Page 35 of The Holidays with Dr. Mitchell
Goddammit. The bastard must be catching on to us.
“My vibrations are strongly connected to Mother Earth and the magnetic pull?—”
“It’s like a hunger is trying to come forth,” Gustoff said, interrupting me, “an urgency?”
The only thing I’m hungering for is my wife and a rare fucking steak, I thought, trying to stay focused.
“I only hunger for more of the peace and solitude this island has given us already,” I answered.
“And you, Collin?” Gustoff questioned.
“The hunger I feel is a strong desire to be closer to Mother Earth,” he sang back.
“Beautiful,” Gustoff responded. “Then we have selected both of you to lead our fire mantras and chants on the shore tonight while the moon is full. Tonight, we will make camp on the shoreline. We had planned to return you to your wives this evening, but upon further assessment, no one is as far along in their ego deaths as Collin and Jake. We are not all in one accord,” Gustoff eyed everyone around us. “If Dr. Mitchell and Collin were able to achieve this much peace and ego death insuch a short time, it shames my heart to know the rest of you haven’t accomplished the same. We must all attend the fire class, and tomorrow, we shall reassess everyone. Hopefully, you will return to your wives after that.”
Gustoff disappeared with his men, who waited on this outdoor wooden stage, and we knew the routine from here. Once Gustoff was done with his instruction, he abruptly vanished, and we returned tobase campfor directions on where we’d go next. We’d successfully done this more than a dozen times, and every time we were instructed to do some weird bullshit like braid palms, stack rocks, and tie knots in ropes.
“What thefuckare we going to do now?” Collin asked, reading my mind.
“Endure this bullshit for another night?” I answered. “Why does this seem like a prison?”
“Because that’s exactly what it is, and I can’t fake this shit another night,” Collin said.
“Me neither,” I answered. “I’m already accidentally thinking like that weirdo.”
“No shit. After I felt bad for pissing on a tree this morning, I knew this was starting to fuck with my mind,” Collin said with a laugh.
“Well, Gustoff would tell you that the tree was helping you by absorbing the toxins from your urine and?—”
“Listen to you,” Collin said. “The fact that you know that—ThatIknow that—isa fucking problem.”
“All right. This is what we’ll do,” I said. “Tonight, after we howl at the moon or whatever the fuck Gustoff is going to make us do to help the other dumbasses, we’ll wait until they all fall asleep and then sneak the fuck out of here.”
“Actually,” Collin smirked, “maybe it’s a good thing he’s making us go to the beach. We can find our way back to Ash and Laney much easier.”
“True. In fact, this may bepart of the journey,” I mocked Gustoff’s favorite phrase, “and going to the ocean symbolizes us returning to where the ladies are. He’s just got to have one more night of fucking us over.”
“Is this the type of thing Ash is into?” Collin asked.
“No, thankfully,” I answered truthfully. “Although I thought the same thing when we first got here,” I smiled, missing my beautiful wife so damn much. “Ash isnothinglike this. She meditates, andgrounds herself,but she’snothinglike these people.”
“Thank God,” Collin said. “This is weirding me out. It’s like a cult. I wouldn’t want to have to rescue Ash from something like this and rewire her brain,” he laughed.
“I heardthat,” I agreed. “No worries there, although I feel like rescuing her right about now. I fucking miss her.”
“I feel that shit, son,” Collin said. “Come on. Let’s head back to camp, eat grass for lunch, and get ready to get back to them.”
“I’m never coming to the Maldives again,” I said. “This was a place I’d always wanted to visit, but now,fuckno. This is worse than being stranded on a desert island, knowing I would never be rescued.”
“Would you come back if you knew you’d be staying in those villas where wethoughtwe’d be staying?”
“I don’t know, dude,” I said, honestly. “This whole place is just a traumatic destination for me,” I sighed. “I guess the hopeful part is that we haven’t seen the ocean this whole time, so maybe there’s a slim chance I wouldn’t associate those bad-ass water huts with this fucking jungle prison.”
“There’s the Christmas spirit,” Collin chuckled.
“Christmas spirit,” I laughed in response. “How can you even think about the holidays right now?”
“Simple,” Collin said. “I just keep singing Jingle Bells in my head to make it look like I’m meditating. If I don’t, I’m going tohave a hard time accepting that Christmas is right around the corner when we get home.”
