Arriving at a woman with a shaved head at the front desk of the tourist office. Her wide swing of her hand slapping into mine with a brisk handshake. She said “wait outside for 2 hours. I will be out front”. She walked about muttering various complaints about being a slave and the exploitation of working in the place. I followed her back to the old redwood house painted a lilac blue with magnificent bay windows with mottled glass and white curtains like something out of a romance novel front cover with African slaves fanning the white couple eating grapes in a warm embrace offset by the backdrop of the green misty jungle mountains. We chatted for a while. I dropped my swag and backpack in the spare room with no privacy. A dank storeroom with shoes, old novels and half used fishing gear. Rolling my swag on the floor seemed dangerous as I looked up to see two hand sized orb weaving spiders had positioned themselves in the middle of the ceiling staring right down at me with their black and red legs. I put two coffee tables together and although uneven I could stay off the floor. We chatted some more while the rain began to pour. She was a nice person with a long face that perpetually smoked and drank cider from the bottle. “I just broke up with my boyfriend of two years. Aboriginal guy who is now barred from coming to the house and business, so dont worry although they will see your car and probably ask you if we are fucking.” She was quite forward about it all. We were of similar ages.. I could feel a certain aggressive attraction to her. There was a deep sense of regret and victim mentality that emanated from most of her stories. Even though my stories were harrowing and mostly with terrible endings. I saw her as a reflection of me. For some reason I was brought back to the kitchen one more time, against my best intentions or wishes. It appeared. As if a karmic beast was driving my car to these strange far off places. “I got engaged to a woman once and she got me into homeopathics, I didn’t believe in them. Yet when I took Natrum Murticum I had my whole life turned inside out. I cried like I was pushing a world out of me hallucinating for like 20 seconds that felt like 20 hours." I said, sipping my bottle of non-alcoholic beer. “She burst your bubble. “ She said almost knowing of the ability for a woman to shape a man’s ether through the gut. “Yeh wow. I never thought of it that way.” She had a certain air of knowledge of the deeper things yet always referred to me as needing to meet various people that were conspiracy theorists or mushroom friends that loved exploring the ether. I couldn’t understand if she was wanting to shun me or put me off the scent or play hard to get. I was done with relationships with women after three years of being bullied and manipulated. Strange she was a pro choice person and wasn’t vaccinated which was refreshing. We could talk openly about how people were coerced and forced via mandates or lose your job. I explained the 16 places I lived, the various jobs lost and the border runs I had to do like living in a war zone. “Wow yeh nothing much changed up here.” She said drinking her fifth apple cider and sixth cigarette. “Lets go to the bar,” She said as we both got into our separate cars and drove three kilometers down the road to the PJs bar to meet the locals and be introduced. I was happy she had decided to take me under her wing and for some reason it was simultaneously like I was invisible to another foreigner living in the jungle. The commentary was always how long will it take to break him, Between meeting all the ferrymen, the steam punk hippies and the German backpacker who danced around beautifully like a butterfly flirting and hugging everyone. I just sipped my non-alcoholic beer and watched everyone stumble over each other. This bearded man took a liking to Scorpio. “Hey you need to use it not abuse it. What are you trying to do pegg the ball..” She said to him while attempting to shoot the pool shot that seemed easy. “Well. I am not into getting Pegged but found out what it was the day after I asked to find out.” He said with a deadpan look of seriousness. “Hahaha.!” She laughed and loved the attention as he put in so much effort into flirting and getting her number. I was happy for her and him as she seemed to have needed something to get over her break up with previous boyfriend. I was not fit for the role nor did I feel anything other than a second voice echoing in my head about how I just was lying to myself about living this life. I left the bar by myself after discovering the German beauty was only 21 and we shared a birthday. I saw her getting propositioned by two very ugly men dressed as musicians pretending to be the party animals. They flirted and whispered in her ear. The dark hands of dark thoughts were upon her smiling face willing to go party the night with them back at their house. I saw the naivety and before I could suggest she was aware these men were out for something more than just fun drugs and a party. I turned around to walk out and they all ran to their cars and drove off in front of my car to the jungle. I was nothing and felt like nothing. The scorpio and her new friends' voices could be heard through the thin walls as she had a day off and I had to go to work. I saw his ute in the back yard and felt exonerated to not have to lay pipe for the scorpio and be the rebound. The next day I moved my stuff to the next door and was happy to have an actual room and bed. The kitchen was clean but always open to the elements of dirt and rain. The Argentinian girls had left a heap of containers and glass bottles but not much else and stole all the knives and various other kitchen implements in some form of resentment.

The Scorpio told me her new boyfriend went off for a big fishing trip. “Well I need to test him with my besties. The friends will be the judge of if he is a keeper. I mean he just broke up with his wife and he has two teenage kids.” She said as we sat in the front yard watching the two dogs play with each other. “Sounds like you too get along really well.” I added finishing my beer. We will see after my weekend off.” She was suspicious but looked happy she had sex and something to throw her ex boyfriend off the trail. “Did you hear the German girl just left her job at the pizza place, just disappeared and didn't show up in the morning?” Scorpio said. “Really we'll get propositioned by the two locals to go back to their house the other night?” in my mind I knew she got fucked or propositioned. I could tell what happened. It was one of my curses of head trauma to read into the drama of life that is hidden. “Nah those boys are fine.” She replied assuringly. To which I saw a dark side of jealousy that she was almost happy the locals had done nasty things to her beautiful youthful blonde backpacker from Germany.