Out of the Amazon's Shadow

It was a typical day in the Brazilian rainforest. The sound of the rain patting down on the leaves above permeated through the dense jungle. I had just finished my lunch of bananas and papaya, and found a nice spot to rest on a large fallen log. I sat there, listening to the sounds of a thousand different animals, each caring for their own business deep in the forest, blissfully unaware that one hundred years ago humans were not even aware this place existed.

I was so lost in thought about how beautiful it all was that I didn't notice the other person sitting on the log next to me until he spoke up.

"You know, this is why people don't believe in God." The man next to me had an American accent. He was white and tall with a thin face and blonde hair. His blue eyes were hidden behind thick glasses. He wore a white collared shirt and khaki shorts with hiking boots.

"What do you mean?"

"This is absolutely stunning. And yet no one in the world has ever seen it before, except for people like you or me who are here right now." The man spoke slowly as if he was trying to figure out why I hadn't already understood him. "Think about it - this beautiful place was never meant to be seen by humans. This jungle is not supposed to exist! It should have been flattened ages ago by farming or mining or something else. So many people live and die without ever knowing what this place looks like." He shook his head sadly. "It's almost as if God doesn't want us to see what he's created."

"Well, maybe he just wanted us to find it," I said quietly while looking out at the canopy of green leaves above us. "Maybe we're supposed to be here."

The man looked at me quizzically as if he couldn't understand what I meant. "Why would he want that? This is nothing but wasted space."

I shrugged my shoulders and decided not to say anything else. There were some mysteries that were better left alone. I went back to staring at the leaves above us when I noticed something moving on the ground beneath them, like ripples or waves moving across water. But then it stopped, and everything seemed normal again. After a few minutes of being puzzled by it, it occurred to me that it could have just been a gust of wind blowing through the trees causing them to move at once, but then suddenly everything started moving again! What was going on? Then I realized that whatever was causing it probably wasn't good for us because we were sitting practically underneath hundreds of thousands of leaves directly under where this thing was happening! We needed to get out of there!

Before I had time to react, however, hundreds of little brown snakes began falling from above into our hair and onto our bodies! They were crawling all over my arms which had instinctively shot up into the air in front of my face! We both began screaming and panicking while swatting away any snake we could reach! Suddenly, they all disappeared as quickly as they appeared leaving us both panting heavily in disbelief! My heart rate finally slowed down after several minutes only allowing myself a slight smile at how ridiculous we must have looked trying to fend off invisible snakes falling from an invisible ceiling above us! That's when I heard rustling in the bushes behind me! Before I could turn around something hit me hard on my head knocking me unconscious!

When I woke up, I saw two men standing over me dressed in dirty black clothes holding guns pointed at my head, looking very angry about something. In front of them stood another man dressed in a nice suit whom they addressed as the boss. He seemed calmer than the other two but equally angry about something. All three men spoke Spanish, but none of them seemed happy about it because they kept correcting each other constantly. “No, no, no…” “Say it like this...” “No, no, no… Say it like this…” “No, no, no… Say it like this…” and so on. Nobody seemed happy about anything except for one man who stood off by himself not saying anything but smiling occasionally throughout their conversation, looking more amused than angry at whatever situation we were facing.

Eventually, two other men arrived carrying large machine guns which they immediately pointed at all three men, yelling orders in English and telling them what they needed done or should stop doing or whatever else they felt like telling them since nobody seemed willing or able to listen anyway. It made me wonder how long these guys had actually known each other because they certainly didn’t seem like people who would get along otherwise. The two newcomers spoke English with southern accents while everyone else spoke Spanish with northern accents, implying that either everyone but those two new guys grew up together somewhere far north or those two new guys spent enough time away from their associates for their accents to change significantly. Either way, someone had brought some firepower with them, which made