Sisimito I--Ox Witz Ha

by Henry W. Anderson

  Many times, as a child, at night near an outdoor fire, the storytellers of the village would relate to us legends of the Jungle Folk, the Kechelaj Komon.113 I didn’t know who believed them. I didn’t. But then I always had a mind of my own. Many times, while still growing up, Na’ and Taat had warned me not to go off into the jungle alone. But the jungle was my home. I wasn’t afraid of my jungle. Sisimito? As a child I was afraid of Sisimito. There were many tales of Sisimito and stories of sightings go far back into my Maya heritage and even the early mahogany cutters had reported seeing the dreaded creature. I could clearly remember Na’ telling me that if I ever met a hairy man on the pikaado,114 I was to show him my hands, but be certain to have my thumbs hidden in my palms or the Sisimito would cut them off. She would always remind me that Sisimito was one of the most evil of the Kechelaj Komon, could assume human form, and I needed to get away from him as quickly as possible. Sisimito would kill me if he wished, and probably would, as he killed villagers of his same gender. She didn’t tell me that he raped women or that a Sisimita would rape men. Na’ did not speak to me of those things and I learned that later in conversations with Bas. Bas always seemed to know a little more than I did about everything. Bas had also told me that I had nothing to fear from Sisimito because Tzultacah115 had taken Sisimito and placed him in dense jungles far away. I had always been skeptical as I had never met any of the Kechelaj Komon; yet, villagers were always telling stories of having met one of them. The frequency of those encounters was startling as almost every month there was a new incident. I didn’t believe the stories then and I certainly didn’t want to believe them at that time, especially that I was a prisoner of the evilest of the Kechelaj Komon, Sisimito. As I mulled over Sisimito, I remembered that Na’ had told me that should I meet him, I should strip naked, jump and dance about. Sisimito would laugh uncontrollably until he fell down unconscious. I was already fokin naked. If Sisimito looked my way, I was ready to jump and dance. I sighed, loudly. Legend was fokin legend. I lived in reality and I had to know what was really happening.

  I turned back and watched as Sisimito reached under the bed and took out a short machete and scabbard and hung it around his waist. I didn’t want him to know that I was watching him so I moved, once again, towards the back of my cage. Was I, as a man, as a soldier, still afraid of him as if I were a child? He was across the cavern and couldn’t reach me without the delay of going from his ledge and crossing to mine. However, unconsciously, I kept moving backwards and was soon halted by the poles at the rear of my cage. I continued to look at Sisimito, the leader of the Kechelaj Komon, who had been a part of my life for so long, but was then finally, making his appearance in a most dramatic, devastating, and wicked way. I was still dazed, wrapped in confusion and disbelief. Yet, I was faced with the realization of who had captured me.

  I heard a faint hissing sound near my left ear and felt a cold presence against my neck and shoulder. I slowly turned my head and looked into the cold eyes of the Bocotora clapansaya as its forked tongue lashed across my face and mouth. I leapt, dragging the hemp rope, and it was only the stakes at the other end of my cage that stopped me. I hit them with a loud crashing sound and shook the entire cage. I swung around, quickly hiding my thumbs under my fingers. I had completely forgotten that I had awakened the evil foka of a snake, but then I was fully aware. The heinous black and yellow head was suspended in the air midway between the front and back of my prison. Its head was moving in an angry frenzy and its long and forked tongue kept lashing out at me from wide open jaws and sharp threatening teeth. Even the individual scales of its head were raised from the skin, in anger. It was only because of its size that it had not reached me as yet, having trouble squeezing its fat body between the poles of my prison. But it kept slowly sliding in, getting closer and closer, its eyes trying to hold mine, trying to scare me into immobility. If I had to, I would fight that foka with my bare hands. I would die fighting it, but I would not allow it to hypnotize me like a scared rat. Then it stopped moving and gazed directly across from me to the other ledge, as if called. It looked back, feasting its eyes on me, making a loud hissing sound as it rapidly pulled air into its throat, making its throat swell to huge proportions. Large hunks of mucoid spittle slammed against my chest. Then it quietly moved away, sliding out of my cage and back into its pile of leaves, then covered with my piss.

