Amazon Journal

Journal: Day 2026

The Amazon

I have been trapped in the Amazon for 2026 days. I see no way out. The lush, dense canopy hides a world from sun and sky. I wander for hours without end, looking for something familiar, but I find nothing. I mark every place I pass, and I am no closer to understanding the mad, tangled mess of vines and roots. I don’t see where one root system begins, or where any end. Will daylight penetrate this Amazonian copse of verdancy and light the darkness?

The jungle is a hostile place. Plants, insects, and creatures are all to be questioned. There is little way to determine their danger. Too many things are venomous here, and many things have already poisoned me, leaving me days in fevered illness. I don’t know if the next thing or animal I come across will kill me.

I have met natives in this forest and have mixed feelings about them. Some are simple, kind, and generous. Some are hostile to the unfamiliar. Some are even hostile to their own kind.

A year or more ago, I wrote of a tribe that imitated another tribe, but later found that trying to lie to the surrounding tribes was not working for them. They did not have the success they envisioned, and hurt themselves in the process. They had been a water-faring tribe and had chosen a tree-dwelling tribe to assume. Many fell to their deaths before they realized they had made a bad decision.

Some tribes are patient. They are usually older tribes, where a long life has taught them that time alone can alter their path if they calmly contemplate their goals and possible outcomes. Some are impulsive and rash, making bad choices in every aspect of tribal life.

These tend to be younger tribes. Rather, they consist of younger natives. Youth has its disadvantages, I know. They are impulsive, lacking wisdom. They are hasty and go about their day, taking nothing into account but their own needs and wants. These tribes, of young men and women, are self-driven and self-motivated.

I remember spending a week with them, only to see that the women spent more time primping for a potential mate than helping the tribe as a whole. They refused to earn their keep, leaving others to do the majority of the work. These women wear next to nothing, using only leaves to cover themselves. They are mostly the least useful to the tribe as a whole, but I suppose they serve some purpose, at least for the males in the tribe. The other women seem to dislike their general laziness. After all, a tribe flourishes if the entire population is engaged in useful pursuits that protect their existence. Not so, in these younger tribes. For me, it’s like a group of children pretending to be adults and yet not knowing the first thing about the responsibilities of adulthood. They know nothing about being responsible to others or to themselves.

I long to be back in civilized society. I hope I can see it again.

The woods are full of danger. Here, one beast is more dangerous than the next. When I first found myself lost here, after going down the wrong path, I came across several venomous snakes. One snake seemed more deadly than another. A few bit me, but I survived after suffering prolonged sickness. It’s a wonder I haven’t died already.

I managed to survive this long, but not before coming across an anaconda. This snake, while not venomous, is deadly in its own right. It constricts and chokes the life right out of you, and then swallows you whole. Some are large, some are not, but all are equally dangerous. They permeate the canopy and often fall on unsuspecting prey. Many tribesmen go out into the jungle for simple entertainment and diversion, and never return. The excursion, an innocent venture, ends in tragedy for the entire tribe.

Of all the tribes I have seen, the ones that concern me most are the ones that sweetly draw in other tribe’s people and then brainwash them. They turn them against their own people and then set them free to damage their own. It’s an evil I cannot abide. Sending others to hurt their own and sending them to hurt others is unconscionable.

The tribe that receives its lost member with joy does not even notice a difference in their own, until it is too late. They don’t know what to do then, with themselves, these traitorous members of their own tribe, or the ones that turned them into these tools of killing.

The chiefs are cunning and violent men. They seek blood at every turn. They collect the spoils of war and leave a void behind for the tribe they devastate. No plan is ever in place to deal with the aftermath of their conquests.

The longer I linger here, the more difficult it is to like any of these people. They are savage in their pursuits and in their manner of accomplishing everyday living. The brutality they endorse rivals that of any other man or beast in the jungle. It is a barbaric landscape, and one I don’t think will ever change.

While every part of this wilderness has its own tribes, there is one major tribe. It rules the others. It gives and takes as it pleases for itself, and gives nothing in return. The major purpose of this lone tribe is to control the jungle in its entirety. It sets the goal, its men and women do as they are told.

