Jungle Blues

By Janet Baldey

Peril stalks the jungle, but not on four legs.  

It comes walking in upright as sharp-eyed natives hack their way through tangled lianas. With stealthy grace they raise venom-tipped blowpipes and marmosets, tamarinds and spider moneys fall prey to the pet trade. 

It comes in Land Rovers with frozen hearted poachers at the wheel. Forging tracks where there were none before, they seek larger game. A second of gentle pressure on the trigger and another tiger, rhino or shy jungle elephant, is blown into a bloody heap; crucified on the altar to the Oriental penis.

 It comes rumbling in by logging truck.  Huge forest harvesters, shaking the ground and polluting the air, bringing lumberjacks with chainsaws  that cut deep into the trunks of soaring teaks, sending them crashing to the ground, leaving only jagged stumps festering in acres of mire.

It comes insidiously with villages nibbling away at its margins as the human population explodes as does their hunger for land.

A tide of destruction surges through the forest and death follows in its wake.   It is momentous, it is unstoppable and sooner or later, everything that pads, slithers or wings its way through the jungle will face extinction as barren swamps replace majestic forests.

         The Universal Eye peers through the emerald canopy and sees all. Small, limp bodies tumble from trees, their luminous eyes shuttered by closed lids.   Gaudy, orange and black pelts are tossed into open trucks and lie limp and tattered like wind-starved flags while deep craters, full of nothing but mud and slime surround acres of logging camps.

 The sounds of the forest are muted as the jungle mourns and The Eye brims, shedding teardrops that do nothing but add to the swamp and flood the river causing the natives to wail. “Never before have the rains come so early in the season. It is an omen”.

         Driven by disaster, the Eye sends and coiled deep underneath the earth’s crust, the Great Serpent receives.  Angry at being disturbed, the tip of its tail twitches.   Seas boil and great fountains of blue-green water erupt only to collapse again, causing surges that swallow many small islands.

         ‘Aieeee!’   The voice of the people rends the air.

         Now fully awake, the Serpent sees through the Eye and fury replaces anger.  It rears and volcanoes burst into life sending gouts of scarlet fire thousands of feet into the coral sky. Underneath the sea, the earth quivers and breaks, and tsunamis race towards serene palm fringed shores.

         ‘Aieee’, the people scream.

         At last, the Serpent puts aside its wrath and speaks.    

         ‘Bring me my brothers.’  

         Immediately, the elements obey the order.  A light zephyr shuffles the grasses and the message is passed from stem to stem.   Coral snakes, fer de lance, cobra, black mamba, vipers, python, all heed the call and slither, glide and squirm towards the crest of a certain rise.   The site of the first spawn.  Their ancestral home.   The birthplace of the Great Serpent.    It is night before all arrive and driven by instinct, they form a circle and dance, their bodies swaying and their tongues flickering.

          At last, the phantasm of a huge and sinuous shape appears weaving and undulating, outlined in pitch against the moon washed sky.

         ‘Brothers, sisters….a great calamity is upon us….’   Its voice reverberates inside their skulls and mesmerised, the reptiles cease all movement and listen

‘The greed of man surpasses itself.   Now, the most secret places of the earth are violated.   Even our jungle fortress is breached and unless we act quickly, we are doomed.’

The Serpent’s massive head swivels as its gaze encompasses the reptilian multitude now coiled and still, only the glitter of their eyes betraying their presence.  It speaks again.         

         ‘The self proclaimed kings of the jungle - the tiger, the leopard, the rhino, and the elephant - all are useless.’  There is a white flash of fang as the Serpent betrays its contempt.  

‘Too large and cumbersome they have no protection against the sticks that spurt fire and Man laughs at their plight.    The human pestilence thinks it is invincible but it is mistaken.   Their heads too high in the clouds, they fail to see what is at their feet.   And this, my brothers, is our strength.  Small and insignificant, we can hide inside crevices and strike when least expected; swarm out of the blue when the enemy’s back is turned’. 

Interrupted by a sudden clatter, its head swings towards a group of rattlesnakes starting to preen; its jaws open with an explosive hiss and the snakes freeze.

 ‘But even we cannot do it alone’.   With one last stern look at the rattlers, the Serpent again turns to face its audience.   

‘We must call upon all that is most loathsome to Man: scorpions, the arachnids, hornets, and the fearsome giant centipede – scolopendra gigantea.   Every ant, bug and biting insect that makes its home in the undergrowth must join us.   Together, we will drive out the beast that walks on two legs.  Now, go my brothers and spread my word.’

         Only the Eye sees the first murders.   Seduced by the chattering of langurs, a group of natives worm their way through thick vines.   Blinded by sweat streaming down their faces, they blunder into a thick mesh of silk thread woven between the trees.  Busily brushing off the sticky filaments, they fail to see the spiders, each with a glossy black abdomen marked with a scarlet hourglass.   At the time, their bites are hardly felt and it is only later that the first native dies, gripped by convulsions that distort his body and throw him, twitching, to the ground.   The toxin in a Black Widow’s bite storms through the body’s nervous system and although a single bite is rarely fatal, these spiders were on the warpath and many had set that trap.

         Other assassinations follow:  a group of loggers are set upon by thousands of giant hornets, each as big as a small bird.  The rising crescendo of the insects’ furious hum drowns their agonised screams as each thrust of a swollen abdomen drives home a red hot nail.  Each sting produces pheromones, acting like magnets and attracting ever more hornets, until their victims lay still, buried deep inside a living cocoon of yellow and black.

         Mosquitoes descend in their millions, a thrumming, pulsating umbrella they blot out the sun and each one is ravenous for human blood.   Their faces red and swollen, their hands clawing away countless winged vermin, maddened by the incessant high pitched whine that drills deep into the meat of their brain, the poachers leap from their vehicle and run to the nearest waterhole.  It is only after they have thrown themselves in that they discover it is foaming with hundreds of deadly Taipan.   For everywhere, there are snakes; they form a living carpet on the ground and the rivers heave with them.

         In the jungle, no one hears you scream and it takes a while for people to realise something is wrong.  Eventually, the rumours start.   It seems that no-one who enters the jungle is ever seen again.    At first, a few foolish people, mainly white skinned, scoff and disregard the talk.  Money calls, a siren they can’t resist, but once inside the forest, they vanish like a dream greeting the morning.   Search parties are mounted but even one step inside the jungle causes its floor to blacken and ripple with swarms of huge ants whose bites cause excruciating pain; for they are called bullet ants for a reason. 

The rumours are compounded.

‘Black magic,’ the people moan.   They keep their distance and soon the jungle becomes a forbidden place ringed by an invisible barrier of fear.    

         Slowly, life in the forest returns to normal.   Spiders, naturally solitary beasts, scuttle back to their burrows.  The snake hordes disperse and once more, mosquitoes infest only certain swampy areas.   The giant hornets spread their wings and return to the cities where food is abundant.   Leopards and tigers start to prowl the leafy glades again and, once more, the antelope grows wary.    All becomes as it ever was, every species linked together in an interdependent chain which is broken at the planet’s peril.

         At last, The Great Serpent again opens its jaws but this time in a yawn.  It is satisfied and as befits its age, resumes its slumber beneath the earth’s crust where it lies coiled in a mountainous heap, warmed by the molten rock.    

Only the jungle’s guardian, the Universal Eye, does not sleep.   Instead, it keeps watch, by day and by night as, ever vigilant, it waits.

        

Copyright Janet Baldey