Member-only story
Taking Flight
A short story.
The jungle decides when to give life, and when to take it away.
In Juan’s hand, the machete glistened whenever the few rays of direct sunlight that managed to penetrate the jungle touched it. He made his way expertly through the plants, cutting as little as possible, disturbing the peace only in the measure he needed to get by. Diego struggled to keep up, his long and lanky body having to contort itself to fit through the holes his shorter friend had made in the vegetation.
This was the farthest Diego had ventured from the village so far. And as a Rolo, a city boy from Bogotá, he preferred to be out there with someone who not only wielded a machete but could also explain what they were doing there if they ran into someone else on the way. Although, in this deep of a jungle, they’d more likely get attacked by animals than humans. A jaguar or a cougar, maybe a snake. It was better to go out with both a shotgun and a machete.
Diego took in a deep breath of dense, humid forest air. It was the first time he’d felt this free in weeks.
The first month or two out there everything had been just fine, but the atmosphere in the village was getting thicker with expectation. This was the kind of thing even a kid from the city could notice.
