Everything in Its Right Place

Objects are the driving force in the most recent set of exercises. The things symbolize an important emotion in the story, or are treasured to the point they are almost magical, or lend clarity by grounding descriptive prose. Today's exercise yokes them all together, and hopes to ensure that no one portion of the piece stands out more than the others. Rodin, the sculptor, is supposed to have said about works of art, "No one part can have a life of its own." This phrase guides the exercise for today.***In the middle of a great jungle at the heart of Africa, Milton Bagby woke up alone. Steam rose amidst the trees from the rain that had fallen that morning. Babgy's hazy mind worked to piece together his situation. Where were the others? He had paid a fortune to his guides. Yet the cart and all his possessions were gone.Bagby spat into the embers of the damp firewood, and clipped his boots together to shake off the mud. He looked to the sky in an attempt to catch the direction of the sun, and saw no trace of blue through the canopy of leaves. He took stock of his possessions. His machete rested against his hip. In his pocket he found his flint and steel. But where was his rifle? After a panicked few moments he found it propped agains the base of an enormous tree, like a toothpick on against a ship's mast. His powder was somehow dry. His compass, however, was missing. The golden engravings would have been too much for the thieves to pass up.Fuming at his helplessness, he stormed through the bushes, whacking with vehemence at innocent shrubs. He heard a rustling in the leaves that sent a cold wave through his face. He listened. The sound came from ahead, through a wall of ferns. Looking at the ferns, he realized there must be water close by. Bagby crept forward, and could hear the rush of a river. Caution restrained his every motion. He parted the ferns.His heart galloped like a spooked horse. A massive snake, as big around as his waist, slithered through the undergrowth not fifteen feet away from him. He was careful not to move at all, and kept his eyes on the serpent. The snake paused. Bagby's world stood still. The snake raised its head. Bagby began to consider the words he would shout as he died, adventurer that he was. He wilted to realize that no one would hear them. But when the snake turned its head, it looked away from Bagby. To the man's horror, he followed the line of its gaze to the base of a tree where he could clearly see the shaking form of a child.The child trembled all the more violently to see the eyes of the snake upon him. He did not stand up, to his credit, and seemed determined to play dead. The snake began to slither toward him. Bagby watched with bated breath. If he called out, the snake might pursue him, the heartier meal. If he did nothing, he might lose the only human being for miles, and his chance at escaping the jungle. But the odds that the snake would kill him were too high. He couldn't risk helping the child. He watched as the snake bore down on the tree. The child whimpered."Damn it," Bagby said aloud, and sprinted at the snake, waving his machete like a maniac.The snake seemed in disbelief that a creature would do something so foolish, because it paused for a second too long, and Bagby found himself standing over the severed head and writhing body. He stepped clear, fearing that even a death tremor from the trunk of the beast would break his leg. The boy began to cry, and he retched on the roots of a tree nearby. Bagby wiped his machete on an elephant leaf and crouched down beside the child."Are you all right?" he asked.The boy did not respond."Est-ce que tu vas bien?" he asked.The boy looked up. He looked at his vomit on the root of the tree, as if that were answer enough.Bagby continued to question the boy in French."Where can I go to escape this forest?"The boy did not answer for a moment. He seemed to be gathering himself."Where is...the snake?" the boy said.The man gestured to the body and severed head behind him. Fear crept into the boy's features once more."Here," the boy said, and he gave Bagby a bit of parchment. He began to back away, eyes on the snake.Bagby opened the square folds of the boy's gift and revealed a crudely drawn map. He smiled, but saw the boy was now a stone's throw away."Where are you going?" he asked."You must leave," the boy said. "There are more fearsome things than snakes in the world."The boy took off."Wait! You little ingrate," Bagby said. But the boy was gone.Bagby cursed. He hacked a few leaves from a nearby tree. When he had calmed down, he picked up the map from where he had dropped it and examined the details. The edges were browned, as if the parchment had been crisped by a fire. A winding blue streak marked the river, and with a finger he traced the path he would take: north along the river to the cliffs, east to the portage, and further north along a brown streak he supposed was a path. His eye caught a red triangle just west of the path. The shape contained a yellow circle that looked much like a coin.A shriek shook him from his reverie. He stuffed the map in his pocket and raised his rifle, sidestepping toward cover. More shrieks arose. He began to back away toward the river. The bushes in the distance began to move. A head poked through. Bagby saw the long snout and carnivorous teeth of a baboon.Bagby was no fool. He knew that a pack of baboons was as dangerous as any snake. They had likely smelled the blood of the monster that lay dead and had come to feast. He stepped carefully, unsure if they were aware of him. This must have been what the boy meant to warn him about. A sudden noise to his left caused him to slip, and a branch cracked under