Saving an Innocent Man

by Robert E B Wright

  Every step was like a baby learning to walk. He seemed unbalanced in the water and muck, awkwardly lurching back one moment and forward the next. He had to negotiate each tree trunk, each root differently. He had to raise his enormous legs out of thigh-deep water, hoisting them over high-arching roots. He had to step on top of others, lifting his entire bulk out of the water. He even tried to crawl under the very large ones. Every twenty feet or so, Malcolm had to stop. He slumped against one of the tree trunks, which bowed from his weight.

  Malcolm was breathing hard and sweating profusely through the black-and-blue bruises on his face. The exhaustion showed. He closed his eyes and tried to rest for a moment. The afternoon that Malcolm escaped, he tried to run through the mangroves in panic. Within the first three feet he found out that was impossible and resigned himself to excruciatingly slow progress. He was dehydrating fast. He thought he would literally die of thirst. He put the can of repellent under one arm and scooped a handful of water up with his free hand. The color of the water was brown, like tea, the result of tannin from the red mangroves. He brought the water to his lips and sucked in. Malcolm spit it out immediately and scowled at the taste. He spit three more times, the salty taste difficult to expel. At night, progress ceased and paralyzing fear took its place. As darkness fell, he managed to get his feet and legs up out of the water and drape them over a large prop root. He rested his body against the trunk of a tree. He rested in the spooky blackness. And every fifteen minutes or so, he awoke to the sound of scratching, splashing, slithering or hooting. He thought his heart would stop from fear that animals would attack him on the spot.

  In the morning light, Malcolm’s eyes looked much better, although still very blood-shot. The whites were not yet white but deep pink. His vision would fade from fuzzy, out of focus images to sharp clarity quickly, and then back again. He blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the trees in front of him, wishing some supreme ophthalmologist would stop playing games with his eyes. It was amazing, a miracle, a mystery, that he could see anything at all without his thick eyeglasses that had broken in the crash. Malcolm prayed that his vision would last just long enough to see him through to civilization. He had to get to his mother. He wanted to see her once again before she died. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

  A mosquito on Malcolm's neck brought him back from his memory. He swatted it with his hand, then he sprayed his body sparingly with mosquito repellent, trying to make the can last as long as possible.

  Malcolm pressed slowly onward as he forced his way through the trees away from the spot where he had rested. The white tape holding down the bandages on his back started to peel up at the edges. It wouldn’t be long before the patch fell off.

  A brown water snake slithered into the water where Malcolm stood just seconds before.

  The sun was four hours lower in the sky now. He had covered some distance, but still everything looked much the same. The mangrove forest was nearly impenetrable. The trees stood tightly in formation. The roots were still a twisted, tangled mess, the result of some nature-planning gone haywire. But Malcolm did notice a difference in the mangroves. The trunks looked much darker in color, almost black, and asparagus-like shoots stood at attention by the millions in the water. Malcolm had slowly crossed the vague line from the red mangrove forest to the black. Here, the water is less salty but still brackish. Here, the black and white mangrove trees grow in harmony. The asparagus-like pneumatophores, which bring enough oxygen to the trees to prevent them from drowning in water or smothering in mud, were a sign that Malcolm was moving away from the coast line. But Malcolm had absolutely no idea in the world where he was.

  Life was plentiful all around him in the lushest, largest mangrove forest in the world.

  Yet, in the middle of all this life, he thought only of his own death. He was starving. He had already lost nine pounds. He was dizzy with constant hunger. He was becoming dehydrated to the point of grave risk. His mucus membranes were bone dry. He felt feverish. His legs were cramping. The electrolytes, the naturally present dissolved salts and ions in his body fluids, were depleted to an emergency level. Without electrolytes in the body, the tiny electrical currents that participate in countless processes of life would cease. Brain activity would fail to function.

  With the brackish sea sloshing around Malcolm’s legs, it was ironic that the sea within was draining.

  As if by some primitive instinct, Malcolm reached into the branches of mangroves, pulled off some of the smallest green leaves and started eating them. Mangroves take in salts and minerals from the salt water they grow in. They excrete salts and minerals from the bottoms of their leaves.

