The Sick Horror at The Lost and Found

by Heidi King

  When it was dark, Ooznahvi laid flat on the floor, and I put my jacket over her to keep away the chill. I arranged several candles around her. When I lit them, they cast dancing, fleeting shadows against the wall. I lit a stick of sandalwood incense and began tapping on a shamanic drum given to me by a Haida Indian Chief in British Columbia.

  To call this initiation ritual a form of guided psychoanalysis would not be incorrect. But this definition implies nothing more than projected imagination on behalf of the initiate, when often there is quite a profound discovery – a bridging of the conscious and unconscious that can be quite traumatic.

  We synchronized our breathing and I brought Ooznahvi to a deep level of meditative relaxation. There we journeyed through a forest to a cave, the metaphorical entrance to the underworld – the unconscious. I suggested steps inside the cave and she saw a massive spiral staircase – atypical for a girl her age.

  Inside the Skeleton Temple, water dripped down from a hole in the roof, forming a puddle in the adjacent room. Guided by the steady metronome of the dripping water, we slowly made our way down the staircase, each step groaning beneath our weight. I told her to stop when she found a door. After fifteen steps down, she paused before her bedroom door in the apartment she shared with her mother and younger brother. When she opened the door, the candles in the Skeleton Temple flickered and the shadows on the wall jumped.

  Now to all of my readers with a healthy sense of scientific skepticism: I didn’t lead her on or suggest that each step represented a year of her life. Ooznahvi is twenty three years old, and she climbed down fifteen steps. In our journey we traveled to a time when she was eight years old, exactly fifteen years ago. We know this because we went to the apartment where she lived when she was eight, and there on the bed in her room was a third grade mathematics textbook. This is the power of the unconscious.

  In addition to the school books on the bed, there were scattered pieces of a puzzle. At first they confused her. But then she realized this was Christmas Day, and the puzzle was a gift she had bought for her younger brother. She wandered out of her room. In the Skeleton Temple we lost our synchronized breathing. Something was urgent. She was looking for something.

  While each step represents a year in a life, the door represents that year when a fear was learned. It is an opportunity to go back and identify the cause and change one thing, anything, so that you can confront the event without fear.

  She found her mother sitting on a chair, smiling. She had a small wrapped package, evidently a CD. Ooznahvi was excited. She was expecting this. She asked for it. She told her mom that she wanted the Backstreet Boys latest album and she knew her mother had told her father in the States to get it for her. She reached out to take the present and tear off the wrapping paper. Her mother clapped her hands together in anticipation.

  In The Skeleton Temple, Ooznahvi held her breath. A tear rolled down the corner of her eye. She knew what came next. Not The Backstreet Boys, but a decades old David Hasselhof CD obviously straight from the bargain bin at Wal-Mart.

  “This is your moment to change,” I told Ooznahvi. “Anything.” She could have changed the CD or stopped herself from crying. But the change she chose was entirely different than what I expected. She chose to cry in front of her mother instead of burying her tears in the pillows of her room. It was not the fear of abandonment that afflicted her. It was the fear of not being able to be brave enough for herself and her mother – the fear of not having the courage to be alone.

  She cried, both in the temple and in her Panama City apartment. When she calmed, we synchronized our breathing once more, and together we climbed the creaking wooden stairs to the waking world. When she was back in the Skeleton Temple, she was surprised that the candles had not completely burned down. We had been down in the cave for not more than ten minutes.

  Ooznahvi then told me that she understood.

  Imagine: You are alone in the jungle. Suddenly you are surprised by a coiled pit viper. There are two more behind you. What do you do?

  You stop… and change what you are imagining. After all, the snakes are only in your imagination.

  What’s the Vet Number?

  By Steve Banks

  Hey Dude,

  How is Andrew? Still on the geriatric revival tour with the Backstreet Boys?

  Everything is fine here… really enjoying it actually.

  Gabriel is keeping busy carrying rocks down the hill.

  Garden died though. Guess you need to water it.

  Not really saving up much money to build the zip line, either. Seems to be less male backpackers these days for some unknown reason. Luz is not happy about it. Well that’s not true -- she is happy one second, pissed off the next. She is going to group therapy alone.

  Guess I missed your call. Best not to call before ten… I like to sleep in. Heard you do too. And you take lots of naps. I don’t believe what they say though. That you sneak away with the BlackBerry to download Bestiality porn before nap time, then cry yourself to sleep over the latest sad news of Lindsay Lohan.

  Email me back so I can taunt you again.

  One of your few friends,

  Steve

  P.S. Rocky is fine. Do you have the number to his vet?

  Foosball More Fun

  By Steve Banks

  Hey Andy,

  Matt and Maria are like two nuts in a banana hammock.

  To get a more optimum ration of guys to girls, girls now drink for free all night in the bar if they play foosball topless.

  It’s nicer talking to you than Patrick… his thought train has no caboose.

  Nico does all the check-ins now. He’s a little slow… takes an hour and half to watch Sixty Minutes.

  I bought a wife beater. Goes well with my Panama Hat. Girls are digging me and Estrella keeps trying to get pregnant. How do you keep your sponsored child from wanting to spawn?

