Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  “We don’t have to go up there, do we?” Miranda said.

  “Sinanie has returned before us to prepare this hut,” Samuel said. “I trust you will find it adequate.” Samuel clicked his tongue repeatedly.

  There was movement in the foliage above. Something swooshed by Quentin’s ear, and he ducked involuntarily.

  “There we are.” Samuel reached for a rope that had evidently been dropped for them.

  “We have to climb that thing?” Lindsey’s voice had an edge.

  “It is quite safe, I assure you.”

  Quentin took the rope from Samuel. It was absurdly thin and light. Loops had been tied in it every half-meter or so, like rungs in a ladder. Quentin tugged at one of the loops, which were held open by rigid cross-weaving so hands and feet could grip them. The rungs were woven into the main rope rather than knotted on—an impressive piece of handiwork.

  Ashley said, “I guess there’s not going to be a shower up there, is there?”

  Samuel grabbed the rope ladder. “I will demonstrate. Please follow me when I call out. The yebun is sturdy, but it is unwise to burden it with more than one climber.” With that, he swiftly climbed up the rope until he became a murky gray shape above them.22

  Quentin held the end of the rope, feeling it jerk about as Samuel climbed. Finally the rope was still, and Samuel called down for the next climber to begin. Several of the kids immediately volunteered, but Quentin wouldn’t let them climb the rope without testing it himself. But he also didn’t want to leave Lindsey to climb on her own in her weakened state.

  “I’ll climb up first and make sure the tree house is safe. Then I’ll come back down and the rest of you can climb up.” No one argued with this.

  Climbing the rope ladder was harder than it looked. Whenever Quentin let his hands bear too little of his weight, his foot would push the rope away from his body, and he would end up dangling horizontally. But soon he found his rhythm and began making steady progress. It was difficult to judge the distance to the ghost-like faces watching him from below, and he was glad it was dark. Finally he approached a mass of foliage. But the rope passed through it, and he climbed even higher. “Samuel! Where are you?”

  “Just above you,” came the reply. But Samuel’s voice was still distant.

  Quentin could no longer see the ground. Suddenly the rope seemed ridiculously thin. One weak spot would send him falling to his death, perhaps even landing on Lindsey or one of the kids. His arms were now shaking, but still he kept climbing. Finally he entered another darkened mass of foliage, and there was Samuel’s face, like a pale beacon above.

  “You were lying,” Quentin puffed. “You were not just above me.”

  “One’s notion of height shifts while living among the trees. I intended no deceit.”

  Quentin climbed through a black opening, and Samuel helped him step from the ladder to a solid surface. He sensed that he was in a room, but it was very dark. The air was extremely humid and smelled faintly of wood smoke. Quentin felt around him. Two walls of entwined fibers or vines joined to form a corner near the opening in the floor. The rest was black, empty space. He hopped up and down, testing the surface beneath his feet. The walls of the room rustled from the movement, and the floor bounced like a stiff trampoline.

  “These huts are remarkable achievements of structural design and of cultivation,” Samuel said. “They are quite safe.”

  “It’s the climb that worries me most. I don’t think—”

  At that moment a figure appeared in the opening.

  “Welcome, young Addison,” Samuel said.

  Addison climbed nimbly into the hut. “Hey n-até-o.”23

  Quentin was sure Addison had not started up the rope while he was still on it. He would have felt the weight. “Why didn’t you wait, like I asked you to?”

  Addison moved away into the darkness of the hut. “I can climb the yebun, my father.”

  Quentin gazed at his son for a moment then decided to begin his descent. Most difficult was finding the rungs with his feet, particularly with his cumbersome hiking shoes. It was no wonder the Papuans and Samuel went barefoot. Just before reaching the ground, he heard something. He paused. From above, the sound grew, like a soft ocean wave. It was raining. Perfect—as if this weren’t hard enough.

  Bobby climbed the ladder next and made it safely to the hut, followed by Carlos, and then Miranda. But in their weakened state, Ashley and Lindsey would need help. Maybe he could tie the end of the rope around their waists. But this wouldn’t stop them from falling.