his foot. He cursed, silently, and pressed his teeth together. He turned his toward the noise that had distracted him. A leopard approached, low to the ground, ready to spring. Damn my luck, he thought. If he shot the leopard, which was his only option, the baboons would surely get him. He half-considered whether the leopard would be gentler than the baboons, but put the thought from his mind and cracked a shot into the beast's face with his rifle. To his astonishment, it fell to the ground, and he swung to face the baboons. Twenty pairs of eyes locked on his face. One, the alpha, paced from side to side, sizing him up. Bagby aimed his rifle at it. The baboon sprang forward but jerked at the crack of the rifle and lay still. The remaining baboons shrieked and cowered and pawed away from the terrifying noise. Bagby smiled.Three times he had cheated death today. He stood as tall as the trees and bounced south, careful to keep the river in sight. The canopy thinned out, and he could see the sky. He felt the hour must have been past noon, but the sun still rested far to the east, and realized that the animals he had encountered had robbed him of his sense of time. In the distance he heard thunder, but the clouds above were white and wispy.Soon he saw the dropoff, and expected to hear the waterfall roar. But there was only a quiet whisper as the water careened over the edge. He checked over his shoulder as he walked. The water's quiet demise unsettled him.He could not find the entrance to the portage, at first. Sweat glistened on his brow as he walked back toward the river, thinking he had missed the path. He took out the map in the hope that it would give him a sense of the distance, but he realized that the child's parchment did not have a sense of scale. His eyes rested on the red triangle once more, with the yellow circle enclosed. Perhaps he needed to walk farther.By the time he was far enough inland, he had rolled up his sleeves, and was using his collar to wipe sweat from his face. But the sun was soon blocked by trees that rose up. The higher he walked the farther they rose, and he realized that he was walking downhill. He chuckled to learn that the portage was no portage at all. He had walked so far that the cliff had diminished to a point where he could hop six feet to the ground. He landed lightly, and looked to find the path. It was marked with a board that held a red triangle and yellow circle.Bagby patted the map fondly and placed it in his breast pocket. A monstrous cat had used the sign as a scratching post, so Bagby held his rifle tightly, eyes searching the shadows for any sign of motion. He continued on, jumping at the ever-nearing thunder and almost firing at a tiny kingfisher that hopped across the path. Just when he had finally relaxed, the storm broke.The thick canopy shielded Bagby from the droplets that careened toward the earth like bullets, but sheets of water still soaked his clothes and gun. He worried that any creature he came upon would have the better of him, since his powder was surely wet. He cursed, and ran ahead, barely able to see what was coming. He heard animals calling and paid them no mind, so thick was the downpour. He did not notice a sign on the side of the road with a red triangle and yellow circle.As he squinted through the rain, he was surprised to see that the path opened up into the square of a makeshift settlement. He ran to a hut with a porch that even had a makeshift rocking chair, and struggled to catch his breath. The rain clattered against the roof of the shelter. Opened the chamber and blew in it, but the powder had caked and firing the gun could risk an explosion. He heard a noise behind him and swung to point his useless rifle through the entrance of the hut.Over the chaotic beat of the rain he heard a voice. The voice was unlike any he had encountered, gravelly and emotionless."Where did you come from?" it asked."Who are you?" Bagby said."Maybe from the village up North?" The voice switched languages. "D'ou etes-vous?""I speak English," Bagby said."You do!"It was a question."Yes, I am here from England. I am lost. I need to get South, out of this jungle.""You can't just walk out of the jungle. Ask my wife. We've been here for years."Bagby surreptitiously took the matches from his pocket."Why have you never left?""We came as a part of a trading expedition. We were meant to collect luxuries from the jungle and sell them to the enlightened back in England. But my wife became ill."He began to cough, a shaking wheeze that ended in a sigh."It's much harder to leave this jungle than you'd think."Bagby struck the match. It did not catch, and the head broke off. He fumbled for another and stepped forward toward the door, but as he crossed the threshold a horrific stench met his nostrils and he recoiled."Are you looking for a light?" the voice asked. "Let me help."Bagby saw a small light and heard the catch and hiss of a match. In the glow, a yellow, withered hand appeared, and moved across the space. Shadows of cages and shapes hung from the ceiling crept into view. The hand stopped near a torch that was bracketed to the wall, and with a small fizz the room lit with flickering orange light.The walls were lined with cages that held bones and chains and small children. The children were silent and their eyes stared across the room at nothing. One boy was missing an arm, and his shoulder was wrapped in bloodied gauze. Bagby exhaled a shaking breath. He turned to see the yellow skin, bloodshot eyes, and decayed teeth of a middle-aged man who wore a ragged jacket and trousers of English make. Beside the man a corpse of a woman rested on the bed, and the tissue of her body had decayed into little pools of purple