Naked party

   Everything had become a little too overbearing in the inside, so I made my way outside. There was a large porch kind of thing, where people could have a smoke or just go down to the beach and relax there. Of course, being a naked party, the organizers had been smart enough to put several warnings on the sand for people to avoid the water. Most were drunk and it would have been a grave mistake for any of them to enter the water in that state. There was even a lifeguard on duty, which seemed to be very bored.

 I went around the house, all along the porch, and finally found a spot to be alone and in peace. There was some kind of mannequin offering cigarettes, reminding people to only grab one. You could light it up with a built-in lighter that the doll had on its hand. It was kind of a clever idea and I was in such desperate need to relax that the cigarette was essential for that. I didn’t really smoke that much in my daily life, but this kinds of parties made me resort to that kind of vice in a very predictable way.

 The air was rather warm that night, yet there was a wind blowing from the ocean that felt chilly and gave goose bumps in an instant. I found myself caressing my arms as I smoked and watched some people playing around on the beach and the lifeguard yawning, but still watching them very closely. I could hear the ocean and it could be seen but only because a red lantern, kind of a Chinese thing, had been lit in the middle of the beach, right at the center of the section reserved for people that had come to the party.

 Curiously, I had come because of a flyer I had been given in another beach, the official gay beach very nearby. The truth is, the gay didn’t really wanted me to have the flyer, it was a thing of the wind blowing and him being unable to keep his things in order. He must have felt ashamed when I grabbed the paper and asked what it was about. He explained and just let me have the flyer, obviously dreading the idea of a guy like me going to such an event. I have to say I wanted to laugh at him but I didn’t.

 They were giving the flyers to all hot guys on the beach and it was clear they didn’t consider me one. I wasn’t ripped, with an eight pack and tall as a tree. I didn’t have any of that, even if I had been working out at the gym like a crazy person in order to be looking nice for this holiday. I had planned it for a while, something that I would be doing for myself and by myself, so I really wanted to look as good as possible. I had even bought a speedo type swimwear that made me a little bit uncomfortable. The flyers guys weren’t helping me a lot in that department, but I just went through it.

 My attempted laughter at the flyer guy had been caused by the idea that I found the party they were promoting something silly and the kind of thing I would never participate in. So I just forgot about it until I saw the flyer back in the hotel, after having a shower and preparing to go down and have dinner. I read the whole thing and I have to confess I found it to be very interesting. So much so, that I decided to investigate a little further. I spent the duration of my dinner reading on my cellphone about those kinds of parties.

 The mere idea of being naked around other people made me laugh out of nervousness. I wasn’t able to imagine being in such an event because I had always been too self-conscious about my physical appearance. Even after so many hours of workout and dedication to my body, I was still ashamed to parade without a t-shirt, much less being totally naked. I still had some “love handles” as well as many things that those guys on the beach didn’t have. But somehow, I decided to take it on as a challenge.

 They couldn’t stop me from going and I had decided it was the perfect kind of thing to push myself and just try new things. Maybe it wasn’t going to be my type of party or my kind of people, but that wasn’t the important part. The idea was to experience something different, something that I would have never done back home, being afraid of running into someone or something like that. I had decided to be a little bit more adventurous, in order to accept myself a little bit more, to love myself more in order to live a healthier life.

So, silly me, I looked all over my luggage for the best clothes to wear. I knew it was supposed to be a naked party, but my guess was that everyone arrived clothed. So it could be nice to give the right impression from the first moment, even if things were going to change in a matter of minutes. So I chose one of my favorite shirts, matching shorts and flip-flops. I also picked the best underwear possible: they were clean, had really bright and beautiful color and could attract attention even if there was a fire in the place.

 The house was located down the road from my hotel. I neglected to realize I had to walk a long stretch of a very dark road, but I finally arrived and was kind of glad to see so many people there already. They hadn’t opened the place yet, so they were all waiting for the doors to open. I was very pleased to realize that there were so many different kinds of men: tall ones and short ones, chubby ones and athletic ones. And so on. It was very comforting to see that no matter who gave away the flyers, people would come because it was their right to have a nice time with many other different people.