  My shoulders sagged and I felt my body slide along the poles to the ground. I fought back tears that were beginning to form as I tried to clean my chest of the nasty gunk. Tears were an emotional expression I was not used to. Tears! I was too tough to cry. Yet, I was crying at everything … that is, since Bas and my men died. I did feel a small sense of victory, knowing that the snake and its nest were full of my piss. However, if I were going to die also, I wanted to die like the soldier I was, even if it were in a strange land beyond the frontiers of friendship.116 In the world I was in I had no friends, but there was Molly Cervantez. I would have to help her. I would make that my mission. That would be the order given to me by my commander: “Save Molly Cervantez!” Hopefully, that command would make me live.

  I felt tired and cold. I lay on the ground, brought my knees up to my chest and placed my hands between my thighs where the thumbs were hidden. My cage smelled of piss. I smelled of piss. I smelled of snake spit. I closed my eyes, breathed quietly, concentrated on my breathing and soon fell into a light sleep, always aware of the stones cutting into my skin, the subtle movements of the snake in the leaves, and the fact that I was Sisimito’s prisoner.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and my reaction was immediate. I pulled my hands from between my legs and grabbed at the arm that had touched me. I would have broken it had I not heard her voice, the voice of Molly Cervantez.

  “It’s me,” she cried out in pain. I immediately relaxed my hold. “Your thumbs! Hide them.” I quickly shoved my hands between my legs, hiding my thumbs and covering Tóolok.

  “Don’t do that again, Molly. I’m trained to kill and I’m ready to kill to get out of here. Next time, call to me … or, if you can, kick me on the rump.”

  She shook her head as she sat down beside me, separated by the wooden stakes. She kept looking at me straight in my eyes and I wondered at that until I realized that she was probably embarrassed by my nakedness. That, however, was the least of my concerns at that moment. “I have brought you some fruit and a gourd of water. Try to make them last as I don’t know when he’ll allow me to bring more. There’s Gwaava,117 tambran,118 and maami.119”

  The fruit were in a dried half kalbash120 and we had to remove them in order to pass them through the narrow spaces of the cage. The gourd with water was a tall and narrow one and that came through the bars without any difficulty. I drank several mouthfuls, immediately, and started to eat one of the gwaavas.

  “Have you seen my clothes, any of my equipment?” I asked.

  “Yes. They are in his special room. I am not sure what all is there, but last night, after they brought you in and undressed you, I saw them put some stuff in there.”

  “Special room?”

  “There is a fairly large hole in the wall further down the cave where he puts things. I call it his special room.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He told me never to go in there. I haven’t.”

  “He talks to you?”

  “Yes … no. He communicates with me without making sounds. I just know what he is telling me even though I haven’t heard him speak. I suppose it’s the same way he communicates with the animals. He has told me he wants me to teach him to talk. He once said, ‘Children are too frightened and waste my time’. Do you think he kidnaps children too?”

  “The legends say he does. You said they brought me in. Are there more than one of them?”

  “He and his Black Howler Monkeys,”121 she answered, still staring at my eyes.

  “Baboons!”122 I exclaimed.

  “They’re actually Black Howler Monkeys!”

  “I know. I know.” I responded, sharpl
y, wondering why the fok she’d be worried about the name of an animal when we were in deep shit. “I assure you I won’t call them baboons again,” I added, haughtily. She kept looking directly at my eyes, nowhere else, and even with all the problems, the unknown difficulties facing me, us, I had to smile. “Listen,” I grinned, almost stupidly. “I’m naked. There’s not a fok you or I can do about that. Haven’t you seen a naked man before?” Her face changed and I immediately realized I had been callous. I wasn’t talking to one of my girls in the bars. “You have to relax, get used to seeing me this way. Think you’re a nurse or a doctor, if that helps. They see naked men all the time. I can’t have you worried about my nakedness. We have to plan. We have to escape.”

