J Weichsel - Ebu Gogo

“Well, Mr. Dare, since you have told me what you think of scientists, let me tell you what I think of you. You are a very wealthy man, and like many in your economic class, you want to pay to be something you’re not. Some rich people simply want to be gardeners, so instead of getting on their knees and getting their hands dirty, they hire people whom they call ‘landscapers’ to do all the work, and then once the landscapers finish their work and go home, the rich people who hired them get to show off their gardens and call themselves gardeners. Other rich people want to be authors or filmmakers, so they pay others to write novels or make movies for them, which they then claim as their own. In your case you want to be a scientist, and instead of doing the work to become one, you hire professionals, like me, to do the work for you, so that you can take the credit. But because you just buy your way in and are unwilling to do any work, you never learn, and you never improve your craft, and the result is garbage books like this one.”

Lewis answered, “Well you’re the one who took my money, so you’re not in a position to complain. And anyway, that book you are talking about has sold over one million copies. One million readers can’t be wrong.”

The Dare to Discover landed in the Jakarta International Airport on the Indonesian island of Java. Lewis spent a few days there buying clothes, gear, and supplies. Then, once everything was ready, he chartered a boat to the island of Flores.

As they stood around the busy port waiting to board the boat, Clare pulled her father aside and said, “I’m sorry Dad. I don’t think I can go with you to Flores. I think I am going to stay at a hotel in Java and wait for you to come back.”

Surprised and disappointed, Lewis asked, “Why?”

“Because of Jack! I just don’t want to be around him.”

Lewis smiled and said, “Clare, that’s no reason to stay behind. All you will be doing is letting Jack have all the fun while you are miserable. Just think of all the adventure we will have! We are going to a rainforest to search for an exotic and undiscovered species in the genus of Homo which may be one of the last remaining remnants of our evolutionary past. Why would you allow Jack to have that, while you spend the trip cooped up in some hotel?”

Clare agreed to go to Flores, and they boarded the boat. As it traveled across the aquamarine sea, an emerald jewel slowly became visible in the distance. It was the Island of Flores, rising out of the water as if to greet them. White mist rose from the rainforest that covered most of the island. Facing them was a beach of a striking shade of white.

The boat changed course to go around the island, and then stopped a distance from a port. The port they had left had been huge and bustling, full of people from all corners of the earth, and was modernly equipped. But this port was nothing more than a rickety wooden and bamboo pier, and was too small and in too shallow water for the large boat to approach. So Lewis, Clare, Dr. Stern, Jack, and the three interns climbed into a smaller boat that had been lowered into the water, and one of the crewmembers steered it towards the port.

The tiny boat dropped the seven off on the pier and returned to the boat, which would return to pick them up in exactly one week.

Mere moments had passed since the ebu gogo left Martin and Amber alone in the little cavern, and Martin lay on the ground, sobbing in shame at the sordid act he had just committed. When he looked up at Amber and saw the horrified way the redhead stared at him, a feeling of humiliation was added to his shame. He said, “Amber, don’t look at me like that.”

She cried, “You disgust me.”

He stood up and approached her, “Please Amber. I need you to understand.”

She backed away from him and cried, “Stay away!”

He reached out a hand towards her and said, “Amber.”

She pulled away her arm and cried, “Don’t touch me.”

Martin said, “Let me explain.”

“Shut up.”

“But I need to talk to you. I don’t understand what got into me. I… I felt such a strange feeling. I’ve never felt anything like it before. Never towards a human woman.”

Amber screamed, “You fucking freak!”

Martin said, “Amber, please. I need you to listen.”

Amber shrieked, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Seriously, I do not want to talk to you. Let’s sit on opposite sides of the cavern and not talk. We have nothing to say to one another.”

Both sat in opposite corners of the cavern in silence for some time.

Then they heard the murmuring of ebu gogo as they came through the caves towards the cavern where they were being kept. The ebu gogo entered the small cavern and placed Linda and Christa on the ground.

The leader was with them, sitting again on top of her little elephant. She commanded something in the ebu gogo language and some ebu gogo with stone knives approached the two passed-out women and cut the clothes from their bodies. Then, the ebu gogo crawled all over them. When the ebu gogo touched Christa’s perky, teardrop shaped breasts and Linda’s full breasts with their little hands they said, “Bee-bee. Ne bee-bee, ne.” And when they poked Christa’s and Linda’s vaginas through their brown and blond bushes with their little fingers they shook their heads and said, “Coo-coo. Ne coo-coo, ne.”

Then when they were done the ebu gogo stepped back and the leader said, “Doh tahr shaks.”

Martin cried, “Ne, shaks, ne.”

The leader looked at Martin and then at the ebu gogo and repeated, “Ne shaks, ne.”

The leader turned and rode her elephant from the cavern and the rest of the ebu gogo followed her, taking the cut up clothes with them.

Amber was so shocked that she momentarily forgot that she was disgusted with Martin. She said, “How… How… You know their language?”

“No.”

“Then… then how did you know to say that?”

“By listening to them and picking up things from context. You… you’re looking at me in disbelief. You can’t do that?”

“N… No.”

Martin gave Amber a pleading look and said, “When Linda and Christa wake up don’t… don’t tell them about what I did.”

“I… I can’t promise that.”

“Please. I am ashamed of what I have done. I want to put it in my past. If you tell them, I will never be able to put it behind me. I will have to live with it for the rest of my life. Please let me put it behind me.”

Amber looked at Martin and suddenly felt very sorry for him. She said, “OK. I promise on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“That you never, ever have sex with an ebu gogo again.”

“I am disgusted with myself because of what I have done. I promise. I will never have sex with an ebu gogo again.”

Chief Bononbun of the Keo people stood at the edge of the pier watching the small boat approach. A little over a month ago, he had never seen a white person before. But then Linda and her people arrived. They were so sophisticated, and Bononbun was embarrassed because of his simple nature. Before she left to go into the jungle, Linda had told Bononbun that more white people would be arriving shortly, so he set himself to the task of learning proper English, so that he would not have to communicate with them in the pidgin language that was the only English he knew.

Once the seven white people were all on the dock, well actually one of them wasn’t white but looked sort of yellow-brown, Bononbun approached to greet them. He had spent all morning having the women of the village work on his kinky hair, so that now it stuck out in all directions like a crown of feathers. He had put a fresh, newly bleached bone through his pierced septum, and the piece of coarse cloth tied around his waist with a leather string was also brand new. He wore a necklace of human teeth that an ancestor of his eight generations removed had taken from the mouths of his enemies. Modern Keo didn’t have enemies to kill and eat like their ancestors did, and that necklace, a relic from the old days of cannibalism, was among his most treasured possessions.