Jungle Flame Memories

Father was a farmer, growing beautiful trees with branches laden with olives that would sometimes reach the ground. It was hard to grow them, in that climate, but we made do. A small track of water from the Iça River passed through just near us, and we would go and see the water flow slowly, just like our lives. His father was also a farmer, same thing really. They were always so careful of the ground. “Don’t step there, that’s for this and this vegetable.” Their voices so clear in my head even now, after so many years.

When I was young, the trees were still quite tiny. Small, weak trees, with not much but a couple of leaves dwindling across the branches. But they grew. Everything always did, in that light brown dirt that had been so carefully planted and taken care of. Everything always grew, and those small measly olive trees ended up very large, bigger than life. Bigger than mine at least.

It would rain, tip-tapping along the edges of our small countryside house, feeding the vegetables, fruits, small animals. Father always said, in his typically Spanish booming voice, “Rain is Gold, and don’t you forget it." Like the rain, I would always try and help wherever and I whenever I could. Help tend to the soil, pruning the trees, helping Mother out with the cleaning, washing, cooking. A jack of all trade, you could say, a master of none but better than a master of one. Father and Mother appreciated me, and the work I did when I was young, and treated me well, as did the seasons. They would come and go, and the soil would always keep the plants and trees satisfied.

As I grew older, just ever so slightly, celebrating birthdays through those always present seasons, morning after I morning I would tend the farm. And morning after morning it would remain the same. Toil, spread the herbicide and pesticide, tend the soil, keep it neat and tidy, see to the plants and vegetation we survived on. And on and on. Day after day. Morning after morning.

Until one day, it changed.

I was maybe 12, but who really knows, anybody who does, or did, isn’t here anymore.

It all started with the Red Man. One spring evening, as the crickets stammered and muttered to each other, and the occasional owl whistled in response, a car appeared in the dirt path that led to our cottage. Dressed in a dark red suit, crimson even, he came in one of those souped-up cars from town. I’d only been once to town, grab some supplies for the rough winter, but I’d never seen him before.

The Red Man had a discussion with Father by the first olives of the path nearest to the house. Raised tones in those whisperings of the night that typically mean trouble. I couldn’t hear them though, and Mother didn’t want me anywhere near it seemed. She put on a spaghetti Western VHS that I liked, and I fell asleep as I typically did at that age on the old leather recliner.

Just before I fell asleep, though, was also the first time I saw it. A green light, ever so bright and quick, traversed one of the small window frames and entered into the room. It was so rapid, moving from place to place, disappearing into objects, refracting on glass vases. It was a long green light, that stretched from the window to whatever object it was looking at. I was fascinated by it, it seemed so strong. At one point it came to my chest and stopped there but just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished into thin air, nowhere to be seen.

The commotion outside of the house, men shouting, tractor engines roaring into full gear, the wheels churning, woke me up earlier than usual. Father’s face was a mystery. Mother’s was the same. I never liked seeing her that way. She always had that look when they argued. There were maybe 20 men, biggest men I had ever seen, all tending the soil, replanting near where the last olive trees were, just at the end of our patch and into Señor Viñales’s territory. Mean old man.

They were doing what I typically did at the harvest year’s end, plant new small vegetables and seeds for the following year. I always enjoyed it. Everything was so quick! They planted the new seeds and left that day. Father and mother didn’t speak once that day, not to themselves, to me, or to the men. I asked them who they are, but Father would only chew his chimó, silently staring at the warm jungle sun. Didn’t see the green light for a while.

A couple months passed by and the plants were already blossoming. It was the quickest vegetable I’d ever seen grow. But that was our soil. Everything grew there, always. The leaves were big and long, and once the harvest started the men came back, and that strong car liquid smell was everywhere. I hated it, my head always felt dizzy. I always tended the leaves and plants when it was just me, Father and Mother, but as soon as the men came, Mother always told me to go inside. I remember the men laughing, touching the leaves as if they were made of plata u oro, all the while with big sword-like knives attached to their sides. Father would sometimes talk to them very seriously, and they would listen to him and work the soil as he told them. He was more serious now.

