Source: https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-dam-building-boom-is-transforming-the-brazilian-amazon

Conquerors of the Apocalypse

Ch 1

The priest paced on the floor of the cathedral and said, "There shall be no more night, and they will not need the light of the lamp or the light of the sun; for the Lord God will illuminate them," through the television. An eighteen-year-old boy with white hair lays in his bed, watching while holding a rubber band between two fingers, flicking a folded piece of paper at his closet door next to the television. He gets out of bed and walks over to his window. Out of his second story window he sees the neighbor’s daughter, with a slim figure and long fire red hair that goes down to her hamstring, changing in her room across a white picket fence that separates the two houses. Roc is watching with his green eyes and with his hand resting on the wall next to his bumped-out window. A gentle knock on the door is followed by air deflating from inside his mattress. After jumping in bed and he grabs the remote control and changes the channel to CNN.

“Come in.” He says, “I’m just watching the news.”

The knob twists and a thin woman walks in with curly red hair holding some football tickets to watch the Miami Dolphins.

“Hey sweetie.” Mom says, “Where have you been, I haven’t seen you all morning?”

“I’ve been in bed. I just can’t wait to find out who wins this upcoming election.”

“Honey, the election has been going on for a month now you don’t need to have your eyes glued to the television. I was going to give you this at breakfast this morning, but since you never came downstairs, I never got it to you.”

His mom walks next to the nightstand near the window and hands him the two tickets. Roc’s eyes widen as he grabs the tickets to read which team’s ticket his mother bought for him, while his mom looks out of the window. She notices the neighbor's daughter in clear view through his window.

“It’s getting a little stuffy in here,” the mother says and opens the window, “Invite one of your friends to go with you, I’m not a huge fan of football.”

“Wow! I’m going to ask Famrine if he wants to go.” Roc exclaims, “Thank you Mom.”

They hug and Roc holds on for a couple seconds after mom lets go.

“Have you heard from Hailey?” Roc asks, “I tried calling her yesterday, but it went straight to voicemail. Do you think she is okay?”

“I’m sure she is fine honey. I’m going to my midafternoon Pilates class, please don’t get into any trouble.” Mom flees the bedroom rather quickly.

Above his TV, Roc has a cork board that is pinned with important mementos during most of his childhood. He walks over to the cork board with his football tickets and compares it to a more worn-out football ticket hanging by a yellow push pin. The tickets match up almost perfectly, besides the year. Even up to the team, the Dolphins are playing that day. The receipt has Dath written as the purchaser of the tickets. Suddenly, in a fit of rage, Roc throws the tickets in the air as they get picked up by a stream of wind coming from the air conditioning, flying out of the open window. Jolting to the window, Roc sees one of the tickets attached to the neighbor’s daughter’s window and her blinds are closed now.

Roc makes his way outside, past the white picket fence, and is sitting on the floor under the daughter's window. The ticket is still attached to the window like how a paranoid King is attached to his crown.

Roc climbs the storm gutter that is attached to the roof quite flimsily and gets high enough to be parallel to the second story window. The gutter makes a weakening creek and begins to fall toward the ground. Roc makes a faithful leap to grip the window’s pane, in a heroic act of bravery. A horrible crushing of aluminum causes dogs across the street to start barking. With weakening arms, Roc closes his eyes and decides to grab the ticket and jump down at the same time. When Roc opens his eyes, he is making direct eye contact with the neighbor's daughter peaking through the window curtain. She opens the window, but his hands have already left the pane. His head already hit the ground, and he lays in the cheering blades of grass, unconscious.

The ticket flies into Ward's bedroom, and lands on her bed. However, she doesn't notice. Anguish is absent from his freshly shaved face but the grass forms a sort of crown around his head from the blowing wind, Ward’s jaw drops at the beautiful neighbor that seemingly fell from heaven.

“Thank you, Lord,” Ward said, “For fulfilling my prayers. I haven't had a man since Lucifer left. I have been dry and hungry but now my thirst will be quenched.”

Ward goes downstairs, picks up Roc and lays him in her bed. She notices a football ticket on her bed, grabs it and hides it in her panty drawer. While waiting for him to wake she goes to the kitchen and makes lunch.

After a couple hours, Roc finally wakes in a light blue bed with Justin Timberlake and 1 Direction posters hanging on the wall. A picture frame also sitting on her dresser. In order to get a better look at the photo in the frame, Roc swings his feet over the side of the bed making its springs show their age with the lack of WD40. The thud of walking on hardwood floors starts commotion downstairs that Roc cannot recognize because of the pulsing going on inside his head. Holding the back of his head, Roc walks over to the dresser and picks up the picture. Immediately he recognizes her as the neighbor’s daughter and when he puts down the photo, Ward enters the room.

“Not going through my panty drawer I hope.” Ward claims, “You’re pretty fell far.”

