Involuntary Recipient

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I don’t know how long it’s been. My hankering for water and parched lips suggest more than a few hours. The screams from my ravenous stomach say longer than a couple of days. Weeks maybe? Would I have survived weeks?

Drip. Drip.

What’s that dripping sound?

My head feels like it was squeezed in a table clamp. I can’t tell if my thinking’s foggy from my throbbing head or the lack of food and water. This pitch darkness sure doesn’t help. God, I’m thirsty.

Brands of water bottles materialize in the darkness: Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Fiji. I figure I don’t need the luxury brand at this point so I settle on Aquafina. I open the cap, tilt that beautiful bottle and feel the cool liquid hitting my tongue. My god, the ecstasy.

Like a ghost, the bottle dissolves into the dark and my tongue is as dry as a salt flat.  

Shit, I’m hallucinating. 

Where am I? I can’t see a goddamn thing.

Drip. Drip.

I’m sitting down, that’s for sure. Am I naked? There’s something cold and sticky under my ass and legs. 

I lift a leg and move it; there’s a sucking sound. Mud maybe? I put my leg back down in the mud and it splashes into something, a puddle. 

Water!

I heave my frail body towards the puddle and land with my chest in the mud.

Shit. 

My arms are bound behind my back. My wrists feel chafed from something rough and hairy. Is that rope? 

I can feel my heartbeat quicken in my chest. Was I kidnapped?

My head spins with questions, but I can’t think now; I’m just so thirsty. 

I roll in the mud toward the puddle and manage to position my head beside it. My shriveled tongue sticks out between my lips like a dehydrated prairie dog emerging from its hole for water. A few laps and I am in heaven — that beautiful liquid — and then my taste buds kick in. Ammonia.

“Pfffuaahhh!” I spit it out, launching a liquid projectile into the darkness. My lips make puckering sounds, the taste of urine still lingering on my tongue.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The dripping is mocking me.

What the hell? What happened to me?

Trying to organize my thoughts is like trying to see through thick smoke. OK Kayla, focus now.

As the haze clears, I see can something — a face imprinted in my mind: dark swirling hair, a heavy-set jaw, and a boyish grin. 

“Martin,” I choke into the silence with a hoarse throat. I see pieces of a jigsaw puzzle falling into place. 

My husband Martin went missing three years ago, here in the Yucatan peninsula. We were visiting from Canada — you don’t get beautiful beaches during the winter in the land of ice and snow. We stayed in Cancun, Mexico for a couple of weeks; it was an annual trip for us. We wanted to try something different that year, so we drove four hours southwest from the coast into Peto, hoping to explore the moist forests of the Yucatan. There we checked into Hotel Podi for two weeks and spent the first week hiking the forest trails.

One morning in the middle of our trip, I woke up in our hotel room and found a note on the bed beside me. 

Gone for a jog, back by 8 — Martin.

That was the last contact I ever had with him. After the local police gave up their search, I went into the forests myself. I stayed an extra month in that hotel, everyday diving into the thick brambles of those humid woods to look for him.

I was completely devastated when I came back to Canada. For three years, I would wake up every night in cold sweats, my heart pounding in my chest, dreams of running under sapodilla and breadnut trees. I could hear Martin’s voice, whispering to me from those forests, calling me back to tell me he was still alive.

Somehow I knew he was still out here. So I came looking.

I booked a room at Hotel Podi for two months. I hiked the same trails that I explored with Martin three years ago. When I couldn’t stick to the trails anymore, I dove into the forests and became one with the trees. I came across all sorts of animals: tapirs, peccaries, and white-tailed deer. I ran into spider monkeys, great curassows, and yellow-lored parrots. I felt like a woman of the forest, my ever-searching soul melding into the sapodilla canopy.

The search continued for the full two months. My voice was getting hoarse from screaming Martin’s name over and over again.

I remember the moment when I decided I had enough. I was out of breath, exhausted, and ready to return home to Canada to finally let Martin go. I was leaning up against the trunk of a sapodilla tree. The humidity was particularly intense that day and I could taste the sweat from my forehead mixing with my tears. I remember experiencing a jolt of pain in my left temple and my world going black.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Now I’m here, with a throbbing head, in this dark place, with that dripping sound. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty, and I just want Martin back.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad to be here. Maybe this is where Martin ended up.

