The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi (& 'To Live, and Not have Lived')

About Part Two: This is the second part to the novelette "The Green Sea of the Amazon" called "The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi" what you will read here is a normal occurrence along the banks of the upper Amazon, of Peru. The story is taken from actual accounts that have taken place along the swampy, and high grass areas of the Amazon...

Part Two (to 'The Green Sea of the Amazon')

Part Two

The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi
(and, ‘To Live, and Not Have Lived’)



Chapter One of Two
The Short Grim life of Julia Parra Tapi

“Stay here,” said Julia Parra Tapi, to her son, Avelino. His mother was gridlocked, his face stained with tears.
“Why?” he asked, more like muttered.
“Because I say so,” said Julia. She looked angry at Avelino, as if he did not do his duty by watching his younger brother properly and now this trouble, she had been off fishing, and suddenly appeared, and Avelino was frozen in fright.
“Are you going to look for the anaconda?” Avelino cried.
“I have to now, you just stay where you are, stay back. You can see what I’m doing even better from here.”
“All right, mama.” And he said, in a whisper, “I only looked away for a moment, and he was gone.”
Julia grabbed, and pulled out a machete she had in a large bag of fishing items, she then saw the anaconda in the wet tall grass, stepped forward toward it, nodded and said, “Yes, you must die,” looking at an eighteen-foot, two-hundred pound anaconda, in the wet high grass, along the banks of the Amazon, with a bulge in it the size of a six year old boy. The serpent opened up its wide mouth, its fangs as long as her index finger, her six-year old boy was missing, and Avelino, eight, was suppose to watch him.
Then she stepped into the wet swampy like soil, the anaconda was resting in, digesting, fifty little snakes were dashing about her, her litter Julia presupposed.
She crept about, around the snake, examining it, she crept like the snake. The bulk inside the serpent, protruding like she had a long watermelon inside of her, she had just swallowed her meal; she could digest it for a week, or months. She swung her machete, getting a swing in her arm, the snake followed her movements. She brought her right hand into the air, above her head, to get all the thrust she could out of her strength, grabbed the weapon with both hands, and like a hammer she brought it down, it sliced through the back of the snake like hard butter, where the bulge was, the part that was shaped like a head. The giant snake tried to wind about, to the right, it raised itself three feet, and it was pouring out blackish blood.
“You leave me no choice,” she yelped at the creature. She looked inside the snake, saw something familiar, then with rage, she lifted up the machete again, and the litter of snakes started to surround her, went into a panic. She dropped her weapon at the upper part of the snake’s head, cut it almost all the way through, its head still attached, was held on by a thread. She saw a foot.
Then as an afterthought, Julia looked behind her, bewitched, there were eyes of a cat, a puma (a jaguar) and she started to tremble: she couldn’t run, the puma had her zeroed in—or maybe she could a voice in her head said, her second thought, complete thought, was, Avelino, she looked towards him. The new problem demanded a new plan. And she was thinking, all in a minute’s time that seemed like an hour. She felt she had opened a wrong door.
“Just leave,” her mind told her, her second self told her.
“No,” she whispered back to it.
“Why not?”
“Maybe he’s alive?”
“I see, but in a second, it will be too late! You can’t win.”
“Maybe?”
“Too late.”
The large brownish wildcat jumped, leaped out from under its covering of tall grass, leaped onto Julia brought her to the ground next to the large snake, she had glanced at Avelino as she fell, and as she fell, hit the ground, she spotted the bloody face inside the snake.
“Don’t worry,” said her second self, “he’ll stay back, he knows to get out of here.”
And then she yelled, “Go, go, go…oo Ave lin o …!”

Twenty-five yards inside the grass the big cat lay, red mouth, fangs with wet flesh on them; flies circling its yellow eyes, as they blinked, trying to focus on a moving item in the far distance.


Chapter Two of Two
To Live and Not have Lived

In the moments flash, it came to Julia, as a rush, a harsh-tasting hollowness of a rush that she was going to die, like the anaconda next to her.
“What is it,” she said to her mind, her second self.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” it remarked back, “you had better make your peace!”
“Did Avelino run?”
“I don’t know I sensed he did, or was about to. You’ll be out in a minute,” here mind said to her, finally starting to shut her eyes slowly. She was only twenty-seven years old, she had loved very little in life, other than her two boys, perhaps because the Amazon demanded much, too much and she almost let go…

Now in her mind (her second self) she saw within the clap of an eye, her two boys, the death of her husband, how when he got drunk he hit her hard, almost broke her jaw once. She hit him back behind the ear, and then smashed him with a chair. He didn’t even make love joyfully; but he gave her two kids nonetheless. He would go out in the cool night come back to bed passing out, and one day she up and left him before he awoke, and returned home to her village with her two boys.
That same day he got drunk and was attacked by those damned wildcats the pumas (or jaguars). She knew as everybody knew the puma didn’t care to be seen by humans, or anyone, normally brown in color, some black, big and fast, and they need a lot of room to hunt, and roam in. But when they got hungry, they hid, and were good at not being seen: like today.
She remembered the good times with her boys: always picking the finest places to have a picnic. She always though they never had enough time together. The world hadn’t changed much for her, only events.

And then she let go…