I awoke with a start. I was no longer floating. As I sat up I noticed that we had landed in front of a settlement.

Various porters were conveying our gear to what I assumed was the village square. There had already appeared a neat little stash of our alien looking wares beneath a grey canvas.

They must have decided to let me sleep. I suppose I was grateful for this. Every so often a deep fatigue would settle over me. The warm sticky air, the feeling of being swallowed in some great green blanket, it was a feeling of depth, of heaviness, and it drug me down.

I wasn’t the only one. Which is I suppose why they’d decided to extend a courteousy they no doubt wished to have reciprocated.

The ground that greeted my boots was muddy, it sank, but not overmuch. I mused on the now familiar sight of Indians – Kuikoros milling about in various states of undress and ornament as they had done for time immemorial.

It was odd to imagine that Fawcett had seen a nearly identical sight nearly a century prior. It was one of those things that made you feel part of a vast eternal sea. The sea of time, ever undulating, yet remaining one.

I was suddenly struck with panic. What if this deep fatigue was the result of some infection? I hastily inspected any readily bare portions of flesh for ticks, or bites of any sort. True, we had been thoroughly inoculated but didn’t put my mind any more at ease.

We were in an ocean of trees, and neither boats, nor helicopters seemed sufficient insurance.

“You look like hell.” Lucas said.

“Yea…I’m not sure about this.”

“Me either…but…since we’re here you should probably follow Lobo’s advice and refrain from drinking. I’m sure it’s not helping matters.”

“Alcohol cleans the blood Schmidt. This place is crawling with parasites.”

“Trying to keep your precious American fluids clean?”

“Always.”

A kid ran up to us and just stood there staring out of rich dark eyes. He muttered something and ran off before we could respond. We ignored it.

The village wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with outsiders but its remoteness meant that the appearance of brancos was rare enough to make us a novelty.

“So, really…. what’s up? I mean I’ve never known you to be pensive.”

“I just feel really tired. Like something is sucking the life right out of me.”

“Dude, it’s called a hangover.”

I was getting annoyed. I really hadn’t been drinking that much.

“It could be any number of things. When I got excited for this I didn’t consider the fact that I might die shitting myself or muttering in the grips of yellow fever. I don’t want a weak statistical death.”

Lucas laughed. “I see that you still have your Viking complex.”

“Absolutely, I watched that man die slow, wither up like a shit stained raisin…no way man…”

No sooner had I entered into this reverie then the kid returned holding some sort of earthen bowl.

He extend it up to me and muttered something.

“Yo,” I said lapsing into American pseudo-urbanism, “I ain’t about to start this party with poisoning.”

“Don’t be rude.” Lucas said motioning for Cook to join us.

The squat bespectacled pit bull sauntered over.

“Yes?”

“Tell us what he wants.” Lucas said.

Cook engaged in some native banter and then pointed off to a nearby hut at the front of which sat an old man before a small fire. The man regarded us calmly.

“They say you have a demon.”

Lucas laughed again. “I think they’re a bit mixed up. We’re NATO boys…we are demons.”

Cook didn’t seem amused. “Look, things here work a little differently, there’s stuff in the air, I know it sounds insane, but I’d listen to them, especially if you don’t feel right…you certainly don’t look right…”

I threw up my hands.

“You should drink it.” Lucas said.

“Dude…hell no…I have no idea what that is…”

“Please, Mr. Baird drink it…I assure you that it will not harm you…we do not want to alienate these folks…please take the gift…”

“What the hell is in it…”

“I wasn’t really able to gather but I’m pretty sure it’s nothing more exotic than some Guarana blend. It’s not so much the actual chemistry…it’s the spirit they infuse into it…”

I was getting tired of this woo. And I felt like shit…so fuck it….

I drank it up. It was bitter but the bitterness soon resolved into a sort of pleasant plantiness that tickled my tongue.

“Did you like it?” Lucas asked.

I shrugged.

The kid smiled and scampered off.

“If you don’t feel better in a couple of hours I’ll give you three of my Cubans.”

“It’s a deal.”

I have to eat crow again and make excuses for falling short of my posting goals. The good news is I have four days in which to research and write the rest of this chapter. Thanks for your patience and stay tuned.

– www.minds.com/Weirmellow

Join me on a freedom loving social media platform!

– www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal

Become a patron and help improve production quality at TFJ while getting exclusive stories, music, behind-the-scenes, and much much more!

There is an ennui. It is the nagging suspicion that everything has been mapped. It’s that claustrophobic sensation that all serious mysteries have been surmounted.

What is one to do with wanderlust?

In the Amazon all such worries evaporate. The explorer whose footsteps we were tracing had called it “the last great blank space in the world.”

Henry Percival Fawcett, his son, and a family friend had disappeared somewhere round the Xingu National Park. The vanity of early twentieth century exploration had certainly spelled doom for that vastly inadequate force. Fawcett did not want to suffer the fate of Scott who had glory stolen from him by Amundsen. Towards this end he had provided false coordinates.

The real goal lay somewhere between the Tapajos and the Xingu tributaries. A fact that was uncovered by the unlikely David Grann a nebbish news hound in 2005.

All these years and that statement “the last great blank space in the world” remains as salient as ever. Despite satellite imaging, drones, and the whole blasted litany of high-tech abominations… that thick impenetrable canopy still hid as much as it had in Carvajals time and many aeons prior.