  “Hey!” It was Bobby’s voice, from far above, almost drowned out by the rain. “We have a plan. Ashley, get on the rope and hold on.”

  Quentin realized what they wanted to do, and he wished he had stayed in the tree house to help. He ran the scenario through his head. There were five people up there, but Samuel was the only adult. How much help would the kids be?

  Ashley shoved her foot into the lowest rung, pulled herself up, and placed her other foot in the next rung. Then she was on her way up, rising at a surprising rate.

  As she receded into the gloom, she yelled, “If you guys drop me, you’re dead!”

  “Just hang on, Ash.” Miranda’s words were punctuated by the effort.

  Quentin held his breath, trying to transfer his own strength to the arms of his students. At last there was faint laughter from the tree house, and Quentin sighed forcefully.

  “Major Tom to ground control. It’s your turn, Mrs. D. Look out below!”

  The rope snapped the air beside them. Lindsey mounted the two lower rungs as Ashley had. Her face was pale even in the darkness, and Quentin sensed her trepidation.

  She said, “We’ll laugh about this someday, right?”

  Quentin forced a smile. “The time Lindsey was at the end of her rope.” He turned to the canopy and shouted, “Ground control, ready! Guys, please don’t drop my wife.”

  Lindsey whispered something unintelligible as she rose into the darkness.

  Stars surrounded Quentin. He’d been here before, in another dream. The long aloneness returned. The stars passed by him, and he waited, knowing one would grow brighter. And there it was, distant but beckoning. As the star swelled, the planet appeared like a tiny blue sapphire. The sun grew and passed by him, and the blue planet filled his vision. Something about the planet was familiar, but not quite right. The continents were misshapen, and mostly desert brown. The planet drew nearer, engulfing him in its vastness.

  And then he was in a forest, surrounded by foliage and steaming wetness. On the ground before him a familiar tree kangaroo sat on its haunches. Mbaiso led him to the village of the Papuans, their tree houses veiled in the branches far above. They stopped at an exceptionally large tree, and Quentin suddenly floated from the ground and entered a tree hut, smaller than the one in which he was sleeping. The room was dominated by something clinging to the large, splitting trunk of the tree. Quentin reached out to its gray-brown surface. It was soft, like moist clay. His fingers molded the surface, and he pulled a portion of it free.

  The stuff spread over his fingers and palm. It glistened with movement, as if thousands of tiny particles were at work. Abruptly it was gone, absorbed by his flesh. His fingers tingled. The sensation moved through his arm to his shoulder. He stood motionless, allowing the tingles to spread through his entire body.

  Quentin awoke. He lay in the dark hut listening to tree frogs and crickets, still feeling the sensation of the substance coursing through his system. Something within him was different. Memories, rich in detail, steadily began flooding his mind.

  He was sprawled on his belly under the summer sun, peering at the water’s edge. Two green turtles returned his stare. Their yellow-striped legs paddled gently in the clear water to keep their heads above the surface. He wanted to catch them and take them home. “Quentin, let’s go!” He turned and saw his father, looking very young, with a fistful of fishing poles in one hand and a metal tackle box in the other.

&n
bsp; Quentin hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. And there were others—long forgotten scenes, accessible as if they’d occurred only moments before. Many of them were gratifying, notable events of his life. Others were more dismal.

  The jet engines’ roar made it easier to concentrate and draw. Quentin’s picture of a Papuan hut was almost finished. He’d already drawn on sixteen pages and he wanted to fill the whole pad before they landed in California. He held the pad up. “Look, Dad. It’s a cooking hut. See the fire hole?” His dad just stared out the window. “Dad, see my hut?” Quentin’s mom turned the pad so she could see. “Nice job, kiddo. Why don’t you let your dad rest for now? He’s not feeling so good.” Quentin looked at his dad. “I liked them, anyway, Dad. Even if they’re not the same as before. I liked Gupy, and Amius too. They’re still nice.” His dad just stared at the clouds.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bobby awoke. The tree house was quiet. Morning light pierced the walls and ceiling, speckling the sleeping bodies. His night had been full of dreams—the stars again, the forest and Mbaiso, and then the tree. But this time there had been more. He had dreamt he touched the object on the tree, and part of it had soaked into his body as if that were its purpose. Bobby rolled onto his back and stared at the tangled vines of the hut’s ceiling. He rubbed the scar on his chest. It didn’t even hurt. His mind drifted to the fight with the Papuan tribesmen the day before. Without warning the violent scene erupted in his mind with horrifying clarity. Startled, Bobby squirmed and then bolted upright. He was still in the silent, darkened hut. But for just a moment it had been like he was there again, confronting the tribesmen, seconds away from being stabbed with a spear. He sensed that it had been no more than a vivid memory. So he tried conjuring up another.

