DATELINE - Deep in the Jungles of Borneo - It is still before dawn here in the jungle. The silence is palpable and crushing. I can hear the leaves turning eastward in anticipation of the sun's appearance. The darkness is so thick I break of a piece and stash it in my pack for shade at midday. The tribe is still asleep. Monkey dreams stir minds and catch the breath.
I am the only electron junkie in the village. I am not yet ready to cut my ties with the unbalanced world. I tell myself that I need to track the storm front, but in knowing where it is, it knows where I am. It is a curse. The vegetable drapes and vegetable walls of my enclosure flicker with the dangers of toying around in the slime pits of civilization.
A blip on the radar: Singapore will start registering and licensing blogs critical of the government. I update my lexicon so that all mentions of Singapore will be replaced with the word "Spaghetti", "law" will be replaced with "sausage" and "fascism" will become "sauce". Problem averted...at least until 'spaghetti' becomes hate speach against Italians. Until then, looks like Spaghetti's sausage is spreading the sauce again.
I perform the classic mental exercise: am I paranoid if they really are out to get me?
And who, exactly, is "they"?
The answers to those questions will solve the world's energy crisis. Except there is no energy crisis here in the jungle. All is fine. Life is sweet and melts like cotton candy in a rain storm. There are no problems in the jungle. I drop my last handful of coins in the satellite uplink vending machine.
Pale pink corpuscles of light begin to stream across the sky. Soon, another day of heavy leisure will be upon us. I brace myself.
The top of the volcano explodes with Moses fire while the rest of the world lies in edible night. A bird starts reporting the night's events, then another and another. Soon my reverie is taken down with a full Nelson to the count of monkey snorts. One more day in paradise, damn it!
The problem with government is that it creates a need and then steps in to fill it. Here in the jungle, the law is expediency. There is no need to regulate paint when there are no stripes on the road, nor road to stripe. They will tell us we need hospitals but everyone is healthy until the civilization tsunami crashes on our heads. Neuroses are created, not made.
The cat stalks dream vapors as they slide through the underbrush in search of beetle eggs in which to gestate. Time here does not pass, it eddies like a child's finger through warm chocolate batter. The cracking of tree bones is deafening as they strain to drink the warm starlight creeping down the mountainside. The birds cacophonate as they await the conductor to finish his 3-minute egg and tea.
The world of sickness seems so far away from this place. Here in the living world, it is as hard to find suffering as it is to find concrete, and just as much use for it. Hurry is watching the snails race down at the river. Stress is finding the right bamboo shoot to chew.
The darkness is receding fast now. It is only pools among the trees, like drying puddles after a storm. I check my pack to ensure my dark is still there before it is gone completely. The Moses fire has spread from the mountain top to the tree tops and is slithering down the trunks toward the dream commuters. Soon the train will arrive and the crowds disembark. My silence will be broken but not irreparable. The monkey music has begun.
That other world has lost its magic, and with it goes sanity. Here in the living world, all is magic, and magic is the only cure for madness.
The day has begun.
