Your a parasite for sore eyes.
M. Mcrath
It was a large knife, a very, very large knife....& even beautiful, shinning in the moonlight. It was poised in the air 3 feet above my chest......then, suddenly in slow motion it started down. Everything seemed in slow motion as a matter of fact. It slowly came to me that I was on a flea crammed cot in a 4.oo dollar room in Acajutla El Salvador. It came to me that I was not alone in that room: and it was becoming painfully obvious that whoever was in there, was at this moment about to plunge a oversize Ginsu into my clogged heart. It was all in slow motion & all totally silent. I had no idea why I suddenly had opened my eyes, but now it was time to act, time to swing into action, time to be a man...... I screamed like a 12 year old girl, & rolled from the cot onto the floor. My intention had been to knock the legs out from under the intruder but whoever was there sprung back into blackness. I lay on the floor like the Christmas goose waiting to be carved.
“ES NOT IM!!” a females voice was urgent somewhere in the inky room.
“ES SENOR FROG!!’
A moment of silence then a male voice: “Oh oh, sorry mang.”
“SORRY?” A hand came down & helped me onto the cot.
I opened my mouth & squeaked.
"See mang de German guy, he beat up my woman, so I came to kill em, must have got the wrong room." Said the form by the bed.
"Kill im?" I sounded like a frog "Kill im?" "Don’t you people have any dialog in this God-forsaken country? Doesn’t anybody talk things out here, AREN’T THERE ANY @!#$@% LAWYERS HERE?" YOU JUST KILL EACH OTHER AS EASILY AS YOU GUT A @!#$%#@ FISH?"
The form could tell I was upset, & set to rectify the situation...
"Hey mang, I said I was sorry, how chew say...don’t get your panties in a wad?"
"MY PANTIES ARE FINE NOW GET OUTA MY ROOM!!!"
They slipped into darkness leaving me alone. My heart slowly started to beat again. A Gecko, stuck to the wall, chirped in amusement. The frogs under the bed continued their serenade. The fleas went back to chewing my butt. I stared at a cockroach the size of a parakeet doing pushups on the ceiling & considered this place, this El Salvador. I had come looking for a poisonous frog, a legendary frog so deadly that it literally spit lethal venom at it's victim. I wasn’t sure if such a beast existed in the world but if it did, it was certainly in this country. But you know what Seamon? I didn’t care if there was a frog here that spit gold nibblets while singing Swamy River. I didn’t care if this frog was telepathic & had the secret of life tattooed on his belly....I didn’t care if this frog could tap dance the national anthem....you get the picture...I was outa here. If I could survive the rest of the night in this vermin’s disco called the Hotel California I would catch the first ox-cart out.
At 4:oo my stomach exploded.
There was one ‘bathroom’ in the Hotel California & it was immediately apparent mine wasn’t the first stomach to explode here. To bad there wasn’t actually any water in the ‘bathroom.”
At 5:00 the roosters started in. No wonder they eat so much chicken in the third world...these people just hope to eventually sleep past 5:00 AM.
At 6:00 the dogs started barking at the chickens.
By 6:30 I swore I’d never leave Crested Butte again.
At 7:00 I checked out of the Hotel California, my butt looked like a dart board from the bed bugs, Hindenburg stomach, Sid Vicious hairdo. Even my glass eye, the eight-ball, throbbed in that smothering humidity. My body felt like lead in that oppressive jungle heat as I stumbled to the bus stop.
Two hours past estimated time of departure the decrepit dingle-balled bluebird bus crawled from the station. As we slowly climbed through miles of coffee bean covered red earth hills towards the capital, San Salvador, I reflected on my last 24 hours in this country. I had been ripped off by the customs man coming across the border, I had been nearly disemboweled by a naked eel gutter, I had been shot at six times by the death squad, & now nearly knifed to death in my own bed. I was peppered in bug bites, filthy from days without water, & my stomach was exploding with some swamps parasite. This would not be a place I would recommend as a “honeymoon getaway.”
At a remote dusty junction, a haggard worn out woman got on leading her 10 year old son. The poor boys entire head was wrapped in filthy rags especially thick about the eyes. She led him to the seat next to mine & sat silent & stoic for the rest of the ride. It wasn’t till we had reach the ramshackle outskirts of the city that I got the nerve to inquire of the lads condition.....why the bandaged eyes?
She turned a suspicious look my way, glanced quickly around the bus & whispered two words.
“Sapo Diablo.”
I stared at the blinded child...
“A frog did this to him?” The devil Frog??”
“Si....Sapo Diablo. The beast shoots poison into my sons eyes....He is forever blind.”
“How does he shoot the poison Senora?” I asked gingerly.
She looked at me like I was the village idiot. “Everyone know about the devil frog senor. if you look upon the creature, if your eyes meet, then the beast shoots poison from his eyes into yours. You are immediately blinded forever.” She turned away.
So it was true, there was a poison spitting frog...the devil frog....well I’ll be....
Only one question remained, “Senora?” I asked carefully. “Just what does this frog look like?”
She stared at me like I was an enchilada short of the combo plate. “Well senor...no one knows; if you see the frog, & the frog see’s you looking at him, he blinds you. No one knows what the frog looks like.” She looked away again, a tear in her weathered eye.
The Bluebird ground to a stop. I disembarked, & sought out the first travel agency.
“I’d like to leave your beautiful country on the next flight.” I told the dark eyed agent.
“To where?” She asked.
“Anywhere, I just want to be out of El Salvador by dark...comprende?”
“How bout San Andreas Island?”
“Never heard of it.”
“You’ll love it senor.”
Fine, book me, how much?
“$150.oo American. You leave in two hours.”
I reached for my wallet.
It was gone.
The End
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