 There was a large locker room, in which I was able to grab a tiny locker for my clothes. It was kind of chaotic at one point, but eventually everyone got in and had somewhere to put their things. A key was assigned to each person, corresponding to a locker, and you had to keep the key with you at all times. They asked people to never remove footwear only because it was a standard thing but it was also clarified that they did not use any glasses on the party, preferring plastic cups instead, which seemed like a better idea.

 The light in the locker room was dark but also very red, so it was hard to actually take a look at anyone. That made me feel a little bit more at ease of being in such a crowded room. But it was getting even more crowded as time went by, so I just took everything off pretty fast and locked my locker in order to move on to the main part of the event, which took place on most rooms of the house. From the outside, it looked like a typical summer beach house, but it was clear they had made some modifications in the inside.

 For instance, there was no proper kitchen. Instead, its place had been taken by a bar and some sort of snack area, each tended by a group of very attractive men. For a moment, it looked like something funny but the more time I spent there, the more comfortable it seemed. They clarified that if people wanted to have sexual intercourse, they could do it in the upper floors. The only limitation was that people had to leave their drinks in the lower level. Besides that, the porch and the beach were opened, also with restrictions.

 Up to the moment I went out to the porch, I had been walking around the lower level of the house, having some snacks and drinks. I even found myself talking to people but they would mostly leave for the upper level and I didn’t really feel ready for that. So that’s why I stepped out of the house and smoked for a bit in the porch. When I finished smoking, I decided to walk on the sand and just sit there for a while. Somehow, my brain felt filled with ideas and questions and so many things, that it made me feel tired.

 The lifeguard came down his post and walked towards a group of guys that were playing around and reminded them to keep it civilized, as drunken shenanigans were not acceptable. He seemed pretty serious so they stopped playing around and just went back to the house.

 He then turned to me and, to my surprise, he smiled. He started talking and then I answered and he sat besides me. I have no idea for how long I stayed there, talking to him. But at the end, we agreed on meeting the next day on the public beach, to talk some more and maybe have something to eat.

 I’m already looking forward to it.

Hostilities have ended

   From the hospital, we could see the city burning. Several fires had been lit up by the crowd. It was an expression of happiness and revolt, of fury and a desire for the future. The people out in the streets were happy that such a long war had finally ended, after so many had been assassinated and others just disappeared as if they had walked into another dimension. Everyone knew they had probably been killed by the government and then buried somewhere far, but people didn’t want to think that. They would have years for that.

 We saw it all from afar, behind a glass that protected us from the outside, in a building that had been designed by and for our enemies. However, we needed care and when our group was finally able to enter the city, we were able to secure that hospital and its resources for own. Of course, the patients that had been left there were tended too by the doctors and the nurses of our team, but some of them were placed under “house arrest”, as many were involved with the military and the horrors of war.

 I decided to leave Mark, who was very tired, and just wander around the hospital. I thought I could hear someone talking about what had happened in the city or maybe some other information. There were many screens all around the hospital but none of them worked. Television had being suspended almost a year ago, as the prior government thought it was a misuse of money and electricity. They removed all permissions to broadcast and forbid anyone from broadcasting anything in any way.

 Even with the success of the rebels, television would take its time to return after such a long period of silence. It would take a long time to get the country running smoothly, if that was at all possible. Everyone had things to do and they all seemed to be much more important than television or things that people in general missed from the older times, before everything had gone to hell. I missed candy for example, but sugar had not been used to make candy in at least five years, by government decree.

 I walked all over the hospital, checking out every abandoned ward and every silent corridor. The place was sunk in a blue haze and the fact that the day was getting brighter did not improve the general mood. When I finally got to the reception, the lady tending to the only active phone line seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. I was afraid to ask her anything but when she saw me she just signaled me to go closer and she then handed me a paper. I read the only few lines that were written on it: “Call General Ford. Urgent.” And then a number underneath it.