  She sighed and seemed to relax a little. She still kept looking directly at my face, however, and I accepted that it would take some time for her to get use to my nakedness. “Do you know who he is?” I asked her. She shook her head saying nothing. “If I am to trust Na’s … my mother’s stories,” I continued, “he is called Sisimito. Until now, he was only a legend in my life, one of the many evil members of the Kechelaj Komon, that is, the Jungle Folk, our village legends brought to life. Please don’t ask me why or how this has happened. I don’t know.”

  “Sisimito,” she repeated, quietly. “I read about him in our folklore studies … at school. But folklore is most often pure fantasy. Don’t tell me that you want me to believe that there exists such people and places?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You have met him and I have seen him. Look at me. I’m naked in a cage, talking to you. Who the fok do you think tore off your thumbs?” She closed her eyes and looked away. There I was being insensitive again. But that was me … lowly Sergeant Chiac.

  She turned back at me. “I have tried to believe that what I’ve been through is real. If I didn’t, I will have had to believe that I am crazy, but it’s hard. Unless, it’s some crazy person acting out a demented role,” she offered.

  “Some crazy person?” I shook my head. “What about the face, the hair, and he doesn’t seem to have knees?” She looked pained. “It may be hard for us to believe but considering what we’ve been through and what we’re going through, I would think it’s harder for us not to believe. It would be very dangerous for me not to believe, for then I might fool myself into thinking that this is not really happening to me … us. Actually, there should be no difficulty in believing. I have been captured by a creature of the Kechelaj Komon and is being held naked in a cage. I have to hide my thumbs for fear of losing them. According to you, the creature talks to his animals. I saw birds gathering sticks for what looks like a bonfire.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Oh yes! I am ready to believe in folklore, fantasy, the whole fokin lot.” I stood up. Every muscle ached. I had slept in odd positions, naked on rocky ground, and had probably been battered about in the river where I had almost drowned. Molly glanced up at me and I saw her face redden as she looked at me, but she didn’t turn her eyes away. “I don’t see him over there?’

  “He goes out every morning,” she answered. “I don’t know if it’s to hunt. Sometimes he brings fish, meat, fruits.”

  “Do you cook for him?”

  “He hasn’t asked me. I have seen him eat raw meat and he never lights a fire; the howlers do that. Yet, he will sit at a distance and stare at the fire until it goes out, until there are no flames, then dine on the embers.” She put her hands to her mouth.

  “The burnt wood with teeth marks at Mexican Branch,” I cried out, hitting my prison with my fists, causing Molly to draw back. I shook my head, calming myself. The world I had entered was, indeed, what it seemed to be. I grabbed my prison bars. “How does he treat you?” She, in turn, shrugged her shoulders.

  “Initially, I was absolutely terrified. He’s so horrible to look at, but I suppose I’m getting used to seeing him. Now, I’m just terrified. I haven’t really learned anything about him so I never know what he will do next.” She lifted her palms and looked at them. “He ripped off my thumbs.” She stood up. She was angry and tears were hot on her face. She wiped her tears and looked away. “He feeds me with fruit. Sometimes, dried meat, either salted or smoked. He also gives me fruit juices to drink. He never gives me water. I have to get that myself.”

  “He’s afraid of water … and dogs.” I reflected, thinking. “I suppose that’s why every house in our village had a dog, sometimes two or three. Mating season was always noisy, dogs fucking all over the place.” Her face reddened. “Be careful what you eat and drink. He may be out of a legend, but remember you’re dealing with a kidnapper and a murderer. You do realize that he wants you to love him? Whenever Sisimito takes a woman, it is because he wants her to be his wife.” Fear instantly filled her eyes. “He will do anything to secure your love.”

  “Yes. It worries me that I seem to be getting used to him.” She shuddered. “I can’t allow myself to forget that he’s strange and evil … what he really is.”

  “He must have been the one who fokin murdered all my men. All their thumbs were missing.” I hit the poles with my fists. “All six of them.” She again put her hands to her mouth, saying nothing. “What else have you noticed about him?”

