Ines

History

• When she was very small her parents were good; they were influential doctors who traveled town to town from their gilded white castle in the city. Everything was great, they had food on their table - a roof over their head and everything or anything a child could ask for. Better off than most whom they visited, yet like most fairytales things also were prone to change. Something within her parents had changed, they became bitter and fed up with the system that was in place. Blaming everything on how western civilization and the 1% rich cared not for the issues of the lower class. Whom were riddled not by their economic scarcity and deprivation to luxury but by the common issuance of violence and intimidation of the cartels. Thus her family over time had sold all their possessions; trying to play it off as something they had to do. They had to sell their home, their cars, their televisions and give the money to the rebellion. But the rebellion against what? Oppression. Yet was this a good enough reason to thrash the life you once knew? They thought so as they took their small daughter and son in to the rainforests. Pretending it was a game at first, trying to indoctrinate them with out the knowledge of any family members, the government or any one to be frank. Who would miss someone at school? no one, kids dropped out all the time - people moved and that is what was just assumed. They moved on to a nicer town, got a nicer house, nicer jobs and the like. ....In to the Belly. The rain forest was hell. A beautiful, steamy hell that they escaped their so called oppression in with hundreds if not thousands of other brainless bees. Her parents still kept up with their education but attempted so valiantly to brainwash them just as they were. Diego - Ines' elder brother didn't buy it, not even for the bit as he bemoaned his fate and every time they passed in to a town he would pass letters to some far off country. Places that she could only imagine in her unrestful sleep on the wing of a toucan or in a fancy car. Anything was better than where they were. It was at a younger age; right as she began to hit puberty did she learn of her inclinations. The shift was scary, horrible and confusing. Leaving her rife with questions to which her mother and father would look between one another and deny all information - leaving behind the sorcery of their blood and of what was once revered. They were all but completely gone to the thrall of a powerhungry man. Still she questioned and within the group, a sneaky sabetour by any other name with a wrinkled crones smile and a mean left palm. She related to the youth on the history of the Mayans, their believes that caused great stone monuments to grow and be over taken by the flora once more. Once Ines had felt far more comfortable with the woman than any other, sans her own brother. Everything tumbled out and she would smile and nod with her arms crossed beneath saggy breasts. ' You are a Nahtual.' finally an answer to her sinful experience. 'there is nothing wrong with it infact it is either celebrated or feared. it is better to be feared than to be popular at least people won't take advantage of you' she added in with a spit and a sigh, settling in to those old bones. Ines wondered why she was there, as if she was sent there by some mystic intervention to give her what she had needed. With encouragement from this stranger; from her brother; from some kind of dogged will of self-preservation. Ines continued to hone her abilities or at least the transformations of her new found form. Finding that once she had found comfort and more peace with the jungle the more it had opened up to her; that no longer was it an oppressive jungle but a labyrinth with secrets teeming at its center. Each time she had taken to practicing this arcane, forgotten art had become natural. No longer confusing nor painful; it was like donning a familiar coat of inky fur and claw. .......Urban Spirituality. Time away from the soft embrace of civilization can change you; for the better or for the worse. From these collection of personal victories and conflicts sown from the immaturity of men. Ines grew. From an awkward girl who sought nothing more than some kind of normalcy in her life to the utmost need to survive until the next day. The next, the next the next. Fending off the daunting advances of men far older than she, the sneers of others who questioned just as to why the girl periodically disappear. Think what they want - nothing could have quenched her fire within as thoughts slipped away from practicing how to knife a man, from cooking and work that would ease the burden of the campaign. Meanwhile her brother, sought means to bear them away from that life through ferreting out relatives who had been pushed away by their parents. The only one who believed them or him really to be alive, holding on to that glimmer was their spinster of an aunt who found residence in party capital of Brazil. Now that aunt's life was no better than theirs; living in the apartment slums in the heat of downtown. But it was better than the lurid eyes of humanity in a jungle. Between a period of six months to a year her brother was exchanging communication in any way and means possible with the aunt. Skirting around the chain of command in languages that were barely there whispers and scratchings on the trunks of trees. All while, Ines learned as much as she could about her affliction or what was known; all while attempting to survive. If not by physical means then mentally. Years in the jungle had made them skittish of their fellow man; civilization and modern amenities.