 She had no chance to explain the message and I didn’t have the need to have it explained. After all, we knew exactly that our time in the hospital was going to be short. I was kind of sad for Mark, even thinking about how to tell him the news. When I got to the room, he was up. He smiled at me like he always did and I just got closer and kissed him softly. He smelled a bit bad because of the long way we had to go through to get to the hospital. I was sure I smelt exactly the same or even worse. But who cares?

 I then told him about General Ford and he understood it all in a second. We look towards the window, were smoke from one of the fires had grown pretty big and was almost covering half the city. It was obvious they were still burning things. That place was our destination. So I helped Mark with his clothes and into the shower. He insisted I should join him, so I did. We had a nice little time together, as we had never been able to have. It was so nice and incredible; I wanted to stay there forever.

 That wasn’t an option. We dressed up in new clothes that we had found in a closet, in the room across the hall. They were a little bit big on me and short on him, so we laughed for a while. It felt so good to be able to laugh, to have your ribs hurt because of happiness and not because of violence. We finished preparing and I helped him walk down to the reception. Once there, the woman in the reception was still busy but used her hands again to point at a couple of crutches I hadn’t seen there before. She was good.

 Mark went out first, followed by me. The surroundings looked safe, so we entered the car we had used to get there, a stolen piece of property. I turned it on and in a short moment we were already on the main road towards the city center. Through the windows, we could see some of the fires that were burning. There were no stores in flames, no residential buildings. Only government offices where people had entered to burn every single record in existence. It was a way to say we had to start over.

 No one out there seemed dangerous, but they did stop doing their things as we passed by because there were not too many cars being driven around the city at that time. Only the rebels, the winning faction, were operating any kind of vehicle. That kind of scared me. Mark must have thought the same thing because he just put a hand on my thigh and pressed gently. I was so lucky to have him there. For a while, I had no idea if I would ever go back to that city, the place where I had been born. After so much, it was pretty much a surprise to be there, as if nothing had happened.

 We finally got to the main fire, the one from where a huge plume of smoke was rising to the sky and across the city. It was the presidential palace that used to be white and was now some shade of grey. A large amount of people were gathered there, some staring and others carrying stuff to throw to the main pyre. We stopped the car and got out, in order for them to know it was us and no one else. Yet, no one really noticed us. It was only when we got real close, that a few guards stopped us.

 Mark started explaining who we were but he was interrupted by a scream of joy. Sophia was there and she ran straight for Mark. She was obviously happy to see him alive and I have to confess I couldn’t blame her for being so excited. After all, she had been promised to him in marriage for a couple of years before the war. However, the wedding was never performed because of all the fighting and the fact that her family wanted her to be safe, somewhere very remote. So she had no idea who he really was.

 I smiled at her and she smiled back. She had no idea I knew her from a photograph he had in his wallet, she had no idea who I was. But that wasn’t important. The guards left and, before I could ask for anything, General Ford walked straight to us and pointed to a building on the other side of the square where the presidential palace was located. People applauded when they saw the general, a woman that looked so strong was the cause the government had finally fallen and they were free again.

 We entered the other building and then a room that was very nicely arranged. There was no food or anything, only other people that had fought the war with us. We all knew each other, because we had met in the battlefield, in the camps where they had interred us and in the mountains we had to hide for so long. Mark hugged half the people there and I waved and smiled a lot, more than in any other occasion in my life. It was nice, after all, to see them there. It was like having a family again.

 General Ford informed us about our particulars, our real families. Some of them had died, others like mine had fled the country and a few had somehow survived the ordeal. It was a sad, solemn moment but we were thankful to her. It was then she invited us to take part in the first televised event of the new era. We were a bit surprised by the proposal but she gave us no time to say anything. Apparently, she was going to be the first one to use the airwaves again to properly announce the end of hostilities. A television camera was brought and several microphones. I just took Mark’s hand and thought it could never get worse than the war.