It was a rare treat. I blessed Thornton for the opportunity as these thoughts ran through my head. The mystic sensations swirled round me like the currents round the aluminum hull of the twenty-five foot outboard driven boat that served as my bed.

We were following in the footsteps of Expedition Fawcett and Expedition Lynch. The latter having occurred in 1995 was more closely aligned with our current method. Much as it had appeared those two and nearly half decades prior…that was the state of the jungle. Overgrown. So we had to proceed up the Xingu by boat and have our supplies air dropped in the field next to Kuikuros settlement.

Although it was an altogether different Kuikuros settlement, an altogether different dead horse camp, because we followed the true coordinates from Fawcett’s diary rather than those published in Expedition Fawcett.

We were not after Fawcett, we’d be thrilled to learn of his real fate, to find his bones, but what we sought was far more elusive. What we sought was not some dead mans fate but what Fawcett had sought: The Lost City of Z or rather its method. If this seem unduly cryptic I apologize and promise that it will become clear soon enough. My circuitous methods may be unsavory to some but there is a reason for them.

It is difficult to piece together these mad events so many years after their occurence. More difficult still after the chemical lobotomy I’d narrowly thwarted at the facility. I do remember the salient details. Yes, many of them are too deeply buried in esoteric contexts that too few could fathom. But the core of what I communicate should help bolster our flailing humanity despite such hurdles.

Hoyt’s map that was the key. It was what Fawcett had been missing. Even if Fawcett had found the actual location of Z he would never have been able to enter it. This was not a labyrinth that could be decrypted. And so it was that the old Portuguese map Graham’s ancestor had pilfered from RGS had found its way into the hands of P.L.A.T.O. the organisation most suited to implement it.

As the gangly scion of that weird little Cambridge club played strange airs on the guitar I fell into even stranger dreams.

NOTE – I know that I promised in my last post to start making these longer and I will! Bad habits die hard but die they will. As I promised I will post again on Monday. I’m hoping for at least a quarter of a chapter. I hoped you enjoyed what I was able to muster and see you soon!

– www.minds.com/Weirmellow

Join me on a freedom loving social media platform!

– www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal

Become a patron and help improve production quality at TFJ while getting exclusive stories, music, behind-the-scenes, and much much more!

    I don’t know why I confided in her. I guess it wasn’t anything important. There was no way this was a breach of security. Who cares if she knew about Sam’s vision. High ranking academics like Cook and Bohm were of course privy to the true nature of our presence. She didn’t have that clearance.

Anna and I were the last to be sitting around the fire that final night. She was calm and looking forward to getting back to Cuiaba for a proper shower. I was slightly inebriated. Something in the feminine prosody of her voice made me open up.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve been having the most fucked up dreams.”

“Hmmm…?” She queried midsip.

“You know just those really vivid things….that come like pictures…of really different kinda shit…but somehow seem to have a certain logic?”

“O you haven’t dreamed of a panther have you?” She asked with genuine curiosity.

“No…but Graham had a massive freakout at Luckadoo’s…cause of a picture with a jaguar…”

“Luckadoo’s? That’s a funny name…”

“It’s not important.” I said quickly shifting the conversation away from a classified subject. “What makes ya ask? Did you?”

“Well…no not personally but you shouldn’t be afraid if you had…it’s considered good luck by the Achuar.”

“The Achuar?”

“They’re a tribe from the Amazon basin, not far removed from our position relatively speaking, but…uh yea.. they are unique in that they place a special prominence on dreams. Each morning they wake up before dawn and drink a tea that they then spit up for purposes of purification. After this they each describe their dreams to one another. The world of dream is considered more important than the waking world. It is their reality. This notion has been implicated in their survival as a people in this harsh environment. Very, very fascinating from an anthropological standpoint.”

“And they think jaguars or panthers are uh good luck?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The panther is a manifestation of the spirit of the rainforest…something that they call “Arutam” and it seems that your friend saw this before you guys came down here. That’s the strange guy right…the tall one…? What exactly happened?”

“Tell me more about these tribespeople.” I said deflecting again.

“Umm…well not long ago or relatively not long ago they had dreams about us “the people of the north, the people of the eagle” we’re called that because we are technology and mind oriented whereas they the people of the condor are more imagination and heart oriented. Anyway, the interesting part was that they dreamed something malign coming from us just as Peru, Bolivia, etc were talking with powerful companies about oil extraction. These dreams that they take seriously as a sort of divination and navigation tool stirred them to action. They formed a coalition with missionaries and local tribes to protect their area. It was effective. So it looks like the Arutam was with them and if you saw it…or weirdo saw it well that’s a good sign. They say that one day the eagle and the condor will fly together.”

“Hmm…well…that’s nice…and I don’t mean to be a prick…but I’d like to have good dreams tonight so I’ll leave on that note.”

“But…hold on I’m curious about Graham…”

“Ok I lied the real reason I have to go is that I can’t bear to sit next to a pretty girl, beside a dwindling fire, and not try something. It’s maddening…like castration of the sou…”

She laughed. “Well then…you’d better go unless you want to feel a real castration.”

“Right.” I said and shuffled off to my tent.

‘Phew.’ I breathed a sigh of relief. Any longer and I might have spilled the whole tale.

I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

That night I did indeed experience good dreams. A sort of Wizards nod. I awoke the next morning knowing precisely what I was about.

End of Part II

https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow | Indie Social Media Site
https://www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal | Support the Journal – I will always try to improve production wise independent of revenue generated through this content but every bit of loose change helps. Whether or not you choose to help out I appreciate your visit.