Page 1: "Scale-Ridden"

I.

The Flow

Carnivorous spider moss slips languidly off the snakelike boughs of the bog tree. Remnants of a prehistoric time, it drags its knuckles towards the faraway ground, rarely breaking from suspension, just like us.

 A buzzing mosquito wanders in too close, and its wings catch on the tangles of its leathery vines. Slowly, and without struggle, its carcass melts away.

I draw my hand through the plant’s tangled curtain, allowing daggers of sunlight to dig its claws into the hut. Heat like a wasp’s sting prickles my skin and makes my nostrils flare. The cool shade of the spider moss used to lure me back towards my hammock until the last possible moment, but not anymore. In part because that isn’t my hammock. This isn’t even my hut.

I push out into the scorching dawn, and my eyes blink rapidly to reframe their view. There is a hole in the sky, the largest one yet, and I stand beneath it like an ant under a magnifying glass.

I hurry my steps towards the shade. The last thing I need before a hunt is new blisters.

People weave past me in withered swirls, same as the last wisps of clouds in the grey sky. They cross over my head and below on bridges and pullies, suspended hundreds of feet above the forest floor. A new mother carries her babe while supporting baskets of sapwater on her back. Her toes dance upon the lines with the blithe air of having never met the earth. Farmers, completing their night’s work, climb down from the higher limbs, eyes heavier than their harvest bags, which only bulge half-full with bromeliad fruits.