Side Trail
Sci-Fi
The World Within
Andrew Stuchlik
All that follows is what I can hopefully depict as an accurate description of a story as told by a very good friend of mine. Though, it may be taken as a work of fiction, I hope that it will be infinitely more than what is prefaced. For this story was taken from the remnants of a diary of someone far more ambitious than I. But I hope that one day, not too far from now, this will not be so.
Maybe, ambitious is such a poor choice of words for a man such as he. He was destined- if you would so permit me to say as much- for these things. He was always keen to these sort of things, but for me to say that it was meant to be, would be far too foreboding, and at the same time, much too underestimating for me to speak it in the same breath.
He was a man, these were the things that he’s seen, and these were the feelings that he felt. That is all that I really know for sure, and if nothing else is taken from this- other than he has felt a life fulfilled- that is surely enough. All that I know now, for sure, are that these are the notes that were left to me.
It was these letters and the very same syllables that would drive any man from his sanity, just over the verge of fulfilling any dark fantasy that he has ever mused. Diary entries that would drive lesser men mad, and those who are the saner, the more analyzing of us, well then they would just end up on the borderline between this place and the next.
I have changed little, only special groupings that would drive men to such places, and this was solely for the for the sake of the reader. I am now, as I write this, on my way to that place to catch my own glimpse at what he saw. I am now consumed with a certain desire, doomed to follow in his footsteps and I do not wish my own fate on any other man.
There are certainly many things to be afraid of in the dark, but it has come to my attention, recently, that there are a great many more things hiding in the night that are, well, infinitely stranger. This is their story: as told by a man who should not be taken as a ploy for mere entertainment purposes.
I pray that you listen to his story, and through his experience, are able to distinguish what he could not. What I can no longer keep back: A desire for a feeling, a yearning for a place that I am not even sure really existed on this earth.
There is too, the chance that it does indeed exist, and if there is even a possibility of that, I would give up everything: my career, my life, my sanity- everything that I thought was important, just to catch a glimpse of it. I hope it’s everything that he says it is, but I am really so ready for disappointment that it almost shades away my excitement.
With no further adieu, here is the story of a man who has me convinced there is a place and feelings so foreign that can never be expressed in words, that a mouth could ever form the right syllables to pronounce.
*
I was in my second year of college, when I first began my thesis on the traditions and customs of the more isolated tribes in the Southern America’s. I hadn’t gotten much of anywhere for several months, but I was convinced that there was surely something profound and publish worthy in the subject, so, on an educated whim, I decided that I would make use of my summer holiday and visit the jungles that were infamous in the area.
I had a great deal of research into many of the tribes, and their continuing apostasy from the outside world, under my belt, and I felt was ready to start a real study. Even if the journey was to be highly ambitious, my only thoughts were of the notoriety and fame that would doubtlessly follow should I find success in the midst of the undocumented.
I made it a point to familiarize myself with common illnesses and afflictions that I might experience during my journey from simple student to acclaimed author, while in the jungles of an unfamiliar continent. I read every book I could find on survival and the tools that would best suit my expedition, absorbing everything that I thought could even be plausibly useful.
I packed, leaving no outcome unplanned for, even going so far as to write up a will and testament, should I never make it back. There are many beast’s and things of a poisonous nature where I would be heading, and I have never been so bold as to assume or claim invulnerability from these things, so they were taken as a moderately possible scenario.
I withdrew all of what I had saved for many years, and spent only what was necessary to make my way down. I ended up finding work on an old steam ship that was heading to the very same destination, though, it was not the most glamorous means of travel, but I wanted to make sure that I had money to spare should I come into a less life-threatening sort of trouble.
Maybe it was naïve to make such a daring move, at least with the haste it had been done with, but I was driven. I have always made it a point to act on my instincts, always trusting that they themselves had my best interests in mind, and all else that contradicted them were just a combined hindrance. So, if it was my intuition itself that was flawed, well, I guess I would prefer whatever end I should come to than have to admit that.
*
My voyage took several weeks, the mean while, I worked in exchange for my passage over. It doesn’t take long shoveling coal before you realize two things: That it must be one of the more detested jobs ever schemed, and while it’s a filthy and completely mindless labor, it does make one very fit, very quickly.
