Watch me write here: https://youtu.be/HpB7RBNf0r0

He was high, ordering food and stacking the lunch boxes on the kitchen sink, watching podcasts, playing video games, and eating again, just like the previous two weeks. It wasn’t until that one moment when he glared out the window, that he was ripped out of his utopia. 

He saw the green crowns of the trees next to his dorm, which reminded him of the green ‘desert’, he called it, which was the view he imagined he would get if he saw the jungle from above. Just like the sea or the desert are an endless scenery of blue and brown, so the jungle would be green until where the sun touched the horizon. A view he romanticized since he was a kid.

He never understood why, however, the fantasy that danced before him, that lured him, like a nixie to the water, was a sort of intimacy with the forest. He daydreamed of what it would feel like to be deep in it, in no man’s land, with the beings and spirits that resided there. To hear the silence that reigned over regions, despite being filled with countless heartbeats. Prey and their predators. The tension. The thrill of the hunt. Even the plants seem to know you’re there. 

The stillness would be penetrated by brave songs and calls of animals whether out of loneliness or malice, the air brimming with pheromones, pollen, and spores, and he would be standing or laying there, in the middle of it all, as a part of it. Like a log floating in a river, he’d feel it wash over him. One with his surroundings and one with himself. 

At the peak of this fantasy stood something mightier, something, that encompassed all of it. He couldn’t put his finger on it, maybe he didn’t dare to. As the scientist he aspired to be, he’d feel silly. However, he felt drawn precisely by that all-encompassing presence. He felt aroused by it. He wanted to become one with it. A longing he could never explain but always felt. A longing intensified by the unpredictability, irrationality and underlying fear of it.

The wildest, most diverse, most divine forest, he could think of, was the Amazon. For years it was his dream to travel there, ever since he had heard of it, and anytime he’d look out the window he tried to figure out which way he had to look so that he would be looking in its direction.

He might have been six or seven, when he first heard of it, carrying that memory with him up to this day, of having a conversation with his father about the Amazon. 

“This is my dream, I will go there one day… no matter the cost.”

“It’s very dangerous,” Elmer replied, “you’d die before the first sunset.” 

“I don’t care, I will find a way,” Shawn showed no sign of compromising.

“Everything wants to eat you there. Insects, predators… even people.” This is where Shawn’s memory ends, however, in reality, Elmer said more, which Shawn didn’t know he suppressed, “I don’t want to loose you Shawn, that would break my heart.”

Continuing the memory, Shawn thought of a way to keep the insects out, because he indeed disliked the idea of blood-sucking aliens.

“I’ll wear an astronauts suit if I have to, but I’ll find a way there,” he proclaimed. 

Anytime this memory came to his mind, he felt proud, for already at that age, he had the resolve to go against the current. 

He snapped out of his daydream, as he glared out the window, high as he was, he felt two luminescent, purple eyes penetrating him. His heart skipped a beat, and the drums of the demons that never left, reverberated in him. The wish, in the heart of his heart, has manifested inside him and expressed itself. Goosebumps washed over him, but… what if I die there? Unaware the weed paranoia was hitting him hard. What if I get lost? What if our plane crashes? Do I just leave Will alone? 

“Will…,” Shawn remembered his little brother, thinking of how Will would eventually grow up — what kind of person will he be?— trying to put himself in Will’s shoes, he couldn’t help but think what Will would think of him one day. Was he a good big brother? Was he a good role model? What would Will think of his fear and indecisiveness in this very moment? 

What he knew for sure was, that he wanted Will to live out his dreams, no matter how dangerous or ridiculous they might appear. He saw it in his peers, what happens to people that crumble before a challenge. He has heard the podcasts and the lectures, talking about how fear can crush souls, and how it is passed from generation to generation, decreasing the fitness of individuals by crippling their immune system and day-by-day shrinking the world they dare to exist in, and in the end, they would die, struck by disease or hunted down.

In Shawn’s mind, there were only two options he had. 

One, he would stay at home. True, he would avoid potential threats and danger, and yes, he wouldn’t have to bear the guilt for leaving his family in a sticky situation, but… what good could I do? How could I actually help? As far as he was concerned, love and awareness would definitely soothe the symptoms, but not solve the root of the problem, which was brewing for many years, and everyone knew it, or at least felt it.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to go the Amazon back then, because I wanted to be here for you…” Shawn imagined what that conversation would look like. Deep inside, as he played that scene is his mind, he felt the cowardice of that statement, using his younger brother as an excuse for not pursuing his own dreams. He couldn’t do that to him, he loved him too much.

Two, he goes to the Amazon, he deals with what comes his way, and hopefully, one day he would be able to stand before Will and explain to him, why that was so important, and that he should make the same decision if it came to it. 

Thinking about his little brother and the role model he wants to be, Shawn knew he had found his answer. However, he was still fearful of the thought that sprouted in him. Fearful of forming it, fearful of thinking it into existence, for then it would be thought, and then he had to live under its curse. 

He looked for the last little drop of determination, the reason that would seal the deal. He imagined the person he would want to be one day. Fearless, tall, strong, standing in front of his family and his friends, the person who, without a doubt, takes up his sword to protect the people he loved most. He hated the crippling feeling of fear and powerlessness, that he felt in this very moment. Fuck this, I’d rather die than sit and contemplate my entire life.

He balled his fists and thought the curse into existence. I am going. In an instant he could hear the demons laugh over his shoulder, “Look at him, hehe, brave one isn’t he? Brave he is. But live he will not. Die he will, the cockroach, hehe.” The demon nodded even more frantically than usual.

“Cockroaches don’t die, you idiot,” the eldest demon replied, clearly disturbed.

However, just because he said it, his fear nor his doubts had not vanished, in fact, they began to knock even louder. 

Please don’t let me die. I need to see them. We must be a family again. Until everything is as it used to be. Please.

The eldest demon leaned over his shoulder. With a big and disgusting grin, he slowly whispered into his ear, “It will never be what it used to be,” he took hold of the blade in Shawn’s heart, gave it a good twist, then added, “And you know it.” 

He felt the doubts and fears swelling, the demons perched on his shoulder, smiling, waiting for the moment he crumbles. But with a sudden anger, he said aloud “Oh yeah? Watch this, stupid voices,” he sent a short email to Pat, “I’m in.”

“Oh, and by the way, we are going to be a family again, if it is the last thing I do.”