These past two thousand or more days, I have seen the leaders of that tribe come and go. But nothing changes. The tribe continues to dictate the rest of the Amazon, and its people do not question.

I fear my undoing, here. I feel as though the overgrowth will take me. I feel as though the jungle will assimilate me before I have the opportunity to escape it. Are there any looking for me? Can they help me find my way out? Can I help myself? I just don’t know anymore.

I continued, day after day, learning to survive the unsurvivable, and I noticed the futility in trying to come to terms with the never-ending changes in this wasteland. Each day, I find one more thing that will hurt or kill me.

Every night, I find a place to hide and sleep a few hours, only to awaken to another inventive way the natives of the jungle have discovered to put an end to me.

Last night, they created a trap for me. Ingenious as their attempt was, I managed to survive. More and more, the tribes are learning to lie. They develop stories and myths that do not exist. One tribe lies to the next. No one knows what to believe, whether something is true or false. This kind of chaos is disintegrating the harmony between tribes, one tribe at a time. Sooner or later, there will be no more people, and the forest will overtake all evidence of humanity from the jungle. It will return to its natural state, without interference from any of us. Maybe that’s its last effort to exact vengeance on us.

I see a brook. I will drink from it and take a rest. I watch it gently meander the rocks, flowing downward, and I realize I can follow it to its end and maybe find my way through this sea of green. Tomorrow I will do just that. I’ll follow it out, hoping I find my way home.

Journal- Day 2027

The Amazon River

I sense a thrill building inside my bones. The river I discovered seems to be leading me to its mouth. I know from a lot of reading that in most cases, cities are built at the edge of waterways. My excitement is palpable.

I see the tops of structures in the distance. I am so close to civilization that I can taste it. I need to rest and eat something, so I sit and have a bite or two for energy, and pen this entry. I hope it’s my last. I hope this adventure will be behind me. I need to return to normal life.

I am getting up and getting on with it. I put one foot forward and begin the rest of this walk.

Day 2027- later

I have reached the goal. I am within a few minutes of my own people. The city is a sight for sore eyes. Mine are raining down a deluge of tears on my cheeks. I move forward.

Journal- Day 2027

The city

I have no words. I can’t speak because there is no explaining my feelings right now.

I have entered the city limits, and I have come to the end of myself. There is no life here.

Machines move about the city streets. They speak like humans, even have the appearance of humans, but they are not.

Row after row of city streets were filled with these mechanical things. There is no more power in any building. Each machine has a panel on its top portion that generates electricity, allowing it to run undeterred.

I sat and watched them for hours. It was mesmerizing and puzzling. Where are we, we the people?

I will have to approach them in the morning, but right now I need rest and food.

Journal-Day 2028

I don’t know what to do or say. First of all, there is no food to be found. Anywhere.

Secondly, I found one of these things and approached it.

At first, it was taken aback. Ot looked at me, seeming confused. It asked me where I came from, but I did not say. As it stood there, staring, I asked what had happened to the people in the city.

It told me that they were gone. But where?

When I asked where they went, the machine said they were just gone.

I had to keep asking, so I asked another question.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

It told me, man, it had lost its ability to survive. It had built these concrete cities, and built them. These men created the machines in their own image and gave them the ability to think and learn. The people became obsolete. The machines determined that people are the problem in the world, and the problem was eliminated.

Then, it said I was the only one left that it had ever seen.

Journal, I turned and walked away.

Obsolete. We were obsolete.

This thing did not seem particularly worried about me, and it turned and kept going about its business.

As I waited for my vision to clear, I turned away from their jungle of brick, mortar, steel, and fiber optics. I looked into the green of the Amazon, the wild and untamed savage wilderness, which my kind had dismissed.

I looked upon it and no longer saw my prison. It was my new and future reality. Whatever the jungle harbors is the only thing left. I don’t know if we make it out alive. I don’t know if the Amazon jungle will consume us at some point as well. It’s all humanity has left.

I begin to walk.