Ode to Pamela

   Plants are not fun, or that’s what most people think about them. They just think flowers are nice because of the colors but that’s it, they don’t see anything beyond it. Patricia did. She had always seen something in the botanical world that had attracted her. Maybe it was because those creatures didn’t have a voice, they weren’t able to scream and say what they felt or what they wanted. Mysteries wrapped them and made them something that was so near but also very far.

 So Patricia studied botany for years and she travelled the world getting masters degrees and doctorates, studying with the greatest scientific minds in order to learn more and more about her favorite living things. And then, it dawned on her, that she couldn’t just investigate and look at the plants from afar. She really needed to spend time in the field, discovering new types of plants and designing ways to better protect the one that people knew about. She thought about this day and night, for a long time.

 That was, until she met the person that could help her achieve what she wanted. Her name was Hayley and she also had a special love for plants. They met in a conference about roses and other flowers and were surprised how much the other one knew about those creatures. They even had fun quizzing each other about their favorite species and telling very interesting tales about the discovery of some plant or flower. They enjoyed the conference more than anyone else that year.

 They promised to be in touch and it was very soon after that when Hayley invited Patricia to a trip to the Philippines. Apparently, a team of many scientists would visit one of the country’s most remote islands, one were many people said an incredible number of new species of animals and plants could live. The island was relatively small and was protected by the government because it was one of the many islands forming a very large protected area. But this was the first time they would allow people to go in.

 Patricia had her doubts. If she had to be honest with herself, she wasn’t the kind of person to love dirt and hot temperatures. She didn’t even like taking transportation in order to go anywhere. She got annoyed in taxis, as well as in planes or boats. It wasn’t only that she got dizzy; it was also that she disliked having to interact with people that she didn’t particularly care about. Hayley had been a real exception and she finally decided to go only because she thought having Hayley around would be a good thing if she felt she couldn’t stand anything anymore.

 Before departing for the Philippines, both women met and had a blast together. Not only they enjoyed discussing plants again, they also went shopping for appropriate clothes for the trip and even had time to eat, drink and watch a movie together. They really got along very well. The only difference between them was that Hayley loved people and was, apparently, a big partier. She would sometimes talk about it but, as she soon learned, Patricia was not of her same perception so she limited those subjects.

 The day before departing Hayley promised Patricia that she would take care of her and that if she had any problems with any other person, she could come to her and tell her all about it. Patricia was so thankful for that kind attitude that she decided to buy a nice little present for her trip companion at the airport. She gave it to Hayley on the plane, hours after take off. It was a nice little pendant with a rose pendant. Hayley was so surprised; she just gave Patricia a big hug, which surprised her. But she didn’t push back.

 In Manila, they met the rest of the team, mostly composed by men. Some were going to the island to look for minerals and others were biologists hoping to find the creature that would put them in history books. Also a couple of geologists joined them, intrigued by the many tectonic faults plaguing the island. Patricia got nervous when she heard about that, but tried to remain strong because everyone else seemed so put together and committed, and she didn’t wanted to be the only one freaking out.

 On the next plane, Hayley sat far from her, as the seats had been assigned prior to them getting to the airport. So she had to sit with a big guy that sweated a lot and loved to talk about rocks and not much more. They only chit chatted for a bit before the man turned to the other side and decided the person on that side was much more interesting and willing to connect than Patricia. She felt really bad but thought the best thing to do was to try and sleep a bit before having to board the boat, the final leg of the route to the island.

 When they got off the plane, the heat was incredible. Patricia tried to refresh herself with some wet towels but that wasn’t enough. Actually, it made no sense to spend any time trying to get rid of the sweat because each step anyone took on that tarmac meant at least a hundred drops of sweat would roll down their foreheads. So they just followed their guide to the terminal, then to a van than took them to a pier and finally into a boat that was much too tiny to carry so many people. Patricia was really having second thought about coming on that trip but she couldn’t say it out loud.

