Published: 2025-10-13

Martha opened her eyes to the green of the forest and the blue of the sky; it was hot, and mosquitoes feasted on the sweet nectar underneath her skin. Her back touched the soil, and the irregularities of the terrain made her spine hurt. Her head felt heavy, as if someone had hit her with a baseball bat. She sat down for a moment, and her head started to spin. She held her back with both hands and took a deep breath; the world came to a stop. Tall tropical trees and vines surrounded her. Birds and insects populated trees and bushes, singing and chirping unpreoccupied. Martha’s head panned from left to right, looking at the scenery with curious eyes. “Toto, I think we’re not in Kansas anymore.” She said.

Martha pinched herself in the forearm as hard as she could; her black skin remained the same color, as if unbothered by the aggression. Martha, however, didn’t wake up. It was not a dream. “But how came this to be?” She thought. A sensible thought. One minute she was teaching Linguistics 101 in New Town University, and the next minute she was in an unknown tropical land and could not remember how she got there.

The thickness of the forest seemed to extend in every direction; marching aimlessly could mean death. “OK, calm down. First, let’s assess the situation. Situation: lost in a foreign land. Now, the available resources. Let’s see.” Martha started feeling the pockets of her cargo pants. A knife, a lantern, and a cellphone were among the things she could find. She tried calling 911 but was met with the beeping sound of a cellphone without signal. “No surprise.” She thought.

Next on Martha’s priority list was to determine the time of the day and cardinal direction. “I need to see the Sun.” She thought. But the big star was imperceptible in the forest, except for the few rays of sunlight that seeped through the thick foliage. Martha’s options were to leave the forest, which she could not do until she knew in what direction to head, or climb a tree, hoping to get a better view of the landscape. Feasibility dictated the correct answer, and Martha prepared to climb the tallest tree in sight. She was no survivalist; the prospect of climbing a 50-foot giant was not appealing to her, but the idea of spending the night in a tropical forest was even less so.

She hugged the tree and tried to propel herself up but she kept sliding down; the method proved inefficient. Next she tried sticking the knife into the trunk to support her weight, but that too resulted in failure after trying to take the knife out and climb at the same time.

Martha was frustrated and scared; time was not a luxury she could afford. That’s when she remembered something she saw in a movie: you could use a rope to support your weight as you climb the tree. The problem was that she had no rope. She looked around and found her answer descend from above as if it were a gift from the heavens: vines. She cut vines with the knife and weaved them together to make it stronger. The result was a strong rope woven like a braid. “I’m no Boy Scout, but my days playing Barbie were not entirely wasted.”

Martha had climbed at least 25 meters, using the rope to propel herself. Her biceps ached and her thighs shook, but she knew she shouldn’t stop until she saw the Sun. She took a deep breath and, using all her strength, propelled herself up again. He faltered and plummeted down as a result. She looked down as acceleration increased, a large branch sprawled to her right; she would miss it. She tightened her grasp of the rope and shifted her body weight to the right. Now she couldn’t miss the branch; on the contrary, she was en route to a collision. The thick branch met her tailbone, and Martha grunted in pain. Her eyes bulged as she gritted her teeth; her mouth was starting to foam, but she wouldn’t let go of the rope.

At 20 feet high, Martha couldn’t see the Sun; her efforts had been wasted. Or so she thought, as she sat resting her back against the tree’s trunk. “The sea,” she said, “I can see the sea.” The branch Martha sat in pointed straight to the sea. Martha slid down the tree, using the braided rope to reduce speed and break her fall.

She looked up, trying to pinpoint the exact location of the branch. A moment later, she was on his way.

A myriad of thoughts raced through Martha’s head. “Where there’s the sea, there’s civilization. Fishing and hunting, transportation, five-star resorts. Whatever it is, here I go.”

Despite the constant zigzagging due to trees getting in her way, Martha tried to walk in a straight line; the last thing she wanted to do was lose her way. A tree blocked Martha’s way. She stopped. Not because she couldn’t walk around it, but because she couldn’t believe what lay in front of her eyes. Decorated with round, yellow fruit, the guava tree reminded her of a Christmas tree adorned with baubles. She hadn’t realized until that moment, but she was starving; climbing 25 feet had left her exhausted. She filled the pockets of her cargo shorts with the fruit while eating some right away.

The thickness of the forest dissipated and Martha found herself looking at the sea, but the sea was not what captivated her attention. “People!” She said as she ran towards the men that fished with nets and harpoons.

“Excuse me, could you please tell me the—” The men, startled turned their harpoons to her.

Martha raised her hands and started backing up. “Whoa, I mean no trouble. I just want to know where I am.”

The men shouted at her in a foreign language while still pointing their harpoons. Martha’s eyes got as big as plates. She said some words to the men, and they lowered their harpoons. She kept talking to them, and as the men talked to her, Martha’s face became paler and paler. She shook her head in denial of what they said, then she took a look at the land and realized they were right.

Martha took a couple of guavas out of her pockets and offered them to the men. “A gift for you.” She said in the men’s language.

In New Town University a young professor taught History 101. “Among the many gods the natives of this land worshiped was Matua, a black God that had the power of creating food from his thighs. A depiction of her can be appreciated in page 114.”

“Isn’t she wearing cargo pants?” Asked one of the students.

THE END.