Theme Park at its Darkest

4.

The ayahuasca, a thick, tar-green puree, ran into the glass. I raised it to my lips, held my breath, and attempted to pour it down my throat without inadvertently tasting it. The flavour was like a fist squeezing the base of my tongue.

I swallowed it down, rinsed my mouth and spat into the bucket at the end of my bed. While the first part of the ceremony had passed like a trance, once I sat on my mat I discovered myself to be entirely awake.

The oldest member of the group was Bob, a 59-year old Canadian man who had recently survived a heart attack. He was one of the most annoying – possibly the most annoying – person I’ve met.

He wore nothing but speedos day in, day out and his naked, wizened body set the tone for his characteristic lack of boundaries. You could be sitting on your own drinking a cup of tea and his leathery, questing fingers would be working their way into your shoulders and neck.

He sang a song at the beginning of each ceremony and on the second night, actually made a religious dedication. Then, he would then dance around the malocca in the dark.

The mere sight of him dancing irritated me and, as I watched, two spiders scuttled out from the top right and bottom left of my field of vision and in synchronous action, began to spin a web.

An ordinary spider web looks like an opened cone with the segments of its geometry being more or less triangular. This web was rectangular, like a tapestry and, like a tapestry, featured squares and right rectangles. In this case, they formed an intricate Inca pattern. Bob was out of sight and now, out of mind.

The spiders crossed the malocca and came to sit to my left and right. Each spider was probably three feet high. Up close, they were revealed to be Black Widow spiders. Obsidian in colour, their bodies appeared to be drinking the light and swelling to become bigger and blacker.

“We are your consort, and you are a king,” they said, by way of mental telepathy. “We are here to instruct you.”

They didn’t have names. Names are a human reflex they explained, but they did have distinct personalities. The one on the right was more female and did all of the talking and philosophising. I gravitated toward her but I knew we would fight. The one on the left was a consistent, stable presence, as loyal as a dog.

The malocca was transformed into a throne room and for the next period of what the clock would measure as hours, I was engaged in a long dialogue with the spider on my right about my decision making over the course of my life.

The spider tutored me in terms of what constituted a king’s perspective and how decisions should be made accordingly. I asked about a few things that I already knew were foolish and the spider said, ‘That’s okay. That was before you were a king.’

They made it clear how I had run around pouring hopes into actions and becoming frustrated and distressed when the outcomes differed from my desires.

“You no longer have free will. In place of that, you have duty.”

“But now that I’m a king, I’m fallible. I’m a target.”

“Your fallibility is our problem.”

Why spiders? They explained that they had appeared because they were apex predators.

“You are the king because you are the strongest. The strongest is the one who gives the law. You love your courtiers, they are wonderful and beautiful, but you can’t let them know you love them or they will think they are your equal and will try to depose you.

“They are attracted by what they see as power, which brings privilege and luxury. They don’t understand that your office is about responsibility. Luxury is little more than compensation.”

The spiders were armoured. I didn’t see their fangs or their eyes. Their ‘voices’ seemed to emanate from within the carapace around their heads, which was like the visor of a suit of armour.

At one point, I drifted away into a separate vision, forgotten now, and something in it frightened me. I jolted awake and found that both spiders antennae were twitching. They explained this was because they were essentially slave units and I was the master.

They had attuned their heartbeats to mine so that way, were forewarned of any threat or disturbance. As I was telepathically informed of this fact, their hearts glowed deep within their bodies, shining and turning like orange suns before once again fading to obsidian.

It was a strange feeling; I was bonded to them by more than a little bit of fear.

This entry was posted on September 5, 2018 at 6:52 am and is filed under Ayahuasca with tags Ayahuasca, black widow spider, Canadian, Estacion Kapitari, malocca, speedos, telepathy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.