 As the sun would set soon, their guide told them they would not be going to the actual island that day but to the one just in front of it, were their cabins had been built by the government. Of course, when they got there, the rooms had no air conditioning and the beds were into precisely meant for hotels and resorts. The bathrooms were also awful and they didn’t have much to cook, as provisions had not arrived from Manila.

 So dinner that night was made of cold sandwiches with water. Everyone was so happy that night, around a big table, eating and joking and telling stories. Hayley sat by Patricia all the time but she seemed so much more into the whole interacting thing. Patricia would just sit there and stare at people as they said whatever it was that they said and then she would attempt to laugh or at least smile, but most of the times it just seemed as if had some kind of stomach pain. So she soon left for her room.

 Sleeping was impossible. Partly because of the noise the rest of the people were making but also because of the heat. She had attempted to cover herself with a very thin sheet but even that made her feel she was going to get stuck to it. So she decided not covering herself and sleeping only in her underwear. It was the most comfortable, even if she wasn’t very keen to sleep like that with so many bugs floating around. A couple of hours later, she was finally able to fall asleep.

 She knew she wasn't sleeping to well because she had one of those vivid dreams, when you’re very aware of everything that’s happening. She moved around a lot in the dream and also imagined she was in the middle of a jungle. Weirdly enough, the jungle was less humid and hot, so she felt cozy and a bit less uncomfortable. She felt watched by something, or maybe someone, but no one was around here and that’s when she woke up and realized she was not inside her cabin anymore. She was outside.

 As in her dream, Patricia was deep in the jungle, where it was colder and nicer in general. But she was scared. Why was she there? Had she walked in her sleep, away from the compound? She stood up and started running, hoping to be just a few meters away from everyone else.

 But she ran to the beach and realized, horrified, that she could see the lights of the compound across the water, on an island across it. Somehow, Patricia had ended up in the place where they were supposed to discover new species. But maybe the biggest discovery would be something much less easy to explain or understand.

Lost and never found

   What was once deemed to be the center of all known civilization, the epitome of culture and grandiosity, fell in one day. The rain did the rest and the jungle became the one to truly make the city a myth. Where people one traded, lived and loved, an entanglement of branches and leaves now existed. Animals now thrived were ancient philosophers had posed the most interesting questions and had also attempted to answer them. Fish swam up the streets that people had once used daily, not even noticing them.

 The cataclysm was so abrupt and effective, that no one else in the entire world ever knew about that city. And even those who had once visited now thought they could have been mistaken. Maybe they had been somewhere else and not there, not the city of myth. Forgotten, its walls and stone sculptures fell to the ground and were promptly consumed by the jungle. After a while, only the strongest pillars and rocks where still there, but it would have been very difficult to prove a city had stood there.

 The indigenous peoples that inhabited the jungle preserved the ideas behind the city, but they were so entrenched after years and years, that they really couldn’t say what was theirs and what had been borrowed from those people in the past. Maybe it was their ways of hunting or maybe they had inherited all of their cosmology from those ancient humans. Their villages were much smaller and their people did not have the same kind of vision of their world, but it would have been very sad if nothing had remained.

 Explorers had come every so often, thinking they would be to unwrap the mystery and reveal to the world some magnificent new discovery. However, they only had ancient writing and stories to navigate the jungle with, and that wasn’t nearly enough. They would often get lost and then be found starving to death, or the jungle and its animals would defend their existence against them with the maximum sentence. Bodies were known to be seen floating down the river, sometimes only parts of them.

 However, some of those explorers were able to find bits and pieces that made the possibility of the city being rediscovered a reality. The first one to find something was a foreigner that had no intention to become an explorer but did nevertheless. He was eleven years old and had been visiting the area with his parents, on a river cruise. The boy fell in the rapids, were the boats had difficulties navigating, and he was found to be alive only a few kilometers down the river. The most fascinating thing was the object he was holding when rescued from a lonely rock on one side of the river.

