Fire Licked by Anna Sanders

 
    DRUMBEATS PENETRATED THE HEART OF the jungle, rippling throughout the trees and echoing off the mountains. Beneath the canopy of trees was a vast clearing inhabited by a village. The setup of homes and vans looked very temporary. And the vehicles and tents completely contradicted the ancient ritual taking place there amongst the terrain.
    Bandits. Animal folk. In the midst of a very rare recreation.
    Men were bare-chested, their faces painted, some hidden by masks. Women were clad in age-old dresses made of barely any cloth, their bodies also gleaming with multicolored make up. They danced together to the percussion. Jumping over bonfires and undulating as their hands lifted to the sky, chanting and uttering piercing cries and lilts.
    The only ones who remained still were the chief and three ladies beside him. The chief was regal in his high-backed wooden throne, his garb of the highest caliber. The women beside him all wore long white robes with varicolored necklaces of shells and beads. Their heads hang toward the ground as the festivities continued about them.
    Songs and tongues grew louder when a tent opened and a large man emerged. He wore only a grass skirt and a bone wreath that covered most of his face and head. His staff was decorated with rattles and chains. He shook it menacingly and walked directly to the leader of the tribe.
    “Alpha, the heavens have given me the gift of sight. They have opened and shown me the tide to come.” His voice boomed over the continued vocalizations. “In order to appease the Land Gods, we must send them a willing offering.”

    The pack grew frenzied with his news. The dancing became more elaborate, the drums quicker, the bodies twisting in arrays of colorful flesh.
    The priest held up his staff, shaking it in a design toward the sky. “I have been given the power to choose for them. I will do so now, at your direction.”

    The alpha nodded quickly.
    The priest waved his staff dramatically and the people stopped and stared, silence instantaneous among them.
    All that made a sound was the rattles, chiming almost bell like in echoes. The priest shook them faster and faster. He swung them around his head, toward the surrounding crowd and then to the alpha. He approached the altar slowly with his staff before him. The closer he got to the three women the more his body convulsed. Soon he was foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling in the back of his skull, intoning in a garbled mess. Still he walked on.
    When he was three feet from the women with their downcast heads, he let out a loud shout and fell in spasms to the ground.
    Again, all was still. Then, from the pile of crumbled man, the staff pointed directly to the woman in the middle.
    “You!” His voice had changed to a menacing roar. “Your path to Cherufe starts now!”
    IT WAS KNOWN AS THE 2011 Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption. And it would be unforgettable.
    June fourth. Inhabitants around the Southern Hemisphere watched with heavy emotion as ash clouds spread across the skyline. Many cities were forced to evacuate due to an impending complex volcanic explosion. Hundreds of international and domestic flights were canceled, causing traveling chaos and wide panic. As many as 3,500 civilians were evacuated.
    An estimation of one hundred million tons of ash, pumice and sand were ejected into the tropical air with the power of seventy atomic bombs. The only people who stuck around were news casters eager to make their mark on the historic event, and even then, they kept their distance and took specific health measures. Only the brave remained.
    Well, them and Isidora.
    Puyehue National Park, located in the Andes of Ranco Province, Chile, was unrecognizable amongst the layers of mayhem.
    Isidora was in on the coast line of Puyehue Lake. The air was so bloated that her lungs struggled. As a bandit, she was able to better endure, but there was no telling for how much longer. She was covered with soot and her sacramental garb