Pierson McAnderson was killing time …waiting to be rescued …trapped behind a rock-slide in a sandy tidal cave – lit with the haloing ambery-blue of watery prisms as he aimlessly surveys the retreating beachhead …whiling the time painting little bits of confetti, cut-out from photos, and making movies with a little still camera (animations), …of rounded alluvial pebbles and pieces of amber, or shell-grit and fibre meticulously set into the crumbling walls that backed onto the gloom of twilight ripples, and pausing only to dine, on elaborate banquets of crab garnished with florets of kelp, and minnows caught in cupped hands …becoming steadily more and more frantic over what he should do…

[Later – I was being buried alive – I decide that his name is not Pierson McAnderson at all, but rather ….Andreas Saint Masculinity…]

I am lying, eyes closed and arms crossed on my chest, in a shallow, sandy grave at the centre of a dome-like cave, some metres around. The entrance, a low, ragged archway, frames a bright patch of intense daylight.

Several impressive individuals, ancient warrior types, wearing metal breastplates, their thick, muddy hair adorned with long, curved feathers and small hollow ornaments of beaten metal, tied in with tatters of coloured fabric, silently oversee my interment.

Around the walls, leaning at intervals, in the powdery sand, firebrands of wrapped vine, dipped in tree-sap and pitchblende, throw a dismal smoky light into the ceiling.

A thin, ropy man, of lower caste, shovels black, silty soil across my legs and torso.

My prospects are not at all good. I am ‘playing dead’ and dare not give myself away. Should they discover me alive, honour, will no doubt require some worse fate befall me. Another ‘white man’, like myself, his shirt stripped away and wrists bound in front, awaits a similar fate.

But, then, …something happens… a detectable change in the orderly motions of the digger, as he scoops up another load of dirt and delivers it short, to the side of my head, lingering for a moment (as though overcome by dust) to insert a precisely placed cough.

The shovel blade cuts deeper, seeking clay. He is trying to help me! …heaping the moister earth to form …a cavity – a small, breathable pocket of air –that, later, I might claw my way free, exhumed through the layers of compacted soil above me.

An elaborate scene condenses, beyond the limits of sight, of the digger as he weaves a deception of considerable expertise. Somewhere, between the practiced nonchalance of his profession, and the expectation of his masters that he will be less than efficient, the important work of building my escape route goes on, undetected. Another clod lands atop the last, finally shielding my face from the onlookers, who must by now fancy that I am in the process of being turned under.

A tiny rivulet of earth trickles down onto my face – and I move my arm, very slightly, in reflex, to protect my eyes, and mouth.

"His hand …moved…!"

"Chop it off...!!"

"No, kill them both!…"

[Meaning, the digger, as well]

The charade is over. My eyes flick open to the iron tip of a spear, swinging down towards me, as a scuffle breaks out in the cramped confines of the cave.

Like an earth-demon, breaking the ground to wreak vengeance for the dead, I launch from the sand, which pours from me in great sheets, snatching at the glint of a knife-handle, dangling from its leather thong.

Inside their reach, the threat from spear-point evaporates, but my shoulder comes up hard against breastplate, with a jarring collision that sends us both to the wall, toppling firebrands in all directions, and sending up a shower of sparks and cinders. My hand closes on the blade, turning it into his thigh, and I scramble from the cave, into blinding sun.

No-one follows. The digger and the other man were both killed.

Fortuitously, I believe they can be revived …later. Because, one of us remains …alive – as a living, breathing ‘imprint’ of the events …to work back from… Otherwise, we would, all three, have been lost forever.

Still waiting for news of the lost man – I stumble onto part of the tribe that dwells along the river. ("…have they seen guy with a beard?…")

Perhaps, I decide, it is I, who am actually Andreas Saint Masculinity…

For a while, I am absorbed into the day to day life of the tribal commune. I have learnt to cook. At nights, they erect huge, and elaborate platforms constructed from vines, swinging from one to another, and lit up by huge, stark fires that burn on to daybreak, and the platforms dismantled.

Somebody had finally showed up, after searching for days – they appeared, crashing headlong from the jungle like a desperate apparition.

But I was not here.

_____________________________

For, when it comes time for the tribe to break camp, and move on, a certain custom is honoured, a ritual – to cleanse and dissipate every sign of their passage, and all that might spring from it – of the feasting and partying, the hunting and storytelling and love-making – as though, to the world, they had simply never been.

And, not only to erase, but to restore, what was, what might have been, or might still be, or might be remembered to have been, through their absence.

To undo, in essence, the entire history within which everything of that interlude was contained.

So, when the young warriors, the women, and the children, all have gathered their belongings and departed, it is the old men – only they could know – who stay behind to come and go in quiet communing with the past, to recall exactly how and when they’d come to be there.

And, when they know and come where to point the spot – a patch of sand, a bend or turning in the stream …or a scattering of stones – then shall one declare…

"Here …is where it was begun and …when…"

And, at that …intersection – the junction where from which, it might be said, some ripple of their actions first departed – a bridge is there and then created, to the present, by which the tribe may cross.

And now, is everything restored. That before, is as it was, and of hereafter, as it would have been. But, all which lies between, as a bubble from which nothing can escape – is cut loose from the world, to drift.

The past, is now abandoned empty, its footprints in the ashes, of cups so briefly flowed and now farewell, arrows lost and fallen, warnings once believed are heeded, stories with their endings now received, are these faint and scattered keepsakes, now the leaves that float between the ever-widening banks of river; free to eddy back …in the swirling endless estuary of affairs.

Onwards – slowly losing ground …the ‘warriors’ were back. The tribe mysteriously vanished, and I am left where I began.

The jungle has yielded once more to pampas, and higher …a desolate plateau and flat, empty sky.

Somewhere, behind …a relentless, shimmering horizon of pursuers.

I come to the edge of a sandy, crumbling escarpment, and jump… too late? Hugging the wall of sand, just metres below – …not sure ...did they see me?

I’m too near the top ...if they look over ...Must sink ...further down…

Sure enough, faces peer over.

They point, spotting me, a long way off, as I scramble, sliding to the bottom, bringing a scree of pebbles and sand behind me.

_____________________________

Lying in a ditch, trying to dig myself under. [loop to Buried Alive]

There is nowhere else to hide, except beneath the softly yielding sand – cool and inviting. Now, scooping armloads of silt out of the way, in the faint meander of a dry creek bed – as the peaceful, windless heat disintegrates in panic – I begin to fantasise about the 'perfect hole in the ground'...

...Of ...a refuge, its flat wooden cover cleverly heaped with sand, and rocks, and sticks, so that, pulled shut from the inside, the pile would spill across the top, camouflaging it completely.

There, sealed within the quiet of enveloping darkness, the ravages of daylight could pass, scattering above me, like grit across sandstone.

Really, that's what I need.

Probably won't do much good here, though. Sounds more like a …weekend project.