We stood soiled toe to rubber sole. He, no taller than a verge of puberty schoolboy, exaggerated my average American build. I saw him, a figure unacquainted with western civilization, and he saw a ghost. People like me didn't exist in this dense part of the Amazon canopy. As far as he knew, people like me didn't exist at all.
Instinctively amidst the awkward encounter, like a watch dog barking at approaching shadows, I heard Jesus, "Go and make disciples of all nations..." I had a secret tucked away in my pocket: of sin and water, of bread and blood, of crucifixions and hollow tombs, of eternity and torment, of virgin mothers and flesh-wrapped gods - the mystery of the cosmos bound in a single narrative. His ears. My mouth. I only needed a bridge.
Then the consoling words of the Holy Man, the soft words uttered in the sacred space of my stillborn son's dwarfed casket, seeped in, "Fear not! Peace. Your son rests with the Father now. He cannot be condemned for what he does not know."
I awkwardly bowed to the stranger and retreated slowly into the trees.
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