Trapped by Ancient Artifacts
So had I reached a fabled resort of the Gods? Or was it something else. OK, so Zawmb’yee said to take a shower…
Zawmb’yee came running in, dropped all her stuff on the floor and laughed. She said, “Wow, I didn’t know that this is what it would take to be a participant-observer in our ancient culture.”
“Um yeah. I think you’re starting to get into the up-top jargon stuff. Ha. I’d say you need to give yourself a Jargon Promotion…”
“A what?”
“Here, you’re only picking up gossip, but there you’ve learned a dignified smirk.”
“Huh what? Jargon what?”
“Anyway. Yeah. Here’s the idiomatic thing: you said you’re an Anthropology student explorer…”
“Um, sort of…” She laughed.
“But you’re doing cultural stuff. Right?”
“Uh huh”
“So, you’re a Cultural Anthropologist and…”
“Ha! Professor Higgins, Shakespeare fool, what’s in a name, a rose?”
“Oh yeah My Fair Lady Juliet, but the “the jargon’s the thing. They’re really into Jargon as a sacrament.”
“So?”
“You’re jumping around like a kangaroo comparing cultures…”
“I guess… I’ve got my notes in my pouch and I can box.”
“Congratulations. I promote you to ‘Ethnologist’. ”
“Do I get a prize?”
“Um, no, but I think you have a problem…”
“Ut oh.”
“In up-top terms you’re doing research and you need to get it validated… like in a thesis.”
“Oh yeah, and what pray tell is YOUR damn thesis?”
“Um, well, the Ut’ishsih people’s culture was based on what they call up-top a “cargo cult.” When the Gods came in about 20,000 B.C. they brought magical things or ‘cargo’. ”
“And when they told us to hide in the caves, we got totally confused and mixed up…Right?
“Um, I think the Gods were actually extraterrestrial beings who in the analogy are the “Colonialists” who brought magical devices from Heaven or from Super-Gods between the stars in space.”
“Ut oh, that’s Sypmauiyig! Should you be saying that?”
“Well, it explains why we have a few mixed-up hybrid devices that are non-sensically part science and part “magic” and don’t always work right. It’s like someone finding a car engine and using it for heating and the spark plugs for lighting torches.”
“Do you always have to talk so much. Shall we be clean now?” she said. “You know, Utcoozhoo says, ‘when lust is exhausted by overindulgence, the subtleties of love can be appreciated,’ ”
“That doesn’t sound like something Utcoozhoo would say…”
“OK. Yeah. He didn’t say that, but I say that. How about that expression, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.’ What was that … Benjamin Franklin or something — I don’t know. So let’s be clean.”
We went in the first open door. The Gods, I think, have good taste in the design of a bathroom. There was a dry marble basin thirty feet long, ten feet across. At the far end was a waterfall pouring into a drain. Along the near tile wall was a towel rack, and shelves with bars of soap.
“Take a bar of soap,” she said.
Zawmb’yee ran under the waterfall, and came out saying, “Swoosh me with the soap.”
I am always inclined to be indulgent under such circumstances, and enjoyed the cleansing of the savage breast, while she endeavored to exhaust my lust as in her own prophesy, and I was not one to deny her. As they say, ‘one good poem deserves another’. She is like the rainbow under a waterfall.
Zawmb’yee Finds Ancient Gadgets
When Zawmb’yee came out of the waterfall, I had noticed what looked like a metal dress and a suit of armor. Now I asked, “What are those?”
“Those are used to let us be washed by the Gods. It’s sort of like a washing spacesuit.”
“How do you mean?”
“Here let me show you.” Zawmb’yee picked up the dress. It had hoses coming out the back of the waistband, and from there up to the wrists. She said, “Help me put this on. Now these cups with the clear hoses go over the breasts — see. Fasten it in the back for me … and these are washing panties … . Now you. Here … get into these metal briefs and …”
“What are all the hoses for?”
“That’s for the washing fluids … Here let me do this for you. Now this hose goes on like a condom, see … and we lock on the metal shorts — There, that snaps shut. ”
“Wait a minute … I don’t think I like wearing solid steel underwear. This is like a chastity belt or something and I can’t touch anything. How do I get this off …”
“Well, you don’t. It unlocks automatically when the wash is over. Don’t worry. Now we put on the rest of the suit. These armlets go on here.”
She looked very strange standing there in her dress with hoses extending from her wrists to her back. Another hose came out of her back and was anchored in the floor. She said it seals like a spacesuit. She told me to fasten her neck collar and wrist cuffs firmly so there’d be no leaks. She tightened her waist belt.
She said, “OK. As soon as I tighten up your suit, the wash of the Gods will start.”
As soon as the suit was sealed, our back hoses were pulled into the floor and we fell to the ground. Water sprayed in from the wrist hoses and they were drawn short into the back of the belt. I felt a lotion ooze into my briefs and then a massage and a vibration began. I felt an armlet tighten and then a needle prick. I looked at Zawmb’yee who was struggling, trying to get up. Her hands were pulled tightly behind her back.
I said to her, “I don’t think this is a ‘wash of the Gods’. This thing is collecting semen and blood.”
“What?” said Zawmb’yee. “Get up, get up — get this off me.”
The harder I tried to get up the shorter the hoses were pulled until my wrists were clamped together in the back of the belt. Then, we heard footsteps behind us, but we were pinned to the floor and couldn’t turn around to look.
Zawmb’yee shouted, “Help! We need some help here …”
I began to yell, “Yeah, we could use suh …” Suddenly, Zusoiti, the High Priestess jammed a ball into my mouth.
Zawmb’yee screamed, “What are you doing?”
Zusoiti said, “I’m gagging him because he’s going to be here for a day or two, depending on how long it takes for the Gods to get enough samples, and we don’t need all the yelling.”
Zawmb’yee screamed, “Unlock me, unlock me …”
The High Priestess shouted back, “Shut-up, or I’ll gag you too. This is sacrilege. Where’s your supervisor? You don’t belong here …”
“Get me out of this,” Zawmb’yee whispered.
“Well, it’s too late now in any case. Only the Gods can release you.”
“When will they do that?”
“It depends on your hormone levels. They have to analyze that and your DNA. Probably in a few hours.”
“What about him. What did you mean a day or two?”
“Well, that’s more complicated.”
Zawmb’yee started screaming again, “The armlets are stabbing me … unlock me, unlock me …”
“I told you I can’t.” Zusoiti gagged her. “Now, calm down, you’ll get through this. You weren’t supposed to just wander in here on your own. Don’t tell me — Ngheufel got you to do this.”
[continued]
Poet Laureate of the Primitive Planets 