  Your Bud,

  Steve

  P.S. Still warm.

  Response:

  Steve,

  I told her if I want to hear the sound of little feet going pitter patter, I would put shoes on Rocky.

  Andrew

  P.S. No. Would you fuck her if you knew she had crabs?

  I Am the Jaguar

  By María Concepción

  I am alone when I find the green rock on Río del Oro.

  I take my clothes off and stretch out.

  The curve is perfect for the back, sun perfect for my skin.

  I play.

  I sleep.

  I awake. It is black. So black I wonder if I am just in my mind. But it is too cold to be a lucid dream.

  I stumble on the rocks but find my shoes… put my clothes in my day pack.

  I need my hands to feel ahead of me. Crawl on all fours.

  Misery. Then ecstasy.

  I hear the whispers of trees.

  The spirits of the jungle.

  I find a cave and pass out exhausted.

  I awake to the sight of the jaguar’s breath.

  I find my power animal.

  I am the jaguar.

  New Pet

  By Steve Banks

  Hey Patti Cakes,

  Not much news.

  Gabriel is carrying the rocks back up the hill. I don’t know what’s eating him… looked kind of frustrated. Must have thought Manual Labor was the Panamanian president.

  Good news about the zip-line. The male backpackers (seem to be less of them every day) are paying a not paying attention tax to help us save for the zip line. Very few guys complain.

  Heard you tried to call yet again. Fuck what is it with you? Try calling Sunday.

  Started the garden up again, with marijuana this time. Had a hard time buying seeds, so I gave out stacks of Lost and Found business cards. Finally got seeds and better yet, lots of customers lined up.

  Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

  P.S. Rocky looked kind of unhappy. Don’t worry, we solved the problem. We
died him green with Kool Aid. This will help him stay camouflaged in the jungle so the dogs that have been coming around for scraps have a harder time catching him. Oh, also, his name now is Kermit. And now he likes Red Bull and Vodka. Can you cover his bar tab when you get back?

  Foosball Not Fun

  By Steve Banks

  Hey Buddy,

  Bought me suspenders to wear with my Panama Hat.

  Dude, last night’s topless ladies night was a disaster. So many double chins I thought I was staring at pancakes. We lost the foosball in one chick’s belly button. Didn’t really smell too bad though after… nor she. Anyway, don’t want that to happen again so we built the door to the bar so no fat girls can get in.

  Patrick doesn’t seem to understand about this guy/girl ratio… keeps talking about stupid stuff like profit. He has a PBS brain in an MTV world.

  Steve

  P.S. I would fuck her under any condition you could think of and I would eat the roots of her hair until she was bald.

  Response:

  Hey Steve,

  Don’t worry about Patrick and all his MBA talk of profit. He talks too much and is possessed by a retarded ghost.

  Andrew

  P.S. And you know what hair follicles taste like?

  Yesterdays on the Road

  By Matt Hope

  There are no yesterdays on the road.

  When you travel you can be free to reinvent yourself. Steve tells people he is a brain surgeon and even writes this on his departure and arrival cards at airports – unless he writes ‘prince.’ You can take all that is you, dust it off and paint over the ugly parts.

  Unless … somebody finds your diary. No one should have to face the temptation of stumbling on a diary. María and I had been sharing a room at The Lost and Found and one night, when she was out on the night safari with Gabriel, I was chasing a gecko out of the room. I was moving her bag and a book fell out. It was leather bound with no title, and when I picked it up, my picture, the Facebook picture I saw in Panama City, fell out. Stop fucking looking at me like that and just read!

  I flipped through the pages trying to find where to put the photo back, and discovered an eclectic mix of English and Spanish ramblings, photos of places (not many people) and sketches of weird esoteric symbols and graphic sex. Some things kind of rang a bell for me, like a picture of a bald man that looked like one of the cross bearers at the pilgrimage of the Black Christ. The sketch looks like a self-portrait where María has her lucid dream symbol on her hands, but in the sketch they are bleeding.

  Not long after Dr. Mike taught us about lucid dreaming, he led us on what he called shamanic journeys. Most recently we travelled to the “underworld” where we searched for our power animal – a kind of spiritual soul mate. When our power animal came to us, we started something Dr. Mike calls ‘dynamic meditation.’ For me, it was all just a kind of let’s pretend playtime, but the dynamic meditation was kind of cathartic. Anyway, not the waste of time I thought it would be. Dynamic meditation is the opposite of the Buddhist meditations where you slow your mental projections. Instead you exhaust yourself until your mind is no longer cluttered. No secret really. It’s like runner’s high. We jumped up and down with our hands stretched up and then exhaled violently until dizzy. (Or in a state of ecstasy if you are so inclined to believe) Then we let loose, shouting. Usnavy cried and María shouted violent obscenities. Then we danced with our power animals to some tribal drumming Dr. Mike had on his iPod. I didn’t take it seriously, but I pretended to find an owl as my power animal. They have been on my mind lately because of the owl at The Lost and Found that startled me. An automatic light on the back path to bathrooms clicked on and an owl turned his head. We had a solid five second moment before he swooped off.