My hopeful thoughts are interrupted when I see the lights. Two of them, there in the darkness, fluttering towards me like two yellow eyes. At first, I don’t know how to feel. Scared? Saved? The raised hairs on my neck suggest more scared than saved. As they draw nearer, I realize they are the flames of torches.

The lights brighten as they approach and I see the bearers of the flames. Two men, their gargantuan bodies rippled with muscle flicker in the torchlight. Crawling tattoos stretch across every inch of bronzed skin. In their hand opposite the torch, they carry long wooden poles, the tip sharpened into a pointed spear. 

Gooseflesh erupts all over my body when I see their faces. They are wearing ink black masks shaped like the face of a cat.

The sucking sounds of their massive feet in the mud intensify. As they reach me, the light from their torches reveals that I am trapped in a cage. It’s made of wood, heavy logs bound with thick rope. They pause outside the cage, staring in, the darks in their eerie eyes visible behind the eye slits of the cat masks.

“Wha- what do you want?” I manage to choke out through my parched throat. “Where’s Martin?”

They don’t say anything. 

One of them with a boar-like creature tattooed across his chest opens the cage door. He thunders in with his colossal frame and grabs me with vice-grip hands. He hoists me to my feet and for the first time, I can feel my legs. They are like Jell-O trying to hold up a bridge. My legs give out and I can feel myself tumble before Boar tightens his grip. He signals with his hand to the other man outside the cage.

The other one, with contorted scars covering his arms, walks in and presents me with what looks like a bag made of animal skin. He motions for me to drink. With trembling hands, I pull it to my lips, remembering the taste of urine only moments before. I'm too thirsty to turn down the offer. I tilt back the skin and that divine taste of water hits my tongue. I feel as if I am reborn, a life force awakened inside. Scars lets me drink it down, watching me with his beady eyes, and then he snatches back the skin.

Boar puts a heavy hand on my back and pushes me forward. My legs start to churn, with Boar and Scars on my tail. The mud is thick under my feet, but I can walk. We exit the cage and head into the darkness.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I feel that I have some energy again. It’s crazy how much of a difference a few gulps of water can make. My legs feel stronger, and my senses feel sharpened. The first thing to hit me is the smell, a mild fishy smell. It makes me want to vomit. I hate fish. Considering how hungry I am, I’m still not sure if I can stomach it.

I don’t know how long we walked. My brain is still reeling. After a while, a small circle of faint light becomes visible. As we draw nearer, I realize what the dripping sounds are — we’re in a cave. The growing circle of light is the mouth of the cave. I can see the walls glistening with moisture. 

As we come to the exit, I can see beyond. The sky is dark, and there’s a clearing amongst densely packed trees. There are more torches, lined up in two rows around a dirt path. The torches are fixed in the ground in the middle of what looks like a village. Wooden huts are scattered throughout the clearing. 

The village is empty, save for the three of us. I can hear Boar and Scars breathing heavily behind me.

The dirt path lit by the torches runs through the center of the village. My eyes follow the path of torches and it ends at a large building. The two men push me forward and I stumble on. 

As we approach, the building’s façade comes into view. It’s pyramid-shaped, built from stone; thick vines crawl across its exterior, wrapping it like an octopus wrangling its prey. It looks archaic, like an ancient temple, a long-forgotten bastion of an earlier age. There’s a large figure erected at the top of the temple, its whiskered face and pointed ears visible amongst the drooping trees. Two stone cats stand guard at the temple’s entrance.

I can make out faint sounds emanating from inside the building. Voices.

The pyramid’s door is a stone archway, with unrecognizable symbols scrawled across it. The masked men usher me through it and the voices intensify.

Chanting. Powerful Chanting. Haunting Chanting.

I feel a chill run down my spine.

The next thing I notice is the stench. It hits me like a wave; something rotting, like a gutted fish left on the beach for weeks. I instantly want to vomit, but my fear holds it down.

The room inside the pyramid is aglow with torchlight. I understand why the village had been empty; all of the villagers are here. I make a rough guess of a hundred of them, all wearing the same cat masks. 

They are all looking forward, toward the front of the flickering room. I follow their gaze and see a stone altar. Behind the altar stands the only person in the room that isn’t wearing a mask. I can feel the hairs prick on the back of my neck. His skin is dark and bronzed, his head shaved clean. He has no eyebrows and his frame is skeletal. There’s something about him that is oddly familiar.