  She shook her head. “Very little. As I said, he’s fascinated by fire. Yet, I think he’s afraid of fire for he waits until there are no flames before he picks out live embers and eats them … they don’t burn him. As I said, he seems to eat all his meat raw and then wipes the blood into his hair.” Molly looked at me, baffled.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know if he does those things to frighten me. He can’t frighten me more than he already has.” She shook her head several times then placed her hands across her face. After a while, she removed them. “Good Friday night he performed a little ritual, about two hours after sunset, and he made me sit on the side of the bed and watch. One of his howlers lit a pink candle; it looked like a pink candle, but I wasn’t sure. The howler then placed a clay vase, it contained pink flowers and water, next to the candle. The flowers looked like roses, but I haven’t seen any rose plants around. But then I haven’t been allowed to go outside. In half of a cured kalbash, he placed dried leaves that smelled like lavender, and a rose-colored crystal. He held the vessel and faced the candle making a recitation. I did not see his lips move, yet, I heard what he was saying and it has remained in my mind since then.”

  “What did he say … communicate?”

  “I raise my voice to the Goddess of Love, Ix Chel, and the power of Kinich Ahau, our sun, to manifest love in my life. I affirm that I am open to love and that I have much love to give. I offer my faith in the greater good that the love that comes to me is seen and honored. I release this with the power of the universe and the power of my own dignity and say ‘So be it’. And so it is,”123 she rendered, pausing a little before continuing. “I didn’t know what he was doing. I suppose I was still too frightened to care. I’m puzzled at how I remember the incantation so well, word for word. It’s as if he put the words in my brain.”

  “It’s a love spell,” I advised her. “He wants you to fall for him. You do see that, don’t you?” Molly didn’t answer my question but continued.

  “It happened again on Easter Sunday. It was early in the evening, about one hour after sunset. I was already resting on the palm leaves beside his bed, where I sleep. He told me it was time and I was to get up. Again, although his lips did not move, I knew what he said. He told me to kneel after which he gave me two candles, one white and the other purple. I received silent instructions and I followed them. The same howler gave me a lighted stick from the fire hearth and I lit the candles and stood them up on the ground. In front of the candles, I placed a white carnation, a bay leaf, and a kalbash of salt water, the howler having placed all that was necessary beside me. I then sat quietly, breathing in and out deeply. Every intake of breath meant that I was breathing in the light of the candles. With every exhalation, I was supposed to be breathing out fears or blockages that kept me from the lo
ve I truly wanted. I feared that love was meant to be him, but I had no choice but to proceed. He told me that I would say an incantation that time and he watched me, continuously, as I quoted the words he placed in my mind: I clear myself of the negativity that impedes me from recognizing the love around me. I am open and light; I use the fire to purify, the earth to heal, the air to know, and the water to cleanse. I gently release the tangles, the chains, the bonds. I am free to love and be loved. With divine energy and blessing, I say ‘So be it’. And so it is.124 That was the first and only time I saw him display any emotion. He clapped his hands. After that the mountain lion and the owl came and they hurriedly left. I did not see him again until they returned with you.

  “Strange.”

  “Strange?”

  “Yes. It’s just that we Ke’kchi have a god called Q’uq’umatz. He is the god of the four elements, fire, earth, air, and water and each element is associated with a divine animal or plant, air with the vulture, earth with maize, fire with the lizard, and water with fish. I just find it strange that our belief would be incorporated in one of his love spells.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, in that one you agreed to his request. You now have to fight the spell with all your strength, as it won’t go away just like that. You haven’t fallen for him yet, have you?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not used to spells and things like that and I certainly don’t believe in them. I suppose it would be like oabya.”125

  “We are in an unnatural place, Molly. I don’t know what the fok is real and what isn’t, what will or could happen, how we got here, why we’re here, but the fact is that we’re here and we have to live with that in order to escape and survive. Perhaps, magic spells do work here.” She stared at me. I shrugged my shoulders.