  Malcolm resembled a misplaced mountain gorilla foraging in the swamps, but for the first time in days he had something going into his depleted system.

  Hunger was driving him to desperation. He hung his first-aid case from a peg of a rotted tree branch. With eerie pink eyes, set against a healing black-and-blue face, he searched around him for more substantial sustenance. In the murky shallows, clinging to a root, he saw a snail about the size of a marble. In his hand, the snail closed up into its shell but soon came out of its home, antenna rotating in the air. With two fingers, Malcolm pulled the snail, like a rubber band, from its shell. Malcolm examined the slimy creature as if it were a diamond. Then Malcolm wrinkled his face in disgust and tossed it away. He shook his head in a shudder.

  Malcolm looked all around him. He turned 360 degrees. Then he looked up. There was a bird’s nest about ten feet above his head. Just then, a white ibis flew away from the nest. Eggs, he thought. He would give his life for an egg.

  Malcolm studied the roots and branches and planned his steps carefully. If he fell and got hurt, he could die on this very spot. And even if he were successful in reaching the nest, it could be empty.

  He lifted one soggy-shoed foot onto a root and pulled himself upward. He tested the next higher root, the way a mountain climber tests a piton. He rose a little higher, and the tree shook in spasms. Higher still, he cautiously climbed six inches at a time. The top of the tree, cradling the nest, swayed in a looping circle. Malcolm looked down just in time to see the first aid kit splash into the water and sink to the bottom.

  Malcolm climbed higher sending shock waves up the tree. Some branches pulled away from the bottom of the nest. It tilted suddenly at the top. Malcolm stopped cold. He was almost breathless. He was like a cat stalking a bird. He didn’t take his eyes off the nest. There was no movement from Malcolm, no movement from the tree, no movement from the nest. Malcolm stretched out his arm. His fingertips were six inches away. He strained upward. Four inches away. His foot slowly searched in the air until it connected with the next branch. As Malcolm slowly began to bring his body upward, his hand reaching for success, the nest lost its support and tipped over. Three large brown-blotched eggs spilled out. Two of them hit roots and slimed into the water. One landed, unbroken, at the spot where two limbs crisscrossed. If Malcolm stepped on any of the crossed branches, if he jostled the tree just a little too much, the egg would fall like the others. Malcolm tried to focus on the egg. At that very moment Malcolm’s eyes were fading from clear to fuzzy and back again. He closed his eyes tight and opened them wide. He tried squinting, and the clarity returned.

  Malcolm started toward the egg, sending shivers up and down the tree. The two branches rubbed against each other like a knife and sharpening rod. The egg teetered.

  Malcolm inched his way downward. He was sweating bullets. He was not taking his eyes off the egg.

  Malcolm descended one foot and one hand after the other.

  One of the thin limbs holding the egg was the very same limb Malcolm was just about to put his foot on. But just before Malcolm’s foot committed itself, Malcolm changed his mind and he placed his foot on another branch.

  Malcolm was down now, and he slowly reached out and placed one hand under the egg in case it fell. He placed his other hand on the top of the egg, holding it close to his chest with both
hands. Malcolm closed his eyes in silent thanks. Then he cupped his left hand, palm upward and with his right cracked the egg on the side of the tree as if he were making an omelet. With one quick motion, he let the contents of the egg drop into his cupped hand. What fell out was a grotesque, partially formed embryo. A feathery gelatinous mass. Malcolm’s hand vibrated in horror and he reflexively threw it down to the water, as if trying to fling wet sand from his hand. He wiped the gook on a tree trunk. Then he took a deep breath and licked his parched lips.

  Malcolm turned suddenly with conviction and peered into the shallows. He snatched a snail from the submerged roots, and before he had time to think about it, he pulled the morsel from its shell and popped it into his mouth.

  He closed his eyes. He chewed. He made an ugly face. And he gulped as if in pain. He turned and searched for another snail. And another. And yet another. Malcolm repeated this ritual more than a dozen times, gathering his tiny crop from the watery garden. If Malcolm had been an Epicurean, he might have considered this delicacy snail sashimi. He simply considered them survival. He picked green leaves now and then, as a side dish.