As the two men from the cave push me closer, I can see his eyes and I immediately wish I hadn’t. His irises are a deep yellow and his pupils are two vertical slits. They look like the eyes of an animal.

He’s the only one in the room staring at me, those yellow eyes glaring with hunger. There’s something by his feet, and I see piles of half-eaten fish, their bones poking out of their flesh. The smell is horrific. I can feel a pulsing sensation at the bottom of my gut and I start to dry heave.

I think of running. I hope by some miracle that I can push past Boar and Scars and out into that night air. Maybe I can make it. Maybe I can get past their spears and outrun the rest of the villagers. Maybe I can escape this insanity.

Yes, I think. I can do it. 

I figure this is my last chance. I plant my legs into the dirt, and drive them backward, pushing with all my might into two walls of muscle behind me.

At first, they’re startled. I can feel myself slipping between them, my bound hands tasting the cool night air outside of the temple. I can see it, Oh Canada, the great white north beckoning me home.

And then, it’s over, my hopes dashed into four strong hands. I feel like I am being squeezed by two pythons. 

The figure with the yellow eyes speaks, “Abudirakor.”

I can’t understand what he’s saying. It’s some language I wish I had studied in university, back when life was simple. Maybe I should have branched out and taken more courses in the arts, languages maybe. What else should I have done with my life? Should I have not worked so hard? Should I have spent more time with my parents or friends? It’s funny the things you think about when you know you’re going to die.

One of the masked villagers emerges from the crowd. He presents a small wooden cage. There’s a creature in the cage, something pale and sickly. The villager drops the cage to the dirt floor, opens its door, and lifts the creature from the cage. 

I instantly recognize it as a cat. It’s hairless, its skin wrinkled and pink. Its ears are sharp and pointed.

The villager carries the cat over to the bronzed leader at the altar, and he takes it in his arms. He gives it two loving strokes on its head and the cat purrs softly. 

Then, the skeletal figure lifts the cat above his head, his bony arms outstretched in some kind of symbolic gesture. I can hear the villagers’ voices growing louder, undulating chants echoing inside the stony temple. 

The leader at the altar glares at me with those harrowing yellow eyes. He smiles and I can see remnants of white fish flesh interspersed amongst pointed yellow teeth. There’s something about his grin, that triggers something in me. It has a surprisingly boyish look to it. Suddenly, I remember why this figure looks so familiar. 

I feel my jaw drop as I realize what has happened.

Martin.

The two men bring me forward. I try to break free of their grasp, but their hold is too strong, their arms too muscled. They hoist me up, squirming in their grip, and they slam me down onto the stone altar. 

They pin me as I try to wrestle free, my arms bound behind my back, my legs kicking wildly. A third villager comes forward and pins down my legs.

I feel like I’m in a straight jacket, unable to move, hoping that this is all some insane dream; that I will wake up back in Canada, realizing that I am in some asylum, rather than a nightmare temple on my last few breaths.

I can feel my eyes widen as I stare into Martin’s warped face above me, although he is no longer Martin. His grinning pointed teeth are more visible, his yellow eyes are like two burning orbs. Martin holds the sickly cat over me as if offering a gift to the gods and then lowers it down onto my chest. 

The cat’s face is directly above mine, its green eyes glowering at me with an insatiable hunger. I feel its razor-sharp claws dig into my chest. I want to scream in pain but I can’t find a voice; it’s lost in this godforsaken place. I can feel wet tendrils of saliva dripping from the cat’s mouth, ropes of goo forming across my cheeks. I can hear the rhythmic chants of the villagers, feel the stone-cold grip of hands pinning me, feel the stinging claws ripping at my chest, and I can see that sickly cat, staring into my soul with those green, green eyes.

***

I can’t say how long it’s been. We don’t record time here. If I could guess, I would say maybe five years.

We have finally found another one, and tonight is the night. 

It is time for a new leader. Finally, I can rest in peace and rejoin Martin in the next life. I have done my best to provide spiritual guidance to the people.

They look beautiful in their masks tonight, all one hundred of them; their chants are music.

I smile as the tribute walks in, Caamal and Canul on his tail. I can feel his fear. I remember what it was like for me on that day five years ago.

The soul patron is ready, I can see its pink skin there in the cage. It looks well-fed, just like me.

I can still taste the fish on my lips; and I can smell it, that intoxicating smell.