Beyond That Horizon

Our house was located on the edge of a bluff overlooking the lagoon. You would never know it though because the tall trees and thick undergrowth completely hid the view. We threw our garbage out the back door and it was very quickly consumed by the jungle greenery like a huge Venus Fly Trap. We also used the back door whenever we had to go “number one” since it was much more efficient and also saved precious water. One would automatically think that a huge collection of refuse would begin to pile up and cause an unsightly mess, but that never seemed to happen. It was a freak anomaly of nature, I guess.

This habit of throwing garbage into the jungle was practiced by every Yapese that I knew. Everyone had their own personal dump. Incidentally, one had to be very careful around our back door, the gateway to our dump, since the doorway was about twelve feet from the ground. There was no porch or stairs.

One day, we came home for a rest during the hottest part of the afternoon. I was bored and decided to make a potion. Potions were an art form that my brother and I perfected from the time we were very small children. More than once, mysterious odors from the creation of these potions permeated our home, with which my mother and father could never seem to find the source of stink, in spite of intense investigation. Of course, in the aftermath and during interrogation, we remained mum.

I took an old frying pan and began to add every chemical and ingredient I could find in the house. This included bug spray, Pinesol, toilet cleaner, aspirin, lice shampoo, a boonie pepper, salt&pepper, cooking oil, and a bit of water for good measure. I stirred the solution until all the ingredients were well mixed. I then decided that it would be well to heat up my concoction.

I stood at the stove and stirred my experiment very carefully. Pita came in and wondered what I was up to, but the smell drove him away. Suddenly, my cooked concoction reached its flash point and flames shot up nearly to the ceiling! Luckily I got out of the way in time and did not singe any of my hair or eyebrows – I only suffered a minor flesh wound on my forearm.

I took the remains of my science project and threw it all out the backdoor – pan and all. In an instant, the neighbor’s dog came to investigate the source of the new and mysterious odor. It must have suited him because he immediately began licking all the leftover chemicals out of the pan. Alas, he did not respond to my commands to “Get lost.” Within two minutes, he keeled over dead.

The neighbor was somewhat dismayed because that dog was going to be his family’s supper in a few days. I apologized profusely and bought them some fish to take its place. That was the last potion I made while living on Yap. The value of human and animal life was too great.