  __________________________________

  A Note from the Author to My Readers

  WARNING: In this novel, Malcolm eats raw snails, raw frogs, raw turtles, raw gator and who knows what else. And he doesn’t get sick. Pure fiction, of course. The reality is that you should NEVER eat any of these things raw. No matter the circumstances. The chances are very good that you WILL get very sick and could even die.

  And that’s a fact. Not fiction.

  __________________________________

  A mosquito on his shoulder interrupted his dinner. He killed it, leaving a red splotch. Then there was one on his neck. And another on his back. There may have been five mosquitoes on Malcolm when he heard the chopper. It grew louder and Malcolm stood stone still. As it grew louder yet, Malcolm crouched down in the water up to his chin. A mosquito landed on his forehead and prepared to extract blood. He could almost feel the vibrations from the chopper. A mosquito landed on his eye. The chopper got closer. A mosquito landed on his nose. He could see the wash from the chopper blades ripple the tops of the trees a short distance away. He didn’t move. Two mosquitoes landed on his cheek. In a few seconds the police search helicopter moved on and Malcolm rose out of the water. Within seconds, dozens of mosquitoes were landing all over Malcolm. The white bandages that were taped across Malcolm’s back were now soggy with water, like wet diapers. They were hanging on by one small piece of tape. Malcolm removed them and tossed them aside. He remembered the first-aid kit. He felt around in the swamp and retrieved it. Most of the contents were destroyed. But Malcolm put the tubes of ointment in his pants pockets. He sent the case to the bottom. He grabbed his can of mosquito repellent from his waistband and sprayed himself. He sprayed his back and when the chemicals hit the raw, red strip of flesh over his spine, his body straightened itself in burning pain. Then he moved on. Like a snail in the forest.

  The sun was low in the sky now and not much light filtered through the mangroves now. It had been five hours since Malcolm got his first taste of snail a la´ natural. Five grueling torturous hours, in addition to the many earlier hours logged, or waterlogged, on this day alone. To say Malcolm was exhausted would be an understatement. He could barely move. His arms hung limply at his sides. He had lost a large amount of electrolytes, nutrients, enzymes and fluids. The chemicals that help trigger neuron responses in his brain were depleted. His highly developed mathematical and analytical brain was numb. Sensory impulses and motor commands were slow.

  The mangrove forest had changed a little now. The trees were a little shorter. Uniformly, about fifteen feet high. But all else remained the same.

  The sound of a helicopter was barely perceptible in the distance. Malcolm didn’t hear it. It grew louder and Malcolm turned his head in slow-motion. You could almost hear his neck bones cracking. The chopper flew by quickly, high and directly overhead, so nothing moved where Malcolm stood like a zombie. The only thing that swept across the swamp was the Doppler effect.

  The sun seemed to be fading as quickly as the sound. With great effort, Malcolm folded himself onto some obliging roots, in a more or less sitting-up position. He was asleep before his head fell heavy against the trunk of the tree. Darkness came quickly.

  A rising sun caused a small shaft of morning light to move across a tangle of mangrove roots and illuminate Malcolm’s face like a spotlight. He awoke with a start.

  At first, it was as if his body were dead and only his head were alive. But then, very slowly, he began to move his aching arms and legs. He clumsily negotiated himself off his roost and searched the shallows for his meager breakfast. But the ever-present mosquitoes were hungry too, and they helped themselves to his blood. They became a real nuisance.

  Malcolm sprayed himself with repellent for the last time. The can ran out, in short, spasmodic pffft, pffft, pfffts. He turned the can into litter and plunged onward into the unending forest.

  Sweat was running down Malcolm’s face, droplets of perspiration hanging off his nose and chin. His sandy colored hair was a mat of wet hay, his eyes were still pink but improving. He wiped away the sweat from his eyes with his wrist and looked up through the crevices in the tree canopy. The bright white sun was at its highest point. The tiny snails and mangrove leaves he had eaten were hardly enough. It had been six days since Malcolm had eaten a meal. Six days since he had fresh, clean water to drink. He was in a daze, a stupor. He was muttering to himself. His body was in a starvation mode. His nerve paths slowed almost to a halt. His brain was sluggish. The most insignificant bits of input took painfully long to process. His heart rate, motor response and breathing were lagging. He was urgently close to shock due to dehydration. He needed immediate fluid replacement. But the water he had tasted in the red mangroves was much too salty. Drool spilled from the corner of his mouth.

