First, it shows you its blood.
Blood.
The murk goes up to your upper shins, just shy of your knees, sloshing. It’s opaque, making your legs completely disappear once submerged, reappearing when you drag them back up with each trudge forwards, each foot parting its way through the resistance of the sludge. When it meets air, the mud sloughs off, but leaves sediments of its affection clinging to your skin.
You feel as if the incessant whir of the cicadas grows louder the further you wade, but you’re sure that you don't sense any signs of life aside from the endless mangrove. The water is unusually still—not a single ripple in the epidermis caused by a pond strider, nor the whines of mosquitos darting by your ears. The hum you hear isn't coming from any direction in particular, but the noise feels right, like it was always supposed to be there. You’ll come to realize that those whispers were your first warning. There was just you, the constant droning, the trees, and the bog.
Then, it shows you its breath.
The heat. The weight of it. Hugging, practically crushing you—wrath, maybe, or perhaps love. You lift your gaze through heavy eyelids, watching as the trees in the distance appear to distort from the heat in the air, pulsing and churning in tandem with the pounding of your head. They look more alive than ever like this.
It reminds you of this fable, a match between the sun and the wind. The wind was furious as, despite its efforts, it failed to blow the traveler’s cloak off. Wrath. Then there was the sun, beaming down with love—right, it was love after all. The sun’s love always wins.
As far as you can tell, the water was hardly moving, only disturbed by your presence. Yet, you expected the swamp water to bubble and steam up, to boil you like an ingredient in the primordial soup. You fought the urge to kneel down into the ooze and curl into yourself like a fetus in utero, letting the swamp cradle you, preserving you in mud. Even if it drowned you, you figure, you’d eventually rise from those same waters again. Samsara.
Your sweat drips into the bog water, the natural cycle of things. Maybe you were, in a way, becoming one with the swamp.
Then, it shows you its veins.
You falter when your bare foot sticks to the muck.1 With a sticky hand, you brace yourself on the twisting roots of a mangrove. If there was any kind of tree that was holding secrets deep within, it would be the mangrove, you decide.
You heard stories before, by mouth, of forest spirits. Beings that eternally inhabit the depths of the woods, protective of their grounds. You pity them—after all, they used to be human, but when faced with the consequences of their kleshas,2 they became forever stuck in a cycle of craving and suffering. You know that they won't speak to you directly, but they will make it clear whether you are allowed to trespass through their domain, or whether you are just an unwelcome nuisance. Certainly, they are watching you now.
Veins.
The thick clumps of wooden root intertwine, practically forming walkable terrain, platforming above the water. Raising your head to the tree you held onto for balance, you shut your eyes, put your hands together and ask for permission from the dwellers of the forest. You were exhausted from wading through the heavy waters, so it would be of your utmost appreciation if the spirits were to allow you to tread your lowly feet on their roots that they splendidly laid out for you. Of course, you add, you did not mean any disrespect by it whatsoever.
One by one, you lift up your heavy legs out of the sludge, the water there turning an even murkier shade of gray as the dust and sediment bloomed up after the disturbance you caused. Drops of water fling from your emerging limbs and wet the bark, darkening it.
Wrath, this time.
As you walk on the surface, you quickly find out that the heat is that much more unbearable than when you were just trudging in the water.
If the wind exhales a tender breeze when it is full of love, then blows a powerful storm when it is angry, what does the sun do when the gentle embrace of love is no longer a choice?
And then you start to imagine things. For instance, ripping out the hair from your scalp to cool down, or perhaps shedding your skin as if you were a monitor lizard. The heat is your second warning.
And you wade through the swamp once again.
Then, it shows you its heart.
Heart.
The oasis, that is. It feels too good to be true. Behind a weaving curtain of trunk and root, you find a serene pool of blue, the complete inverse of the thick mud you just traversed. Freshwater so limpid, you can see the grains of sediment collecting at its bed—the belly of the beast. The aquamarine hue seems to be a part of the liquid’s essence, as it does not even match the color of the sky. The way you see it, it was a shimmering jade enveloped by molten slurry, and you knew better than to trust it.3 If you had any doubts about it previously, you were now absolutely certain that the swamp was watching you.
But, by the heavens, were you thirsty…
Your throat has the texture of crumbling chalk, the only liquid that had grazed your lips since your arrival being beads of your own sweat. Of course, you ruled out the possibility of drinking from the murk long ago.
So you haul yourself out of the bog again. Now on your knees, peering into the pristine aqua, palm to palm, with your forehead pressed to the ground, you beg for permission the same way you did before. This time, though, it's more of a favor. But what do you have to offer? They aren’t giving away favors for nothing, damnit. Didn’t mother and father teach you manners?
You. It’s you, the essence of your soul, that is the only thing you could possibly exchange. Are you willing to give it up?
No!
You need just one sip of water. This much water is barely anything—this—this was for survival, you plead, surely the spirits are compassionate. You aren’t a greedy person, you don’t intend to take more than necessary—
Then get lost.
But you swear you’ll make it up with good deeds! Outweigh the bad karma with the good.
Do you ever listen?
You lift your head up. That’s right, you’ve come this far, you should’ve at least known that it was pointless—disrespectful—to barter with them. Like prey negotiating with predator. But, you protest, you don’t want to die. That can’t possibly be a sin—
Moha.
Rakha.
Tohsa.4
—is what you tell yourself as you fold over the edge, hands plunging into the cool blessed water. You cup it, lift it up to your face, lap at it like a dog. You brim with vigor, your self-control slipping as you resist the urge to plunge your entire body into the pristine freshwater.
Lastly, it shows you its—
—bones, drifting into the corner of your peripheral vision, gently carried by the stream. Flesh, underneath the surface of the water, sticking to bone. A rotting body, left to the wrath of the elements.
There was duality. First, the virgin cerulean waters, tainted and corrupted by rot. Second, the preservation of meat below the waterline, while everything above it had worn away to bleached bone. Its colors remind you of a mangosteen—blackish-purple frayed skin, distended over red, moist flesh, followed by milky bone. There was hair that sat on the surface, thinning further up where the whites of the skull peeked through. At the base of the exposed ribs was the boundary of separation, where the internals of the bloated torso were exposed, pigmented with all the wrong shades. Its pruned entrails bobbed in the debauched water, coated in a thick syrupy muck, black in color, like crude oil.
Beads of liquid gold drip down your slack open jaw and spill out between your paws, sprinkling onto the pool’s surface. Your throat burns again, not from dehydration this time, but from the acid creeping its way up your stomach, mixed in with the holy liquid you just ingested. Regurgitating. Returning things back to where they belong.
Frozen in place and clutching your stomach, you watch the water drag the carcass closer to you. It wants to show you.
It’s your blue, bloated face that you see being carried to you.
The final warning. You really don’t listen, after all.
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