good. However, Ezekiel doesn't feel like he can stomach it so he sits and drinks some fermented juice that is actually pretty good. To him, it tastes a bit like wine, but made out of mangoes and stronger. As Ezekiel looks around, his gaze stops on the shrine that the locals have. He has looked at it before due to them being there for so long, but everyday he finds himself finding them more enchanting. 

Todd, a guy by the fire: "What are you looking at?"

Ezekiel: "Just the idols. They're just interesting."

Todd: "You're staring at them like they are bars of chocolate. You're making everyone nervous."

Ezekiel breaks his gaze and looks around the fire. All the men are staring at him. 

Ezekiel: "I was just looking." 

Ezekiel gets up and walks back to his tent. As the day passes by, they all don't do too much. Ezekiel goes to bed as the sun goes down. Outside he can hear the men laughing and the sound of wooden bowls clanking together. 

...

Ezekiel wakes up to yelling. This not a painful yelling, but an anger-induced yelling. Ezekiel stumbles out of his tent and notices that the sun has barely kissed the horizon. A group of men are around the shrine where the idols are, well where they usually are. The main idol was missing. The men slowly turn towards Ezekiel and they are visibly seething. Ezekiel's first instinct is to run, but he has a whole group here with him. As the men start advancing on Ezekiel, he screams and sure enough, the men poke their heads out of their tents. The next few moments is a flurry of color and yelling/screaming. 

...

Back in present time: 

Inside Ezekiel's Mind: This terrain is tough. Poisonous snakes everywhere and rocks tripping you up at every step. I just wish I was back home, at least there I wasn't worried about breaking my damn neck on rocks every five seconds. 

So here are Ezekiel and his men running with the locals chasing them. They run for about twenty minutes before they get to a climb up a steep mountain. Ezekiel starts pushing his men up without thinking. Eventually, he leans down so the men can stand on his back to prop themselves up to what looks like cave in the side of the mountain. The locals have stopped chasing them, but Ezekiel and the men don't notice. The locals are watching the men and the chief is specifically looking at Ezekiel. He sees pain flash across Ezekiel's face as one man, taller than Ezekiel, climb on Ezekiel's back with little grace and consideration. After all the men were up, Ezekiel tries, but his back hurts too much. The chief slowly comes out of the woods and Ezekiel freezes. Eyes darting around, Ezekiel's breath quickens. The chief puts both his hands up as he walks slowly toward Ezekiel. There is no weapon in his hand. The chief catches Ezekiel before he falls to the ground. The chief admires what Ezekiel did for his men and thinks that it is what makes a true chief. Ezekiel's men are yelling and throwing rocks at the chief, but the chief doesn't pay attention as he picks Ezekiel up and carries him into the forest. 

(Image Information: River running along floor of gorge; Source: publicdomainpictures.net)

Author's Note: This is a two-part story because I wanted to link two of the Jataka Tales together. So this first one is based off of The Monkey-Bridge by Noor Inayat. I wanted sacrifice to be the central theme so instead of having a group discovered by a piece of fruit, I decided to have Ezekiel be a scholar writing a book on the indigenous people of New Guinea. The part about the stolen idol will come back in the next installment of this writing because it links to the Jataka Tale, The Guilty Dogs by Noor Inayat.