  So there in María’s diary was my power animal, the owl, but beside it a threesome. I have never had a threesome. Nor has María, for that matter. There was Steve’s power animal, the snake, but with someone that looked like it might be Steve tied to it.

  After the dynamic meditation, when most of us were dancing with our power animals, María slipped away. She muttered something about her power animal not coming and looked upset. I am not the type to chase after girls, especially strong willed girls like María, and especially when I am not the cause of her frustration. I admit I had a sleepless night when she didn’t return. I didn’t know if she went to sleep in the volunteer dorm or took off to Boquete or something. She came back the next morning and shocked us all – cut up, bleeding from her forehead again and covered in bug bites. But she smiled and announced that she found her power animal. It came to her in the forest, literally. Her spiritual guide was a jaguar.

  She had a sketch with the naked body of a woman and the head of jaguar, and a girl lying naked with something coming out of her vagina. Half the page was torn off. It was good work. I had no idea that María was such a talented artist.

  Gabriel, the local nature expert, was surprised that she saw the jaguar and I don’t really think he believed her. During all of his years living in the area, he has only seen paw prints. Maria said she fell asleep on a rock in the river they call Fornication Point, and woke up in the dark. Somehow she ended up on the other side of the river, thinking she was on the same side as the lodge. She ended up at a cave.

  “The cave of the hermit woman,” Gabriel said. It seems that years ago people lived deeper inside the reserve. The hydro dam displaced them and many of them moved to a spot along a new road being built to access the dam. That town is Valle de la Mina and apparently the hermit woman still lived there. Her name was Tuna. María insisted on meeting this hermit woman who had lived in the cave and begged Gabriel to take her.

  I felt a little like a third wheel tagging along, but Maria did invite me. We walked down to Valle de la Mina, a cute little town that sees no tourists. Although María is Colombian, she might as well have been from Neptune - it was clear that she is not from around those parts. Children scurried behind long skirts and men stared at her.

  Ten minutes down a gravel road no car could pass, was a tiny, leaning shack of a house smothered with beautiful crimson bougainvillea. María knocked on the door without hesitation. When there was no answer, she cupped her face and peered into the glass. Gabriel fidgeted with his nose, a peculiar mannerism that I had already learned meant that he was nervous. I felt like we should follow his lead to avoid trampling the local cultural norms, but María edged open the unlocked door. The little place was quiet. María slipped inside, and Gabriel waited behind for an invitation.

  Gabriel and I sat on some rocks a few yards away for several minutes before María reappeared and waved us in. Tuna was seated facing the door in worn old wooden armchair surrounded by sagging, dusty furniture. She was breathing hard and sweating. I thought the poor woman was having a heart attack. Gabriel said she was in her eighties, and she looked very frail. She was hard to look at – like she was barely clinging to life, a spirit trapped in a corpse that had already begun to rot.

  “Pensé que nunca vendrías,” she whispered, her wide eyes fixed on María. I thought you would never come.

  “Mi nombre es María pero no soy la madre de Jesús,” María replied. I am not the mother of Jesus.

  It seemed that Tuna had not been feeling well. As much as María tried to convince her otherwise, she thought María had come to take her to heaven. She was startled, but not afraid. She was ready. Gabriel asked if she wanted us to leave, and she protested, trying to rise from her chair. She insisted on making us coffee in a kitchen just off to the side of the living room. We urged her to sit back down, but she wouldn’t calm down until Gabriel went and made the coffee himself.

  María told her story about getting lost in the forest near the Río del Oro and how she had found the cave. She told her that she had spent the night in the cave and that when she had woken the next morning, she came face to face with the jaguar.

  There was a long pause. The woman stared ahead as though she could see nothing but the i
mages in her mind.

  “She is old now,” she said of the jaguar. “How does she look?”

  “Strong,” María said.

  “The first time we met she was tearing apart the flesh of a sloth.”

  Tuna lived in that cave, that much was true, and she lived there alone for a time. But she was not a hermit and she did not live in the cave forever. She built a house nearby that has since been reclaimed by the jungle. She moved before the dam company forced people to leave the area.

  “We moved because of the gold,” she hissed with spite. “The cursed gold.”

  Her husband never told anyone, including her, where he found the gold, but everyone assumed it was not far from where they relocated and where she was living when we visited her. Her husband pulled out a nugget of gold every time he needed money it seemed, and showed it to everyone who wanted to see. Everyone assumed it came from the long lost Spanish gold mine from whence the town got its name- Valley of the Mine.

  After one of her husband’s unexplained departures, Tuna woke one morning and found him stretched out before her front doorstep, dead. His clothes were wet and his lungs were full of water. The police said he must have drowned, and that someone dragged his corpse there. But the mysterious second party, whether he was Tuna’s husband’s murderer or accomplice, was never discovered. The villagers surmised that he drowned in the very mine where he found the gold, and that whoever he was working with didn’t speak up for fear of having to give up the secret of the gold’s location.

  “But the truth is,” the old woman related to María, “There never was a mine. My husband never said so, but I knew there was never a mine.” She clutched María’s arm and pulled her closer. “My husband was a grave robber,” she whispered.