*
I had a fairly good idea of where I would go after I had landed, so as soon as we hit port, I was out to try and locate a guide to get me through the initial culture shock of being in a completely foreign place. I had a healthy grasp of the language, but I knew it would be useful to have an advisor accompanying me.
I wasn’t looking for the most legitimate looking fellow to be my guide, but more rather an everyday sort that would know more of the area’s history and surroundings. After a few hours I happened across a smelly, poorly groomed man with a machete, and I knew I had found the guide for me. I spoke with him for about an hour or so over some food, and presented my proposal, soon after which, he agreed.
I stocked up on a few more trinkets and odds and ends before heading back to a small hotel room for the evening. It was to be one of just a few nights spent sleeping on a bed for some time, and though it was wet from condensation, and foul as the day is long, I did sleep rather well. Not on the bed of course, but nonetheless well.
I was familiar with many rumors of tribes that had shunned the age of… well whatever age that we are in presently, and chose to stick to their own time tested traditions. Though, much was known about all of these tribes already, and as the expansiveness of the material known grew, my interest dwindled. My yearning was for the unknown, the unstudied, the prize box with only an essay’s distance from a sociological masterpiece.
I didn’t care how long it took, I didn’t care what sacrifices would be made. I was here for a purpose that fed my anticipation and throttled my ambitions to new limits, and I would settle for nothing less.
I asked my guide to help me track down the rumors and tales about tribe’s kin to what I wanted as they presented themselves. Although he was reluctant at first, he soon agreed, and we spent much of the next few days mingling with locals and traders from near and far passing knowledge to and fro.
A week or so longer than I had hoped to have spent in the city, we got our first real lead. Though it was similar to a child’s bedtime story rather than anything that was on the up and up in nature, but it was also the first that sparked my intrigue. It was actually my guide that discovered it, or him, as the situation turned out. Our first encounter of the story was an old man spinning tales in a local bar, the likes of which sung to my desires to the very key.
Evidentially there was a small tribe that lived about fifty kilometers from this city, whom chose to keep solely to themselves. They had no interest in changing or adapting to what this world was becoming. There were legends of monsters being seen near the seaside village, creatures so tall that their heads could see the heavens while their feet soaked in the ocean. The village itself and it’s people had in fact no name whatsoever, they were just referred to as The Watchers.
I kept the idea of it’s probable falsity in mind as I asked around the city about these Watchers, and was met with even more stories and rumors of reported sightings of these terrible monsters. Aside from, forgive the pun, these “tall” tales, not much was known about The Watchers or the fiends that supposedly went hand in hand with the village.
We gathered all the information we could, trying to weed out the good information from the lesser- which was sparse to say the least- and decided upon a radius to start. The only constants throughout the stories were that it was in fact seaside, and surrounded by a dense jungle followed by a terrific clearing that seemed to abruptly curtail the labyrinth of trees and vegetation.
We set off into the jungle on foot, unfortunately, but the trees were far to congested to try any other means. It was to be weeks or months before we expected to get there, so our pace was brisk but steady enough to be constant; making ample amounts of ground everyday before calling it a night. That is until the expected unexpectedly happened.
Let me explain that for a second, I knew what would come along with hiring the sort of fellow that I had enlisted for help, but it seemed the best way to get the information I needed and avoid being robbed while accruing said information. What was unexpected was that he would wait till we were nearly three weeks away from the capital before he sprung his little surprise. All in all not a very solid plan, but I knew I wasn’t working with the brightest fellow on earth either.
In any case, he attempted to mug me while walking one insignificant day, only to be met with the .45 that I have had in my pocket since the day I arrived. He seemed quite startled by the sight of it, his machete was quite nice and very sharp too, but everyone knows that pistol beats machete.
I took his weapon away and his clothes, and told him that if I saw him again he wouldn’t live to make it anywhere else, naked or otherwise. I left him his backpack, and the money that he was owed for accompanying me this far, and he sulked away into the jungle back to where we had come from. If you’re wondering why I would take his clothes, I have only one question for you: Just how long would you stick around naked in the jungle?
