Page 63 of Wild Idol
“You’ve come all this way to stand on the edge of one of God’s most powerful creations, to stand on the precipice of life and death, and you destroy the moment by pulling out your phone. Like the moment wasn’t enough. You had to try to capture what can’t be captured. You put a screen between you and reality. You colored your experience with greed, not respect. You failed to exist in the moment and revel in the power of nature. Of creation.”
“Greed?”
“You can’t own the mountain. You can’t take it with you. You can’t buy or sell its power.” Star was almost mad. Maybe there was no almost about it. She was pissed. “Don’t you get it yet?”
I stood there like a scolded child.
“That’s why we are here,” she continued. “To live in the moment. There is no future. There is no past. The onlything real is now. And you want to bury your head in a phone so you can post on social media and impress people you don’t even know.”
I chuckled. “If that’s what you think, you don’t know me at all. I’m not trying to impress anybody. But I don’t disagree with you about living in the moment.”
We followed her down the jagged rock, the soles of my shoes warm from the heat. My clothes were soaked with sweat, and my legs burned with lactic acid.
Eventually, the obsidian mountain gave way to a dense jungle. We continued down the winding trail through the thick underbrush until the damp jungle opened to a clearing. A primitive village of thatched huts emerged from the shelter of the forest.
It was like stepping back in time into another world—a world that had no modern social constructs. A world where survival was the order of the day. This was no wellness retreat. No escape for burned-out executives or socialites looking for a greater sense of purpose.
Men with painted faces and cautious eyes gripped hand-carved spears. Adorned with necklaces of bones and beads, these warriors were a fearsome sight. Dressed in animal hide and hand-woven fabric, they lived life as their ancestors had.
Star was known to them, and with a reassuring smile, she conveyed that we were trustworthy as well.
I got the impression that the villagers didn’t take kindly to strangers.
JD and I smiled and waved.
Star spoke a few words in their native tongue to set their concerns at ease. Guttural and rhythmic, it was indecipherable. The language shared nothing in common with English, Spanish, or any of the romance languages. Primal and direct. Each word was laden with emotion. A mix of legato and staccato beats.
The tribal elder greeted Star and began to speak with great concern. The worry in his eyes was evident, but it wasn’t directed at our presence. He seemed relieved to see her.
Their exchange was intense.
When the chief had finished speaking, Star said to me, “One of the children has a high fever and infection. I’ve brought antibiotics. We routinely check on the villagers and provide whatever medical care they may need. It took some doing to get them to accept Western medicine, but the results speak for themselves.”
The chief led us to the hut with the sick child. It was made of woven palm fronds, stone, and a muddy clay mortar.
The boy lay on a bed of banana leaves, hunched over, drenched in sweat, trembling. Star had a portable digital thermometer. His breath was labored, and his face taut and drawn. Star knelt down beside the boy and put a hand against his forehead. “He’s burning up,” she said with worry.
Star pulled out a digital thermometer from her backpack and took a reading from the child’s forehead. It told her what she already knew. The kid was running a temperature of 104.
Star reached into her backpack again and pulled out a pill bottle. She gave the medication to the kid’s mother. With thehelp of the tribal elder, she gave instructions for dosing and scheduling.
“Are you sure you understand?“ Star said in English, then tried to repeat it in their native tongue. She pantomimed taking a pill and washing it down with water.
The child’s terrified mother nodded as though she understood. But it was anyone’s guess if she did.
“I’m not really fluent,“ Star admitted. “I can convey basic concepts, and that’s about it. And when they start talking really fast, I get lost.” She frowned. “Compliance has been an issue. When we first started giving them medication for the children, it wasn’t working. Then we realized why. The parents were taking the medication for the children.”
“That could be a problem,“ JD said.
“We really should get him to a doctor on the mainland,” Star said.
She tried her best to translate that into their language. But I’m not sure it got across. Both the boy’s mother and the tribal elder shook their heads. They didn’t like the idea of leaving the island and putting their fate in the hands of the civilized world.
I didn’t blame them. Sometimes, Western medicine could be barbaric.
With the mother’s permission, Star gave the boy the first dose and helped him swallow it down with a glass of water. She reiterated the timing of the next dose.
Out here, without proper treatment, a situation like this could be fatal.
