Journeying through a Dead Tree Nucleus

In the deadest heat on land that was either the ass-end of Nigeria or the Brazilian-waxed scrotum of Arizona, my associate dressed like an indie record label producer and I accompanied the witch doctor back to his dead grass and dead tree hut. The entire landscape felt raped; frequently, violently cindered by man’s war and nature’s luck.  The shaman had built a fence of dead grass and trees, like his hut, which served as the nucleus of his planetary existence, and an escape from all the savages beyond it.

We entered the hut, greeted by an enflamed spirit pit spitting fire between the elephant tusks that enclosing the ritualistic blaze. After us three became situated around the pit the shaman presented me with a smoking pipe the length of my uncle’s sawed off 12-gauge which he politely named – Killer Horse Cock.

After lighting it with the pit-fire, a secondary journey began. The inside had served its purpose, we ventured outdoors; the circling fence had grown sharp teeth along the hedges. Associate Producer and I walked into the mouth of this nature’s spiritual plane, accepted an uplifting into the spirit plane, and we were now stumbling all across the spirit plane. I disappeared from my own sight and time.

I awoke atop a heap of boulders with a higher, larger boulder shading me; all of us nestled in a natural resting spot near the outer core. Sundown was underway.

From that trajectory I noticed a large concert stage in the southeast. I couldn’t see people but I could differentiate the music instruments and as eclectic as they were, the music was maddening. Nowhere else on the planet was anyone hearing these noises, such brilliant noises that could be created by only some of the most untamed spirits and I was privileged enough to savor them until sight and time disappeared again. They returned in the mouth of this nature’s nucleus and from what I could see from the teeth the fence grew a previously short time ago, this mouth had enjoyed itself a tidy feast while I had been discovering the loveable jams.

Between each tooth were dead tree wrappings with human bodies cocooned inside, definitely a minimum of ten; all wrapped and positioned upright as if prisoners of an obsessive-compulsive spider. Doctor Sham An and Associate Producer traded fart jokes behind me while I walked around the dead, mouth of this fed nature’s nucleus. Sooner or later, I halted in front one of the lifeless husks. I tore away the wrapping at the chest, aware of exactly what I was doing, and I did not stop digging and ripping away until I saw bones – the chest and ribs. I looked around them, within them and I felt relieved without knowing why, as though an epic question had just been answered.

Doctor Sham An embraced me with a brotherly arm over my shoulder and with Associate Producer, we all embraced the new happiness.