For the Records of the Empyrean Trading Company / Dated 18-- / From the Journals And Notations of Dean Caliban (Civilian Attache to the 71st Company Rifles, Formerly Journalist and Writer Of Fiction for The Koon Canon Literary Magazine, Resident of City London, Posted In the Inner Station, Currently Presumed Dead or Missing)
The Works & Writings of Mr. Caliban are in NO WAY to Be Treated as Works of Fact or Actuality. Mr. Caliban is Known to Have Been A Heavy abuser of lithium AMONG OTHER SUBSTANCES FOUND AND CULTIVATED IN THE JUNGLE ENVIRON HE WAS POSTED IN and is also a Known Liberal Artist of Sedititous & Insalubrious Writings. HANDLE WITH CAUTION AND SKEPTICISM.
Annotations have been Made By Various Agents and Servicemen of the Company Throughout.
And The Jungle Was Greygreen All Around Me
Prose By Dean Caliban
Ive been here in this greygreenblueyellowwildwild jungle fiftysixty days (dont know) and its closing in allthetime around me jungle come crash crash crash and when I say to the soldiers (big men short men angry men sad men all in samesame clothes and samesame guns) they laugh big laugh and tell me you cant look at the jungle tootoo long or it gets to you and maybe it has got to me because when I sleep Im still in this jungle but back home when I sleep I could go anywhere but not here is all jungle jungle jangala and Im sick of it. Sometimes when Im out with the patrols we see eyes and skins and bodies in the jungle hunting after us with long spears of snaggletoothed bone and rock and when we shoot bang-bang theyre gone and its just us and the smoke bang-bang. Other times we find bodies with no skin that dont chase us dont run about us mocking us just hang hang hang hang hang with no skins at all REFERENCES TO THE SKINLESS CORPSES OF NATIVES FOUND IN THE TERRITORY AROUND THE INNER STATION ARE NOT TO BE SENSATIONALISED LIKE THIS and always always always we know the word the natives say about them but we never say it when did I go so far from London-city I dont even remember. Yesterday or today I met a local man who was friendly as local men are to us and he told me in stuttery slow words about how one time others like us had come but they had gone too far into the jungle and suddenly they were part of the jungle too like it had always been and that that had happened to them and would happen to us too and that noone would go home ever someday. I think hes right because I dont want to leave any more I just want to stay and look at the ants the ants that crawl everyplace and everyspace just crawl crawl crawl crawl a week back we found a new native site in a hole in the ground and ten men went in and no men came back out only ants and noone else went in there. NO RECORD OF THIS APPEARED IN THE DAY TO DAY REPORTS FROM THE INNER STATION - PROBABLY A FICTION Theres five ironclads in the air four small one big and yet everyone say they going to go crashland because nothing stays in the air for long here like the science of the place doesnt make the same sense as it does in our world and I wonder if maybe the science of the head is different here like the science of the gravity because here when you go into the jungle you stay in the jungle awake asleep awake asleep tripping mindless and floaty on crushed pills and powders and whatsoever hold you you are always always in the jungle and I cannot day dream any longer because all my day dreams are in this jungle PHYSICIANS STATE SOMETHING SIMILAR IN MORE RECENT REPORTS OF SOLDIERS' WELLBEING - Mr. CALIBAN'S CASE SEEMS A LITTLE EXAGGERATED HOWEVER and Im tired tired tired. We are intruders and we will be swallowed whole our minds and bodies all wrapped in vines and bark and ants and we will become as native as the dark skinned loping jaguarsnake people who run and hide and run and hide and cut us down in sneaksneak quick ambush in this jungle.
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