I didn’t have any delusions that, that would be the last I saw of him, but I had rather gotten to like him in a distant twice-removed cousin sort of way, and I hoped that it wouldn’t come down to shooting him. Even a wound in the jungle can get infected rather easily and even if death isn’t immediate, it would follow shortly there-after if not properly treated.
My journey continued on for a while, still searching for any clue of the village, or the people called The Watchers. As a matter of fact, evidence of any kind of human interaction with the jungle was limited to put it plainly. My insides would hear nothing of giving up though; I had only extended my search area by a few kilometers after all, so my spirits were still in good standing.
Not but ten days after seeing my companion toddle off, naked as the day he was born, I found a clearing that was very nearly identical to what had been described by the supposed witnesses. It was just as I hoped it would be. The dense jungle fell through and gave way to a grassy clearing that seemed as tranquil a place as anyone could ever aspire to dream a place to be. It was as if this nook of the continent was completely removed from all the rest of itself, an oasis that lied tucked inside the mouth of the jungle. Animals that I didn’t think even inhabited this entire continent were grazing peacefully in front of me. Several of these animals that I was looking at, I’m not sure I’ve ever even heard of them existing at all, yet here they are in center view, unmistakable.
I started to step out into the clearing, but in my terrific eagerness, I found myself staring at the world from a brand new perspective, for the butt end of a trap. Hanging upside down staring at the ground below me. I went over and over the events that led up to my eventual entanglement, and a rush of shame encircle me.
I look up at the device that had captured me, and though it is made from primitive materials that anyone could find in a jungle, it was rather brilliantly schemed. I would go more into the detail of it all, but I did not spend too great a time studying it. While I would make a point to come back and further explore the mechanism, it was no time to doddle with the shavings of fame, when glory was surely waiting for me not but yards away.
I struggled to reach up and grab the knife out of my boot, and finally grabbed it in but a few attempts. I catch hold of the amazingly sturdy vine and as I am cutting away at it, my eyes glance down, seeing where I would fall. There is a rather large rock not too far from where I could land, I will have to be careful not too… *Snap!
*
I’m not sure how long I have been unconscious, but considering how stiff I feel, it must be more than a few hours. My eyes start to open and all I can see are blurred images of what is around me. I can feel the warmth of a fire not too far away, so I must have been taken into the village. I open my mouth to start to say something, but nothing comes out. My throat is as dry as I can ever remember it being, and my head is pounding perfect processions of loud ringing pain through my temples, and it reverberate into my ears.
Someone tilts my head up, and starts to give me a drink of what I was hoping was water, but instead it must have been some sort of medicine. I am only sure that it was indeed NOT water from the very distinct smell and taste that, to my best guess, was a lot like what I would imagine guano that has been eaten and thrown back up would resemble. I must have lost consciousness then, most likely from the unearthly bile I had just ingested, because I don’t actually remember even swallowing it, if that was even at all possible.
*
I woke up many times periodically after that and saw people coming in and out frequently checking up on me. A peculiar sort of relief came over me when I realized that I should be increasingly thankful that I had not been killed or eaten. Though, I still probably shouldn’t rule out the possibility of that occurring, however unlikely it would be now. It takes a special sort of constitution to fall back asleep after such a thought wandering around in one’s head, but somehow I found sleep again very quickly.
*
I awoke sometime later, who knows if it had been hours or days later. I sat up for the first time since my fall, and I looked around the room. The room itself looked ancient like it had stood here for centuries, but it lacked the decay and corrosion that one would expect. It was like looking through a window into the past and seeing what the pyramids of Egypt must have looked like at the pinnacle of their completion, though this style was much different, more like a cross between Mayan and ancient Greek architecture. The room was warm but unduly so; although, it was more comfortable than the jungle to say the least.
I stood up carefully, and felt my head where I had hit it, and while it was still tender to the touch, it was healing very well. Remembering the awful drink that I can only hope was medicine, I closed both hands around my mouth and breathed out hard. The breath cupped in my hands was a stench so powerful I could barely stop myself from vomiting. I took a few steps and breathed in heavily attempting to calm my stomach down, and finally it settled with only tear filled eyes as my witnesses.