and brown on the mattress."What are you?" Bagby asked."We were left behind. My wife was sick, and they left us behind. But she's a smart woman; she tells me how to survive."Bagby gaped at the man. He shook his head, a rejection of the entire scene."Let them go," he said, gesturing to the children."I learned a long time ago: we don't make the rules. The jungle makes the rules."And the man picked up a butcher knife and ran at Bagby. Bagby slammed the butt of the rifle against the man's forearm and deflected the blow, but the man was on him again, much faster and with more ferocity than he had anticipated. He stepped back to escape a swipe but was not quick enough, and the butcher knife caught his nose and sliced it from his face. He jumped back. There was no time to assess the damage and he struggled to breathe as blood clogged the hole where his nose had been and he swung blind and connected with the man's head. It gave him a moment to spit the blood from his mouth and bock out the pain before the knife came at him again. He parried and parried and parried and saw his opening and smashed the butt of the rifle into the man's mouth. The man dropped to the ground and in a second Bagby kicked the knife away and began to smash the man's head with the rifle until it no longer resembled a human face.He was on the porch. Inside the children stared out with horror. He dropped his rifle to the ground."It's okay," he said. "You're safe now."One girl began to cry. He stepped inside, set on opening the cage with a key he saw hanging from the wall. The girl's cries increased, and when he unlocked it she cowered far away from him. The fear in her eyes made him realize how he must look without a nose. He opened the cages and stepped away into the rain. The children jogged through the storm, crying, and though they disappeared quickly Bagby remained in the rain for a long time.When he returned to the hut to take the torch with him, he found that the boy with the bandage was still there, unconscious. There was only one thing to do. He picked up the boy and rested him over his shoulder. He would head into the rain in the direction the other children had traveled, and bring this boy home.He had not walked long when he saw ahead of him a great crowd of natives, who held the children, tears in their own eyes. He approached confidently, as a savior should, and his surprise could not have been greater when cries of hatred came to him through the rain. One mother shook and screamed and pointed at him, and the boy on his shoulder began to struggle and cry. He put down the boy, who ran to the woman, and buried his face in her chest. She went silent, but fixed Bagby with an icy glare."Why do you return what you have stolen?" a man asked him in French.Confusion clouded Bagby's features."I have not stolen them. I found a man who was keeping them for himself."The man shook his head."We cannot accept this."He took out a spear and drove it into the earth."If you leave the sacred boundary of your camp, we will defend ourselves. This is our right and our duty."He turned to walk away, and Bagby stepped forward. A spear flex at him, and drove into the ground at his feet."Honor the agreement!" another man shouted. He pointed to Bagby's left, where Bagby saw a sign that had a red triangle with a yellow circle within it. Three men stood guard, their stone faces suggesting murderous intentions. Bagby backed away. He wandered along the boundary, which was marked every thirty paces by another sign, and at each sign he saw three more men.He returned to the camp, and opened the door to a new hut. There was no one inside. He lay out a match to dry and lit the torch when he was ready and laid out the map, his last hope. He stained it with drops of blood from his nose, which mixed with the rain water to form a film of red. Tomorrow he would fight his way out, but for the moment, he lay his head against the map and closed his eyes. He would kill a thousand natives before he would stay in the jungle.In the early morning, before first light, he crept to the place he had first encountered the guards. There were three of them, sleeping. He cut their throats, blood staining his shirt from an artery, and continued down the path. The hole where his nose had been throbbed in the humidity. He contorted his face against the pain, and heard whimpering in the bushes. He found a man in there, cowering in fear. He stabbed the man in the chest, to keep him quiet.The path was clear. He came to no village. No voice raised the alarm. Soon he saw the river winding to his right, its banks full from the storm the night before. In the distance, he saw the sun rising over a colonized settlement. He had won. He took out the map, and kissed it, and saw that it was stained with fresh blood from the throat of one of the men he had slain. He spit on the parchment, and tried to rub the blood from it. The stain would not come out. He put the map in his pocket. He could not leave it behind.***The Object Correlative and the Unexpected Gesture: He knows that the map is his ticket out of the jungle. It is a symbol of hope for him.All the Things You Didn't Say: The boy cannot say what he is hesitant about with the map.The Ladder of Abstraction: Part 1: The jungle is full of objects that make danger concrete.Horror and Childhood: A boy who is very afraid gives the traveler a map of the surrounding area. The children in the hut are in a terrifying situation.Object of Affection: The map becomes sacred to the man on his journey.Lost: A man finds himself alone in the jungle***Getting Started: 2Character: 2Point of View and Tone: 2Plot and Narrative: 2Dialogue and Voice: 2Descriptive Language and Setting: 2Revision: 1Overall: 1*Level 1*