  The frog sat on his hand, looking back at him with round eyes on a flattened face. Its skin was turquoise, almost blue, and kind of dry for a frog. It looked like a plastic statue of a cartoon character. Bobby loved it. But his mom wrinkled her nose at it. “Mr. Darnell gave it to me,” he said to her. “He’s going to give me a male, too, so she can have babies. She can have a thousand tadpoles. This is a White’s treefrog and pet shops in the city will buy them for ten dollars each.” “Well, I can’t imagine why,” she said. “But I guess it might teach you some responsibility.” Bobby looked at the frog in his hand, the most wonderful thing he had ever owned.

  Back in the tree hut, Bobby smiled to himself. He could remember every detail. He tried it again, thinking of when Ashley pulled the stinging vine hairs out of his lips. Her face had been so close to his that he could smell her. He realized he could slow the memory down, and then he watched Ashley’s face as she worked at the task in slow motion. He saw details in her eyes and mouth he had completely forgotten.

  But then Addison’s voice broke his thoughts. “No… no. Gu laléo-lu. You need me.”24

  Addison was talking in his sleep. Bobby crept over to where he lay.

  “Senggile-lé. No… They’ll all die. Yanop khomile-lé-dakhu.”25

  Addison’s voice faded to a whisper, and Bobby leaned closer, his ear only inches away.

  “Don’t. Gu laléo-lu… I’ll make you help me…”

  “Bobby? What’s wrong?”

  Bobby drew back, startled. It was Mr. Darnell, sitting up on the other side of Addison.

  “I don’t know. Addison was saying weird stuff is all.”

  Suddenly Addison cried out. Bobby nearly fell over backward. The utter rage in Addison’s scream made Bobby want to cover his ears and purge it from his mind.

  Mrs. Darnell sputtered awake. “What? Quentin, what?”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Miranda said. The others were awake now.

  Mr. Darnell reached for Addison to hold him, but then pulled back like he was afraid.

  Addison crawled away to a corner of the hut and then sat quietly watching them as if nothing had happened.

  Mr. Darnell eyed his son. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  Addison’s face was blank. “Dreams are real now, my father.”

  Mrs. Darnell groaned and pushed to one elbow. “They’re not real. They’re only dreams.” She fell back to the floor. “Oh God, Quentin, I don’t think I can get up.”

  Mr. Darnell felt her forehead. A beam of sunlight from a hole above fell directly on her face, and her skin was red and sweaty.

  “Addison’s right,” Bobby blurted out. “Our dreams are real. I dreamed that something got into my body and was changing me. And now I can remember everything.”

  These words shut everyone up. As Bobby waited for them to try it, a flock of parrots screeched in the distance. A snicker came from the back of Carlos’s throat, and Miranda whispered, “Oh my God.”

  “Jesus, it is real,” Mr. Darnell said.

  Mrs. Darnell was still lying on her back. “What’s real?”

  “We can remember stuff,” Bobby said. “Everything that ever happened to us.”

  There was a moment of silence, and then she said, “What?”

  A movement at the floor’s opening caught Bobby’s eye. Mbaiso climbed through. The kangaroo circled the opening to where the rope ladder lay coiled on the floor, turned away from it, and with a kick of his hind legs sent it tumbling. For a moment the rope hung loose from the ceiling, but then it went tight and the tree house shook from the weight of a climber.

  Bobby crept to the edge of the opening and watched. It was Samuel. Bobby looked at the tree kangaroo. He reached out, palm down, like he would to a dog. “Hey, boy. Mr. Darnell says you can talk. Can you teach me?”

