The Sick Horror at The Lost and Found Read Online Free PDF

kind of a short
wiry haired version of Robin Williams. He kept trying to name drop
important Panamanians he knew which amused the guards but didn’t
seem to help. I think he did it more to impress us or at least
Usnavy the half Kuna half gringa he had a hard time hiding his interest in. It
wasn’t until María calmly explained with a disarming smile where we
were going that guards seemed ready to let us pass.
    Our destination was not
Colombia or the dense jungle, but a cave recently made accessible
when Lake Bayano was flooded to build a dam. It is in on the
highway to the Darien, inside the independent comarca , or reservation, of Kuna Yala
where Usnavy is from. María and I met Usnavy and Dr. Mike on a boat
on the San Blas islands. Because Usnavy felt bad we missed a visit
to her island village she persuaded us to let her take us here
instead. Her name really is Usnavy, a name not uncommon among the
Kuna. Her father disappeared before she was born, and the only
thing they know about him was that he was in the U.S. Navy, so that
became her name.
    In a small Kuna village, we got out of
our rented bus and onto a 15 horse power dugout canoe. The Kuna
women there had heavy metal jewelry hanging from their noses, and
bright red circles colored their cheeks. They sold spicy dried
plantains and bright embroideries called molas. Kids ran around in
their underwear playing guns with sticks and cardboard.
    We motored past the tops of trees that
were once rooted on the forest floor, now at the bottom of a lake.
The cave was at one time high on a hill, but now we could motor
right up to it.
    I don’t think this is the kind of
place I would have approached on my own. We drifted under reeds and
mangrove and kept our hands in the boat, worried about the caimans
said to infest the cave. Once in the dank cavern, we got an idea of
how many bats there were – tens of thousands that came within
centimeters of our heads. The nervous banter stopped when the sandy
bottom of the cave creek dropped below foot range and we had to
swim with flashlights in our mouths.
    The cave is a kilometer of cave,
canyon, cave, canyon. It ends with a nice sunny spot with smooth
limestone walls, perfect for relaxing and swimming. After we got to
the end I floated for a while, just staring up at the cliffs and
the birds circling above. I emerged into a discussion about
phobias. Claustrophobics, hydrophobics and especially
chiroptophobics (bats) would not have survived this trip. Dr. Mike,
among some of his many talents of which he constantly reminds us,
was an expert at treating phobias, and María admitted to a fear of
falling. It was a reoccurring nightmare of hers.
    Dr. Mike is a Freemason. He often
drops this casually into conversations. At first he did this I
think just to inform us-- like it might mean something to us or
maybe so we would ask him what the hell he was talking about. On
our four hour cave journey he captivated Steve with mysterious talk
of rituals, and even I actually found it kind of
interesting.
    The cave, Dr. Mike told us, is death.
It is fear. It is the underworld. It is the primitive symbol of the
unconscious. And if we confront our fears on this perilous journey
to the underworld we can learn to tap into the secrets of the
unconscious. A ritual is nothing more than a journey to the
underworld to learn control and to learn from our
unconscious.
    We decided to do a ritual at the
sunny, open pool at the back of the cave. It was like the classic
trust exercise where the person falls back with their eyes closed.
Except María wasn’t just going to fall back, she was going to fly.
We all held our hands high, supporting her as you would a crowd
surfer in a mosh pit. But instead of just easing her down, we eased
her onto Steve’s back. He was crouched down over the pool, and the
curve of his spine perfectly supported Maria. Maria stared up at
the clouds and each of us, Usnavy, Dr. Mike, Estrella and I, held a
limb and moved them in a random