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

swimming motion.
    Dr. Mike soothed her by saying “Rays
of sunshine rain down on you as you float. You are floating. And
slowly you gain control. You can fly.”
    As I moved her right arm she began to
tense up. “No,” she murmured, and she stiffened. The edges of her
mouth tightened into a frown. She pulled her arms in and Estrella
and I lost our grip. She slid off of Steve’s wet back, into the
water. I didn’t see it, but she must have hit her head on the edge
of a rock because the wound she got on her head at the pilgrimage
of the Black Christ reopened. She was bleeding from her
forehead.
    María stood up in the shallow water
and tripped over the rocks as she waded into deeper water, where
she swam to the opposite end of the pool. We were silent -- shocked
actually-- that this little ritual triggered the phobia in María.
She sat at the opposite end with her back to us. I think she was
crying. Blood flowed down the side of her cheek.
    The mood soured and the sun was
getting lower. On our way back, the narrow slit at the top of the
canyon let in scant light, and there seemed to be even more bats
swarming around us. It was a wonder they didn’t hit us. María
walked ahead, ducking the flying rats. I wondered if the bats would
be attracted to her blood.
    If I had been alone down
there, I would have been downright petrified. I was petrified. I
just did my best to hide it. I pretended I was in an Indiana Jones movie. The
only thing to fear is fear itself. Sometimes the only thing to fear
is fearlessness. We are built for fight or flight. As evolved as we
are, I’m not sure we always know what the right response is. I saw
everyone react to fear today. Estrella got angry, Steve became a
moron, Dr. Mike dropped big words and names, Usnavy became silent
and María broke down.
    There was a moment in the cave on our
quiet walk back to the boat when we passed through a cathedral-like
cavern. I stopped and shut my eyes and just listened to the voices
echo. María startled me. I thought I was alone in the darkness but
she was so close she could just whisper to me -- “I want to show
you my tattoo tonight.” She is the type of girl I know could be
bad… she would take me on a rollercoaster. She scares me. I don’t
know what will have the greatest rewards -- running from the fear
or fighting it.
    We started talking again in the van
during the ride home. During a lull in the conversation, María
said, “Let’s try again. I want to try again.” And we decided that
these caves in Panama would not be our last adventure
together.

Casco Viejo Under
Siege
    By Dr. Michael
Anderson
    One of my favorite things to do is sit
and read today’s paper, drinking years old wine, listening to
decades old music, in a centuries old citadel, in the shadow of a
millennia old symbol.
    The paper is from Miami, a little
conservative perhaps, but the only English daily in Panama. The
wine is a Merlot from Chile, very good value. The music is Latin
Jazz played in the restaurant where I come to sit and relax every
Saturday. It is called Las Bóvedas, which literally means ‘the
vaults’ or ‘the crypts’. The crypts are part of a citadel that was
built in 1688 when the infamous pirate Henry Morgan destroyed the
former Spanish settlement at Panamá el Viejo, established for the
plundering of Incan gold. Centuries later Las Bóvedas was used as a
military prison. In the early 1900s, prisoners were chained to the
outer wall to be swallowed by the rising tides.
    The ancient symbol I mentioned before
sits as the focal point of the citadel, and for that matter the
entire colonial neighborhood of Casco Viejo. But to understand why,
and to understand why it holds so much power, you have to know
something about the Egyptian goddess Isis and her lover, the god
Osiris.
    Osiris had a brother, Set, who coveted
both his brother’s throne and wife. So Set tricked Osiris into
climbing into a golden chest which was buried in a distant land
under a sprig of