  Mbaiso simply stared, and then moved out of the way as Samuel’s head appeared.

  “Sinanie claims that you are the noisiest creatures of the living world. I am inclined to agree.” He climbed the last few rungs into the tree house, and the rope ladder went tight again as someone else started climbing. “I trust you had adequate rest,” Samuel said.

  “We slept well,” Mr. Darnell said. “But we had dreams again, and this time—”

  Samuel held up his hand. “Explanations will come. Of particular concern now is your health.” He eyed Mrs. Darnell, still lying on the floor, and then Ashley, who was still sleeping. “There are two among you who yet suffer. You should allow them treatment. I offer the same ointments that have proven beneficial to the rest of you.”

  Mrs. Darnell moaned and said, “No, I don’t know what the stuff is.”

  Mr. Darnell frowned. “Lindsey, you’re getting worse.”

  “Don’t try to make me.”

  Mr. Darnell sighed and shook his head at Samuel.

  Samuel seemed as if he were about to argue with this. Instead he hoisted a swollen bag from his shoulder to the floor. “I have brought food.” He pulled something the size of a person’s head from the bag. It was wrapped in green leaves, which he peeled away and laid flat on the floor. The stuff inside was mostly white and looked like oatmeal. “You may find khosül to be rather tasteless, but I assure you it contains sufficient nourishment.”

  “Looks like sago,” Miranda said.

  “Indeed, young lady. Sago paste is the foundation. But only the foundation, for khosül contains animal matter from the sago beetle larva. It is more palatable and nourishing.”

  Miranda’s shoulders slumped. “Grubs. We’re eating grubs.”

  “Thank you for the food, Samuel,” Mr. Darnell said.

  Just then the other climber’s head appeared. The now familiar pincushion of green feathers indicated it was Sinanie. Almost against Bobby’s will, a vivid scene appeared in his mind: Sinanie’s confident face and grunt of effort as he plunged a spear into Bobby’s chest. Bobby gasped and forced the memory from his mind.

  Sinanie climbed through the opening, removed a container that hung from his neck, and set it next to the khosül. It was a gourd, wet from water that must have spilled during the climb. Sinanie moved to the only corner of the tree house not occupied. He squatted there and quietly watched them. His eyes met Bobby’s, and he fla
shed a white smile. Bobby tried to smile back.

  Samuel nodded to Ashley, whose eyes were still closed. “May I treat the young lady?”

  Mr. Darnell nodded. “Please.”

  The khosül was almost tasteless, but Bobby was hungry enough to eat mud. The others didn’t seem to mind it either, and they all ate in silence. Bobby knew another reason they weren’t talking. They were busy with their own memories. Giggles and murmurs of surprise were mixed with eating sounds as they relived forgotten experiences. In his mind, Bobby saw his mom and dad long before the divorce. For the first time he realized they were never very happy together. When he was younger he couldn’t have known. They had laughed and played with him and he felt safe. But now he saw that they laughed only with him, never with each other. There was something between them—a coldness.

  “Holy crap, I can remember right after I was born!” Carlos said.

  This was followed by more silence as the others tried it. But Bobby had done that already. The visions were blurry, with voices he didn’t understand and shapes he didn’t recognize. Memories from infancy were too baffling to make sense of.

  “Oh, you’re kidding me!” Everyone turned to Miranda. “I found my journal,” she said. “My baking journal—like a diary but with all the recipes I invented. I lost it a year ago, and I just remembered I hid it in the wall in my closet.”

  “You’re such a Barbie, Miranda,” Ashley said. Ashley still looked pale, but apparently she was already feeling better.

  Carlos was frowning. Finally he said, “When I was four, Roberto got sick. He was gone for like two weeks, and I didn’t know what my parents were talking about then. But now I know. His appendix burst and he got infected. He almost died. No one ever talked about it after that.” Carlos laughed quietly like there was something funny about that.

  “Maybe we forget some things for a reason,” Mr. Darnell said to Carlos. He then turned to Addison. “Son, do you remember anything?”