A New Life

The boat-house lay on the side of the river. Tree branches hung down and across the roof of the boat-house, shading it from the hot tropical sun.

Inside the boat-house was a prototype boat. The latter lay on twin launch rails pointed at the river. It was sleek, low, shaped like a blunt-nosed arrow, and about fifteen feet long. More like a race car than a boat. Tucked into the roof was a hang glider. A helmet was sitting on the boat's passenger seat.

I stood next to the boat's designer and builder, a young man about half my age. He looked young but he'd already graduated from college with honors. Unlike my short dark-brown-and-silver hair, his was dark blond and shoulder-length. We were both dressed in t-shirts, shorts, and waterproof shoes. He said he only needed glasses to read by.

To prove it, he took them off and walked around the boat. I could see the excitement in his eyes and body language. He kept smiling, both at the boat and at me.

“You sure it's safe, Ben?” I asked. “There's only one shot, and if it goes south, I go south with it.”

“You'll be fine, Emma,” he replied. “I've tested it up and down this river already. No noticeable problems.”

“But I'll be much closer to the rapids than you've probably gone,” I said.

“True,” Ben said. “But irrelevant.” He affectionately slapped the near side of the boat. “I'll miss you, old girl. Be good to her, okay?” He turned to me. “Ready to board?”

I sighed. “As ready as I'll ever be.”

“After this, a water slide at a water park will seem like nothing to you,” he said.

“Imagine my relief,” I said and climbed aboard the boat. “Does it have a name?”

“Boats aren't neuter,” he corrected me. “Like ships, a boat is 'her' and 'she'.”

“Fine,” I said. “Does she have a name?”

“The Phoenix,” he said.

“Let's just hope she doesn't burn up like her namesake sometimes does,” I said, turning on the engine. It roared into life, then settled into a steady rumble.

“There's a thunderstorm headed this way,” Ben said. “Make sure you're at the rapids before it arrives.”

“Or what?” I asked.

“You'll get wet,” he said. “You don't mind getting wet, do you?”

“It depends on what is getting me wet,” I said. “Acid rain, maybe?”

“Just normal wet precipitation,” Ben said. “In case of emergency, the hang glider has a homing beacon so that we can find you.”

“And the boat?” I asked.

“I can always build another one,” he said. “Get going, Emma. Time's a-wasting.”

I pulled the thrust lever into its “full power” position. The boat almost leapt from the boat-house and zipped across the river. I spun the steering wheel to port just in time to see Ben wave to me. I waved back, then aimed the boat downstream.

At a constant speed of about 35 knots, Phoenix bounced more than a little bit as she headed downriver. But it was simple enough to avoid the rocks in the river, no matter how big they sometimes were. I just had to make sure not to let the current take control of the boat prematurely.

I felt like James Bond in “Moonraker”, only I knew that there wouldn't be any human pursuers in powerboats.

Was that what Ben was trying to recreate? The river chase down to Iguazu Falls? I wondered if that was why the local government wasn't too happy when we'd told them what our plans were.

---------

“You are doing what?” one official asked, trying not to stare at us or the printout of our plans.

“Testing a prototype boat/hang glider,” Ben explained as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“If you want to go hang gliding, why do you choose a river instead of a hill or a mountain?” the official asked.

Ben pointed downriver to the waterfall. “Because that should be high enough to allow for hang gliding.”

“From the middle of the river?” the official asked.

Ben shook his head. “From the prototype boat. With any luck, I'll be able to retrieve the boat via remote control and send it back to my boat-house.”

“And if you cannot?” the official asked.

“I'm short one prototype boat,” Ben said.

“And its pilot?” the official asked.

“Should be just fine beneath the hang glider,” Ben said.

“Will the pilot be yourself?” the official asked.

“You may think I'm crazy, Señor, but I'm not that crazy,” Ben said and clapped me on the shoulder. “My friend Emma will be the pilot of both the prototype boat and the hang glider.”

I stared at Ben. “I'm going to be what?” I asked.

“Relax,” Ben told me. “You'll be fine.”

“Famous last words,” I said.

----------

Roughly half a mile above the falls, the river was flowing faster and was much choppier. The scattering of rocks that I'd encountered upriver had by now become tight clusters. Avoiding these wasn't easy. Sometimes, if I got too close to large, flat rocks, the boat seemed to climb up onto and slide across the top, before dropping back down into the river again on the rock's far side.

That was the least of my worries because sometimes the boat tilted so much to either side that I almost thought it was going to capsize. Ben had assured me it was incapable of capsizing. Support struts, like hydrofoils used, would automatically spread out from the hull, to keep the boat from capsizing. Had they been tested yet? Of course not.