  In deep depression, Malcolm looked slightly to his right and his expression turned slowly to wonder. He became transfixed by the mixed blessing that lay before him.

  There, not twenty feet away, was the edge of the mangrove forest. Then a wide, black, still creek. And beyond a wall of tawny grass about eleven or twelve feet high. Malcolm clambered up some prop roots for a better vantage point. Finally, when his eyes were about four feet higher, his line of sight skimmed the tips of the grass. At first, his vision was fuzzy, but then it slid into sharp focus. The brown grass seemed to go on forever, punctuated here and there by islands of green trees. It may present its own problems, but at least it was different, he thought. And it surely couldn’t be any worse than what he had gone through.

  He made a bee-line to the creek. A very slow zig-zag, to be sure.

  His enthusiasm generated energy. A new sense of power and purpose sprang from some mysterious source within his body. He stood atop a crazy jungle gym of roots at the edge of the creek, looking like a hot air balloon that had landed in the wrong place. He looked for a way to get down into the creek. He let go of the tree trunk and stepped toward another root. His foot caught in a branching loop, and he tumbled into the creek. Anyone who has ever seen a cartoon of a hippo falling from a tightrope can visualize it perfectly. Lots of bubbles and two log-shaped legs roiled the still water like a washing machine. Malcolm was upside down with his head in the mud for quite a while before he finally righted himself. When his jack-in-the-box-head popped to the surface, it swiveled in all directions, as if to see if someone had seen how foolish he looked. A stream of water spouted like a fountain from his pursed lips. The water here wasn’t as salty as the water in the red mangroves, and Malcolm slurped mouthfuls.

  Malcolm sighed and settled into the water, letting it wash over him. He luxuriated and bobbled around for a long time, his eyes and nose and mouth the only parts of his body breaking the surface. He took great pleasure in what many would consider a cesspool of blood-sucking leeches, mosquito larvae, fish and turtle excrement, frog eggs and families
of alligators. This seemed to be, however, a peaceful spot. And, in fact, Malcolm gave no thought to, nor did he see, any alligators.

  Malcolm made his way across the dark creek to the other side, head just above water. The brown, slender grass grew taller as he waded closer. Almost to the other side, he felt the bottom of the creek rise. But there was no muddy embankment. The twelve-foot high grass grew in two to three feet of water.

  He plunged into the brown curtain shoulder first, took two steps in the knee-high water and stopped. He felt a liquid running down his right arm and sent his left hand to investigate. It was blood. “Son of a bitch,” he said in disbelief. He looked around urgently.

  For a moment, Malcolm was puzzled. Then he took a closer look at the twelve-foot tall blades of grass all around him. He studied the stalk in his hand. Each blade had fine sharp teeth, all pointed in the same direction along its midrib and two edges. Serrated knives, they were, that could cut a man’s skin if rubbed the wrong way.

  Malcolm heard a loud buzzing and swatted mosquitoes on his face and on his right shoulder, drawn to the fresh-let blood. The buzzing grew louder as half a dozen more alighted on the still-raw oozing strip of flesh on his back where the bandage had been. Malcolm realized that the last of the mosquito repellent had washed off in the water.

  At least fifty mosquitoes were drawing warm blood now. And thirty more swarmed around his face. Some say mosquitoes are attracted to expelled breath. Malcolm fanned the air and smacked his body. They buzzed surprisingly loudly, as if each were a mini World War II Spitfire warplane. They called out reinforcements and the swarm multiplied exponentially. They dive-bombed his ears, they flew into his eyes, he inhaled some up his nose, he felt a few stick to his lips and tongue. When he was back in Manhattan, Malcolm had no idea, that he would be stranded in a place where more mosquitoes are found than any other place on Earth. Literally. This was, and is, the mosquito capital of the world, limited only by the amount of space to hold them. There have been actual, authenticated cases of death from mosquitoes. Wing scales can obstruct the respiratory system and cling to mucus membranes. The saliva the mosquito injects can cause severe pain. The buzzing of swarms can invoke panic and flight into danger.