Then I thought to myself about the people I had seen coming in and taking care of me for the passed several... Well however long that I had been here, and another rush of excitement, or at least that is what I hope it was, came over me. I walked carefully out of the room, and into an open hallway. I looked up, to see no ceiling, just the stars shining brighter and bigger than I have ever seen them. I was staring into nebulas and star systems that would trouble a poet for proper words. I kept walking after taking a moment to take in everything that surrounded me, to where a faint orange glow was coming from on the other side of the tall building I had come from.
The whole clearing was actually much larger than I had originally thought. It was at least a kilometer or two around in what seemed to be a perfect elliptical shape. There was a grassy plain off to one side, and in the middle of it all, there were many houses that went up into a squared off pyramid type structure in the center of them all. It looked like a temple or a shrine much like the Parthenon, except it was as if it were constructed by the gods themselves. The intricacies of it’s carving and the care that was taken to maintain it, were, without words remarkable.
I made my way around the structure taking in every minute geometric shape and curve as they came into view, studying it all with a dedicated eye, until I saw where the people had gathered. There was a large fire in the center of the circle surrounded by people, all of them sitting and staring into the billowing smoke that barreled thick columns up into the sky. Though it seemed to pour out relentlessly from the fire, as I got closer I noticed that it moved unnaturally slow, it was if it was wisping it’s way, as it pleased. It moved with smooth flowing motions as it reached it’s way upward.
I walked closer, and I was only about ten feet away when I had an overwhelming need to sit all of a sudden, and I said before I am not one to question my gut, so sitting is exactly what I did. I could feel the warmth from the fire on my face, even from so far away, it was like I could almost touch it. I closed my eyes and I could hear the sound of the ocean gently washing to and from the shore. I’d been close to it most of the journey, but I hadn’t heard it like I did in that moment. I’m not sure that I ever have.
I opened up my eyes and gazed at the people sitting just in front of me. There was no movement, they all sat in a fashion that was meditative while their eyes looked up and seemed to be stuck in a glance that was almost like a prayer. Occasionally, a man or woman would get up, walk over to the shore and throw their hands up in the air. The creatures would walk over and size them up. If they were satisfied, they would scoop them up off their feet and take them away from sight. I don’t know for sure where they went, but everything in me wanted to be where they were, there inside the wonders beyond. It was more like they were giving an offering to a friend rather than a sacrifice to a Deity or a God.
Those who walked up, and weren’t taken would calmly walk back to their places and sit back down and their gazes reaffixed up to the skies and wonders around them. There was no bitterness or resentment as they took their places, only an emptiness that was barely visible, except to the most trained eye.
I looked around at the world around me, and it was like a parting of the clouds on a sunny day in the best sort of way. What I saw were not the monsters and beasts that people believe lay in the dark, but something much more serene and ancient.
I saw giants without measure walking around the open oceans cascading their enormous steps gently into the waters beneath them. There were creatures that have only been partially imagined in the drug induced dreams of opiates of the best caliber, moving about us like they had been here since before the very first dawn to have ever taken place.
It seemed that everything that exists now on this earth are but the shadows of these creatures. Though their forms were completely unfamiliar, there was something about them that kept the idea of alien the furthest thing from my mind. It was as if we had caught glimpses of them, in the shadows of things, like they were only the denizens of the dark until this moment. Everything our lives were now consumed with, paralyzed our eyes from being able to see what has been here long before the first man ever stepped onto the earth.
I got up for a reason that I cannot find words for now, and I walked over to where the others had stood, and I pushed my arms up into the air in the exact same way the others chosen had done, awaiting what would come next. The mighty ones - as I have come to call them- walked over to me and judged me as they had the others and did as I had, a sort of fog seemed to clear for a moment, and I could see clearly what had become of the others who were chosen. They had been consumed.
To put it more precisely, they were eaten by jaws containing mouths so massive it would take borders of countries to give an honest description of their size. Even seeing this, and now knowing the fate that would befall me, should I continue, I stood fast.