Emma the human guinea pig, that's me, I thought with a sigh.

Up ahead, I thought I could hear the approaching roar of the falls. I tried to slow Phoenix down, but she still increased in speed. She was now traveling at about 40 knots, brushing against 45 knots every so often. In a larger boat or ship, there wouldn't be much change in how it felt to the passengers and crew. But in this small prototype boat, I could feel each and every bump, and the spray was threatening to soak me to the skin.

I wished I'd been able to wear a wet suit. But, yet again, Ben was certain I wouldn't need one.

Another fifteen hundred feet downriver and it was time for the next step:

On the dashboard to the left of the steering wheel was a button marked “hang glider release”. Before I pressed it, I put on the helmet first, making sure it was in place, including the chin strap. I pressed the button and the tucked-away hang glider above my head rose a foot, its colorful wing spreading outward like a huge Mayan quetzalcoatl getting ready for flight. The wing rustled in the winds blowing upriver from the falls.

The next three hundred feet disappeared behind the boat in what felt like seconds.

I lifted the hang glider's control bar less than a minute before Phoenix's bow tipped downward. The hang glider rose higher into the air, circling slowly above the falls.

Passing above the falls, I looked downward. The boat was already lost from view. Would it survive the descent or be smashed to pieces on the rocks below? I could only hope for the former, but the latter seemed much more likely.

I felt sorry for the boat. She had served me well and I had to abandon her without any way for Ben to retrieve her and send her back to his boat-house.

Where next, though? As long as the updrafts lasted, I could glide as far as I wanted.

Beyond the trees along the river banks were vegetation-covered cliffs. The hang glider rose above them and soared further from the river.

Somewhere to my left, several miles upriver, was Ben and his boat-house. He would likely be watching the two homing beacons (the one hidden in the hang glider and the other hidden in the boat). Once the boat's beacon disappeared, he would know that Phoenix wouldn't be returning home. But the other beacon, if all went well, would remain active for a while yet.

I tried to remember what lay in this part of the rain forest.

So much had been lost due to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture over the last thirty years that I was surprised that even a little bit had survived. It would take centuries for those parts of the rain forest to recover.

Deep in the remnants of the rain forest, there were probably primitive tribes similar to the Yanomamo that had never had any contact with modern humans. They were determined to stay as far away from us as possible. With good reason. Contact between primitive humans and modern humans had rarely been pleasant and beneficial for the former.

I thought I saw a road dividing two sections of the rain forest. Probably a logging road. Not just probably. I saw several parked log-transporting tractor-trailers parked along the road. They were already loaded, ready to head to where they would be transported further onward, eventually reaching the sawmills. Since a hang glider is silent, the men on the ground didn't even seem to notice my passage above them.

But as I left them further and further behind, I noticed that my altitude was dropping. I needed to find somewhere to land as safely as possible. An airstrip wouldn't be necessary, provided there was an area big enough for my hang glider.

What felt like many miles later, the hang glider couldn't stay aloft any longer. We came crashing down through the rain forest canopy and landed – not exactly softly – on the ground. The hang glider, like Phoenix, would never return to Ben. Not in its currently partially damaged condition, anyway.

Lying there, I looked up at the branches, leaves, and aerial plants above me. I felt like I was in a dream. The modern world might as well have been on another planet. If only I didn't have to return to it. If only I could stay here for the rest of my life.

I freed myself from the hang glider, took off the helmet, and carefully got to my feet. There wasn't anyone or any animals in view. The sun was somewhere high above the canopy I'd crashed through. It felt good to be shaded from it for the time being. I would have to wait until nightfall to see where the North Star was and try to find my way back.

Ben would be waiting, of course. Unless he'd already sent out search parties to try to find me. If they came this far into the rain forest, they'd find the damaged hang glider. But there would be no sign of its pilot. Why? Because she had no intention of waiting to be rescued. Damsel-in-distress indeed!

---------

I checked each of the several beaten paths that led away from my landing area. All but one were dirt paths. The exception looked suspiciously as if had been paved with either flat stones or maybe even some equivalent of concrete or asphalt. Not so primitive, after all.

The paved path led back toward the river at first and then swung away on a narrow path between high cliffs covered with trees and bushes. It might not have been safest to follow the path, but it was either that or go climbing up one of the cliffs and through the thick vegetation. I didn't have any climbing gear. Hadn't thought I'd need any. So I stuck to the path.

Maybe a quarter-mile later, I thought I heard rustling noises in the trees nearby. Monkeys? Jaguars? Birds?

I stopped and listened. A pause that lasted a moment too long.

A net suddenly lifted around me, catching me inside it. It rose until it was about ten feet above the path.

