the evening last, the moon was big and yellow and malty,
he was like a pot belly, with his little blue flecks here and there.
it was a good night for sharing thoughts and things. we fell asleep asking each other questions, I had to take off your socks because I know its hard for you to sleep with them on.
and while we set outside something happened to me, some familiar sort of memory scurried into me, a deja vu, a parallelism between this and another night a long time ago.
I was riding in a bus from Iquitos, Peru, to the mouth of the amazon.
It was hot, like it always is there, the air was so heavy that it was difficult for eyelids to stay open. They humidity was almost unnoticeable by that time.
it was quiet.
most of our team was sleeping. I was not. some were half-awake, whispering here and there.
I set next to a boy, matthew. He talked so suavely, like james dean, I might have been in love with his voice a little, not him, just his voice. He told me things. About where he was from, his story, and I gave him bits of mine to savor. I had the window seat of course, a gentleman.
occasionaly pieces of jungle would brush against the bus windows, like a mother caressing her child, hushing us to sleep. It was three in the morning. Four? what time was that at home? I don't even know what time means anymore. It's funny how that happens when you go places.

I peered out into the darkness. Only deep green, harbouring who knows what, a whoosh of it. We speak in low whispers, soft laughs. We both wear that dreary look, the one that says we've been working all day, adventuring all day, and now we are enjoying this silent jungle bus ride, the one that says we will collapse soon, but it will be unwelcomed to pause the adventure, that humbled look of a young traveler, whose surroundings are, without doubt, stirring some internal awkaning.

the bus slows to let some wild horses pass. I had no idea any existed, particularly in the jungle. Their black shadows pass steady, omens, a dream, am I even awake anymore?
what time is it?
four.
I wonder what time that is at home.
we continue for a while more. bumpy. no seatbelts. slight snoring from the back corner. luggage clanking swishing whoosing.
and then finally.
the first time I saw the amazon I was swatting mosquitos the size of golf balls out of my face. It was black and slick, oil, surely, not water, with a steady thunder of a pulse. and our crayola colored barge.
finally.
just so you know. you ask good questions.

i remember.