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