I remember reaching up my arms and wanting the same as all of those chosen around me, but as I reached my arms higher, the more desperate my grasp became, and I was left with more of the same I had started with. A nothing that transcends a sort of something that words will never fill.
I was sized up, I was judged, and I was not chosen. Then the unexpected reared it’s form from nowhere and I suddenly began to cry. I stood there feeling mediocre in the worst way that I have ever felt. I felt myself teething with disappointment.
I know that what I had wanted so deeply at that moment was just to be eaten, and this was a strange sort of thought, taking into account what oddness that rightly should bring, but I was still left feeling empty. I was not chosen to be a part of something so great and wonderful, and for that, I wept.
If I could contribute to something so wonderful existing in this world, even at the expense of my own life, I would do it in a second. I would gladly give up something so trivial and unremarkable as my life to be a part of the wonders that everyone hopes so deeply just to exist in this world. I would give myself up over and timelessly over again to help keep these beings here on this earth. To give it life, to inspire it to stay here, I would give anything. But, I was not chosen this time, and I was so unmistakably filled with sorrow that I couldn’t help but cry.
I took a step back, and as I did, the beings around me all turned to me, and gave a nod much like a bow of appreciation towards me. I am sure I will never be able to express what that felt like, even with all the years of schooling I have endured, I am at a loss. It was perfect love and gratitude in the purest way anything could ever be felt. My feelings of inadequacy melted away into nothingness and I was a whole person again.
I looked for a place to sit, and as I did, the people of the village parted to make room for me. I glanced around quickly and found that not one single person was entirely the same as the next. Each one of them seemed to have, not ethnicity nor skin color in common; there was no size, weight, or gender characteristic that was exactly like the one sitting next to them.
While it was quite a sight, it was nothing in comparison to everything else my eyes took in, and I again looked into and through this world and gazed again into what lay here and beyond simultaneously. I felt that this was the place that I have always belonged. This is where I have always meant to be; maybe we all were.
Then, like a fever induced trance, everyone rose up and began walking towards a place. A special sort of somewhere that it seemed to require a ritual of a walk to reach it. They all moved to where they thought they aught to be, the center of attention. The mighty ones came and stood before them, and with a kind, all consuming love, dropped to their knees and bowed before us all.
Each and everyone of the people stared lovingly at the sight of this, the beings which would eventually consume their bodies, if chosen. The mighty ones talked in a song with sounds that a lifetime words could never find syllables to speak. It was with gorgeous songs of sound that they spoke, on one knee that they thanked us with heads bowed, for our offer. This lasted what felt like only moments but looking back on it now, I’m not sure I could count the hours, and as we kneeled in unison, they rose and walked away. It was only after the last one was beyond sight that they all returned to their homes.
After this day I will no longer be the same, of that I am sure. I have seen a special kind of wonderful, and though it may be a morbid sort of wish, I can think of nothing else that I could ever need more than this single desire. In any case, I was now sure of what I had to do.
*
The next day I started back into the city. It took several weeks to find my way back, but I was again determined to finish what I had started. I had come here with an intention and it was never like me to not finish something that I have started.
Upon reaching the glaring noises and hustle of the city again, I found myself a room and I started this journal of the events that have transpired over these many months. Though, I have omitted and changed much of the finer details where exactly the location of that place is, all else is an absolute truth.
Maybe there was nothing spectacular and transcendent about what I saw, maybe that the medicine I was given was, in itself, some sort of hallucinogen. There is a chance too, that my massive head trauma led to me seeing something that was not really even there. Perhaps I had dreamed it all, but even now, I can catch visions from the corner of my eye, the qualities of which I had seen there.
I am no longer concerned with fame or notoriety, as a point of fact, I have chosen to leave my name out of this journal completely. I am only writing this down and sending you this, so that you too can know that there are places on this earth that are not like what we see, that sometimes you must look within all things around you, and you may too catch a glimpse of what is, and always has been.
I cannot bear to come back to my old life now. It has lost it’s meaning to me. I have seen things that I am now, unwilling to part with. I shall go back to that place as soon as I am complete with this manuscript, back that the brand new horizon that I know to be true.
Should you ever try to seek me out or that place, I will be there waiting for you.
You will find me there in the world within.
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