Kevork Derderian

Fingers Crossed

*A torn page with scattered water marks shoved between the cover and front page of a faded black journal* Chances are it's my skeleton smiling at you instead of me... Oh god... I hope it's my skeleton, please let me be a skeleton by the time you find me and not a halfway there, all bloated grossness... yuck. Forget that imagery please. Fortunately, there are so many little critters around I think they'll make quick work of me. I wonder if the venom in me will kill some of them. Does venom work on insects or worms or whatever? If I do get eaten and break down I am technically recycled which I'm all about so, I guess I like that better than the typical coffin situation. So, I am either dead or we are laughing over this wine in hand. Let’s see... What could save me right now? Chaac left for help right after I got bit, we are three days out from a town that maybe has a phone, so best case scenario he gets there and calls an emergency heli evac to find me in this dense jungle, needle meet haystack. What else... someone much more prepared than me who packed the correct antidotes for this region's venomous creatures happens by this secluded grotto, that would be nice. Orrr I internalize this venom and it makes me stronger like Poison Ivy from Batman! Please door number three! If I had to put odds on it, a thousand - a million? - to one I'm a goner. Goner is a funny word am I right? It's weird, I know I'm basically done for but somehow I'm in a peaceful place, just reflecting... could be the morphine I injected to numb the terrible burning pain coursing through my body but, here I am, calm as a cucumber staring up at the chef’s knife. Great idea alert, someone should sell this. Who needs a cocktail or a beer just take two parts venom, one part morphine and three parts dehydration bake in Mexican jungle sauna for a few days and voila! Don't get me wrong, this is definitely a bummer, I. Am. Bummed. A little more time on this big beautiful world, that would have been nice. I haven't even entered the "real world" and I'm already saying my goodbyes which is total BS. This trip was supposed to give me the greatest thesis ever and the doors of every curator and museum would fly open! They would pay me to travel the world exploring and looking for artifacts of past civilizations. Instead I go on my first trip and screw it all up. Anyway, sorry if my last words are weird, I'll make up for it right now, we found it! If you are traipsing around these parts then you probably know what I am talking about and I guess we didn’t “find it” find it, we found out where it definitely is which is just as good if you ask me. Well, at least it should be there. There is no way anyone found the guide post, the area was in total ruin, no one had been there in decades and it's the only thing that points to the final resting place of the artifact. Maybe it's the delirium or the venom eating my brain but I think it would be fun if you had to solve something instead of me just handing it to you on a silver platter. Yea, I had to work for it, and now you do too! Just, think about where you are the people and the heritage. OK, ready?