Lying at the bottom of the net, I looked down to see several people drop from the nearby trees and approach me. They were barefoot and dressed like the ancient Inca I'd seen in books about the Inca Empire in college. Except these weren't painted illustrations; these were the real thing. They were armed with handmade spears with an arrowhead on the business end of each spear. They seemed puzzled to see what their catch was. They pointed at me as they spoke to each other.

“Buenos dias?” I asked.

No answer.

“Que pasa?” I asked. “Donde es la ciudad?”

Still no answer.

Confirmation: either they didn't hear me or they didn't understand Spanish.

One of the group came over and stood under the net. He jabbed upwards with the end of the spear that didn't have an arrowhead attached to it. Almost like a modern-day cook checking to see if a grilled steak was completely cooked or not.

“Hey!” I protested. “Stop that! That hurt!”

He looked at me, then turned to his comrades and said something. They lifted their hands above their heads and quickly lowered their hands. He nodded and cut the strands of the net with the arrowhead-end of his spear. I fell right into his arms.

“You can put me down now,” I said. “I mean, we haven't even been introduced to each other.”

His companions joined him, and all of them stared at me. They touched my skin, they touched my hair, and they touched my clothes. Almost as if they'd never seen anyone like me before in their entire life. Maybe they hadn't. I knew immediately what it felt like to be an animal cooped up in a cage and sympathized with all the caged pets I'd had while growing up.

Apparently finished with their inspection of me, they headed away from the path and into the rain forest, taking me with them.

---------

It couldn't have taken more than an hour before we arrived at their village. Several longhouses stood with one narrow end facing what would've been a central square in a modern-day village. There seemed to be a bonfire ring at the square's center.

The women were bare-chested, doing chores, nursing babies, keeping children out of trouble, and the like. They looked at me with as much puzzlement as the men who'd captured me had. The men spoke with the women. Seemingly satisfied, most of the women went back to what they'd been doing.

One of the women, though, came over to me. Her skin wasn't brown like the rest of the tribe. It was almost as pale as mine was. Her eyes weren't dark brown like theirs were; her eyes were blue. And her hair was dirty blond instead of dark brown. Otherwise, she was dressed much as they were.

“Why do you look so different?” I asked her, but immediately wished I hadn't bothered. Of course, like them, she wouldn't understand Spanish or English.

“Because I wasn't born here,” she replied. Unlike me, her accent wasn't American. I couldn't be sure if it was British, South African, Australian, or maybe New Zealand.

I stared at her. “You speak English.”

“Of course I do,” she said as if that should've been blatantly obvious. “They've assigned me to be your interpreter until you learn enough of their language.”

“How did you end up at this village?” I asked.

“Pretty much how you did,” she said. “Except my survey plane crashed and I was the only survivor. I tried to find my way out of the rain forest, only to be captured a few days later.”

“Why are they letting us live with them?” I asked.

She looked amused. “You'd hardly expect them to be cannibals. They prefer meat from four-legged sources, not from bipedal sources.” She held out a hand in a gesture I didn't think I'd ever see in any rain forest. “I'm Nicola. I'm from Poland.”

I shook her hand. “I'm Emma. I'm from America.”

“Let me show you around,” she said. “There isn't much to see, but at least you'll get familiar with it sooner rather than later.”

“Haven't you ever wanted to escape?” I asked.

Nicola gave me a puzzled look. “Why? So that I can return to the modern world? No thanks. I've been much happier here than I ever was there.”

----------

After giving me the equivalent of a guided tour, Nicola and I joined the women preparing the evening meal. Much to my surprise, I was accepted and none of the women asked why I was even paler than Nicola was. They did wonder about my shirt, though.

“Are they expecting me to go around shirtless too?” I asked.

“Only if you want to,” she said. “I didn't at first, but I eventually found that it's just easier without a shirt. No doubt you've noticed: we're all bare-chested. You're the only exception for the time being.”

“You don't mind?” I asked. “Being shirtless, I mean?”

“Emma,” she said. “Back in the modern cities they would arrest you for being shirtless. Here, they could care less. They don't stare at your chest; you don't stare at theirs. It's just common courtesy. Besides, when it comes to nursing babies, being shirtless has its advantages.”

I looked at her. “You're a mother?”

Nicola nodded. “The light-brown-skinned children. Two boys, one girl. Their father is over there, near the fire pit, next to the other men.”

“You love him?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “He's been a wonderful father to our children, a great provider, and a gentle, tender lover. What more could I ask for?”

I nodded in agreement.

Did the modern world really offer anything that was better than what was in this village? No.

I removed my shirt and laid it aside.