 At first glance, it was a long object, kind of white but also yellowish, with holes on one side and a larger hole on one end. Clearly, it was some kind of musical instrument resembling a flute. However, when the kid’s parents checked the object, they realized it wasn’t made out of wood or something similar. The flute was made with bone. Of course, the parents were disgusted by that and thought instantly that it was something belonging to one of the tribes living in the vicinity.

 When they reached civilization, they left the object in a museum. There, it was proven to be a musical instrument but not one used by the indigenous peoples. It was too advanced for them and too refined for their tastes, which were much simpler. The flute the kid had discovered had been carefully carved and its holes had been drilled with a magnificent precision. The discovery was a revolution, because it was something found on an area that had no relation to such craftsmanship.

 The museum officials asked the kid’s parents to interview the boy before they left for their country. He told them that he had found the flute by accident, when kicking and tossing and turning after he had fallen of the boat. He said that he had felt the object just after falling, so among the rapids. The kid grabbed thinking it could help him hold on to something, but the flute was freed from the bottom of the river and then floated with the boy until boat reached the rock where they were found.

 The kid was then interviewed by several news outlets of the country, as the flute had become a very interesting subject for them. Yet, people from other places seemed to be a little bit doubtful of the whole thing. Granted, no real tests had been done to the flute and the kid’s story could be a very elaborate lie. For all that they knew, the parents could have been liars trying to get some attention out of the whole thing. The fact that they were actors in Hollywood didn’t really help their case at all.

 But the museum continued its research, trying not to pay attention to the barrage of critics and doubts everyone was pouring in. They tested the object with carbon and were able to prove the flute was much older than any of the objects used by any of the tribes living in the jungle. Even the ones that lived deep inside it all could not have been the creators of such a piece. The bone was then analyzed and it didn’t really surprise anyone when it was revealed it was actually a human bone. It was a humerus, to be more precise. Someone had used it to create music, entertainment.

 Now, that discovery really traveled the globe. Of course, other people in the world had created musical instruments from bones too but this was such an interesting story that it was just too much not to exploit it. Everyone in the planet was talking about the flute made out of human bone that a kid had discovered deep in a secluded jungle. It was an interesting thing to hear about and speculations started to pop up from every single corner. Everyone had just become an expert.

Some thought that it was maybe not an ancient piece of history but some prank. Others thought it had been made by the lone survivor of some doomed expedition. Some even proposed the theory that aliens, beings from some unknown world, could have been the creators of the object. And all of those were some of the most common ideas that people had, with the one about the aliens being the most repeated one in social media and all over the Internet. People loved to have a mystery in their hands.

 Meanwhile, the experts kept on working. They soon discovered something even more mysterious, that they couldn’t just corroborate: the bone had been proven to be one from a Caucasian man, an actual man from the Caucasus region. That place was thousands and thousands of kilometers away and, somehow, and ancient bone from that region had been discovered in a jungle with holes to make music with. It did make any sense but it was what it was, and they checked their results several times.

 They even lend the object to other museums and scientists, also inviting them to visit the flute and sharing knowledge. But after the last discovery, they had nothing. They even sent explorer to the area where the kid had found the flute in order to comb the area. It was a very difficult job and also dangerous, but they did it and spent several months there. Nothing came out of it. Only people affected by spider and snake venom, attacks by eels and confrontations with very angry indigenous peoples.

 They would never know how a young kid, a girl, had once owned that flute. She had used it to entertain herself. When the cataclysm came, and they all had to abandon their city, the girl took the flute with her but sadly dropped it in the river, hundreds of kilometers away from the place where it was found.

 The flute was made from the bone of a man they had brought into the city as a slave. He had been shown around, like an animal, for people to see what existed beyond their borders. The man eventually died and his caretaker, the girl’s father, took one of his bones from the funeral pyre for himself.