It was like this for the next couple seasons, but now the seasons went by so quickly. The plants would grow and be harvested in a couple of months, and the men would come, collect, and leave. Our house now had many new things, a new TV, new furniture, Mother always had fancy colours and dresses on. It seemed like things were better, plentiful of olives every year. One year good and then the next bad, but always good after. I could tell though, as I was getting older, that not everything was okay. Father and Mother argued more, tensions were always higher when we ate, and the happiness we had before the Red Man, was no longer there. Whenever I tried to get answers from them, they blanked me. I could tell Father was never the same again.

After many seasons, one blisteringly humid night, with the moon’s frown shining like the sun, Father shook me awake. Everything changed that night. He told me to get some clothes and pack up quickly, that we were leaving. He looked as if the jungle fever had taken him, his eyes darting from window to window. I didn’t understand, but that didn’t matter now. I began to grab a couple of things, my camisas and shorts, toys, when I suddenly felt a hot flash on my face, coming from the window. I looked outside, and saw the soil in flames, bigger than the largest olive tree we had. Everything was burning. Before I could scream or even utter a breath, I heard Mother’s urgent “Vamos niño!” behind me. My heart sank. What was happening?

I grabbed my things, feeling the heat of the fire even from inside, as Mother quickly snatched some food and water, stuffing them into a small bag. Father darting from room to room of our small house grabbing things as quickly as possible. We ran outside, the flames rising higher than ever to where the birds fly. It was so hot, but Mother was holding my hand so firmly I could barely move any other way than the one we were running. We then began running into the jungle near Señor Viñales’s territory on the south side, where the river ran, as fast as we could, Father always looking over his shoulder. I was so scared and confused I’d ran out barefoot, but it didn’t matter now. I tried stopping to ask them what was happening and why our trees burning, but they wouldn’t budge.

That’s when the green light appeared again. In the mix of the large brush all around us, the green light began moving quickly between the trees. It never stopped, moving almost as if the light was running. It darted from tree to tree in front of us, then disappearing behind us, and the reappearing again in front of us or next to us. Father and Mother were trembling. Suddenly the green light hit one tree and ripped the bark off it. I could feel Father and Mother running even faster now, the soles of my feet ripped from the jungle floor. The green light kept attacking the trees, the leaves, the soil under my feet, our soil. But we just kept running.

We reached the river and began crossing it, stepping into the flow of the water all the way up to my chest. Freezing, we were almost halfway through the banks when the green light appeared again in front of us, and disappeared, and snapped at Mother. She fell forward instantly, the red oozing, staining the water. I didn’t hear Father’s gasp, or see his callous hands trying to grab Lifeless Mother. I didn’t even hear the shouts emanating from the jungle behind us, or the billowing smoke painting the night sky grey and black.

All I could see was that green light. Moving, ferociously, in the water, penetrating the surface. It reached Father’s chest, just at the centre, a loud bang, and he fall backwards into the water. Still holding his limp lifeless hand, we began to drift in the water, carried by its movement and flow, downriver. Mother, Father and I.

I looked back and saw the Red Man appearing between the trees, but not so red anymore. Behind him, two men, and that green light searching the water near me. The water splashed around us. One. Two. Three. Just missing by a couple of feet. As I floated with my lifeless family, the green light disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Once again. And the three men didn’t move from the bank of the Iça River, didn’t follow its movement. I grabbed on to their bodies, letting the water take us all. They didn’t move though, only what the water allowed them to. They would never move again.

The soil made everything grew. Like clockwork. Like how the sun always came up each morning, and went down at the end of the day. Father and Mother smiling. Like clockwork.

Until one day, they never did again.

But the soil, that beautiful brown dirt patch, kept giving life after the flames dissipated to those who cared. I never returned there. The cocaleros and their coca leaves took everything with them, that Red Man convinced, coerced, or killed anyone who wouldn’t do their bidding. And so, it continues. Maybe one day the blood dissipated into the soil will stop things from growing. Maybe it won’t. People will do what people do. Kill and burn. And the ground will do what the ground does. Grow.