My task now lay in tracking. A task rendered doubly difficult due  to the need for stealth. I didn’t know if the balloon was friend or foe.

If I found a suitable tree every mile or so I would follow the UFO. Since it was unidentified and indeed flying the acronym fit.

I was glad for the uncontemplative mindset my training afforded. The weird alien situation I found myself in was immaterial. I identified threats and moved to resolve them.

The thicket in which I was presently secreted had an approximate span of eight miles. The acid-trip looking lighter than air anomaly was drifting in from the west. With a slight southward trajectory. That is according to my compass which rather disconcertedly was misbehaving.

The thing could of course change course at any time.

While I was still above the canopy I made sure to note the location of the other tall trees. And I prayed that I’d sketched out the map properly since my GPS was behaving even stranger than my compass. Which is to say it wasn’t behaving at all.

My next thoughts were of food and water which were very scarce. All I had was the contents of my pack. Climbing Amazonian trees is caloricaly and hydrologically taxing. Unfortunately, following the only sign of sentience was my best hope.

I was hoping the thing would land somewhere in the tall grass and that I’d be able to  move quickly enough to approach it unseen. Such a fortunate but unlikely scenario would inform me if I wanted to make my prescence know.

It was a long shot but I really had no other choice.

Before I began my descent I zoomed in on the balloon one last time.  From the gandola beneath the polyhromatic tearshaped gasbag something was being dropped. Something was being dropped at rhythmic intervals.

It stirred a sort of vague notion somewhere deep in the back of my mind.

There was no time to dwell on it for too long and I hastily lowered first my pack than myself to the jungle floor.

Full Text

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The Sketch of Sam Monroe is a weird fiction thriller. Follow the adventures of five quirky Black Ops pharmacologists as they globetrot their way to the Mato Grosso jungles. Philosophy, psychedelics, and banter are infused throughout this literary comic-book.

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