“I’m your neighbor, Roc, by the way.” Roc remarks, “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“When you leave the neighborhood, I see you in your car when I’m on my way home from work. I’m glad I can finally meet you.” Ward said, “You should lay down for longer, we want you to make a full recovery.”

“Alright I will lay down, I still feel a bit woozy.” He says walking by the window noticing the other football ticket stuck between two of the white fence stakes before taking his place back on her bed. walks over, blocking the bright window leaving a dark shade engulfing her to the point where her face is not visible.

“Now, Roc.” Ward ominously says in her soft voice, “Later tonight I will prepare a feast for scaring and injuring you. Of course, you will have to stay with me until then.”

“There is no need, I don’t have an appetite right now.”

Ward’s crooked nose and round chin begin to stand out more in this light. “Don’t worry about that, in a couple hours my family downstairs are going to a dinner party. We’ll build up that appetite and make that incredible headache go away. I learned some tricks you might like when I went to college last semester. Just lay down.”

“As pleasant as that sounds,” Roc rebuts as to almost cut her off there, “Our engagement must wait for another day. I don’t want to be controlled by my emotions and all I feel right now are strong emotions, skewing my decision making. My father, Dath left my mother when I was younger leaving myself, my sister and her. Dath’s disappearance gave my mother anxiety and made it almost impossible to leave the house. My sister, Hailey would sneak out of her window because she sleeps in the first-floor bedroom, when mom caught her the police got involved. On the night of Hailey's 18^th birthday, she snuck out of the window again, so I met her outside the front door to talk her out of what she was going to do. In the sincerest voice she said mom’s anxiety is too much for me to handle. She moved to LA so she can’t feel the negative energy radiating off our house. I will not be controlled by love and my emotions like my family. I remember my Dad was not soft, and I will be like him and make decisions for myself. I must deny your offer for the sake of humanity.”

“Well,” Ward says with a disgruntled look, “Is that any way to thank the person that saved your life. What kind of man shows their appreciation by denying their saviors request?”

Before anyone could say anything else, a sharp woman’s voice echoes through the hallway and under the bedroom door. “Ward are you ok? Are you talking to a boy on speakerphone or something? It better not be that Thad boy you brought over for Thanksgiving this year.”

“Wait here.” Ward says, “I’m not done with you”

She runs out of the bedroom saying, “C’mon mom, when are you going to that stupid dinner party tonight?”

Roc gets out of her bed and goes back to her window. The other football ticket landed on the grass behind the white picket fence and Roc was too distracted to see it earlier. He opens the window and hangs off of the windowpane and his feet are dangling in the window below him. Ward sees the feet downstairs and she distracts her parents from turning around and seeing hanging feet like it was a witch on Halloween. In a swift motion, Roc lets go of his hands, his feet fall onto the bottom of the lower window’s pane and then he jumps down onto cold grass in a act of acrobatics he should have used earlier. He steps over the broken gutter to grab the football ticket and walks back to his house.

As the sun begins to weaken, the doorbell rings and Famrine tries to look into the peephole and side window to see if anyone is home to answer the door. Famrine is a short boy with curly black hair that always carries a back pack and an electronic scale. There is always dirt on his face because his mother tells him to go outside and play every day but forgets to tell him when she is leaving and locks the door. Roc welcomes him inside and at the same time his mom also comes home from the gym, stops the car on the driveway and opens her window.

“Hey sweetie, her Roc,” his mom says, “Sorry for being longer than expected. After the gym Deborah and I went and got some linner. It’s the meal between lunch and dinner. If y’all boys get hungry I will pick you up some pizza.”

“That sounds amazing Mrs. Paco.” Famrine says.

Then she pulls the car the rest of the way into the garage.

“Come into my room Famrine,” Roc demands “I have something crazy to tell you.”

Famrine and Roc go into his room and turn on the TV to the new season of Rick and Morty.

“Here I’ll put this on because I know you won’t pay attention to me if I don’t.” Roc tells Famrine, “Today I got knocked out and the girl next door brought me back to her room.”

“You mean like a female's room,” Famrine sarcastically replies, “Please don’t tell me she was the one you fought.”

“No, I didn’t fight anyone.” Roc responds.

“Then how did you get knocked out?”

“I fell from the gutter, look out the window.”

Famrine walks over to the window and sees the gutter on the grass with a big dent in it.

“Did you at least get into her panties?” Famrine says, “To be a modern-day conqueror you have to dominate the bedroom first.”

“What are you talking about, conquering has nothing to do with the amount of laying around you do. Do you think the Vikings stayed in bed all day when they finally came up with the idea to conquer England? Conquering is about taking over land that belongs to someone else. You are soft if you think that the way to conquer the world is by staying in bed.”

“I guess conquering is the wrong word then.” Famrine replies, “You make a great point, nowadays we never see people forcefully taking land from other countries and declaring it their own. I guess that means that the age of conquest is over, there’s no more land to take.”

“The world is a big place, there’s always land for the taking. It just might not be in a place you want to go to. I remember watching a documentary about tribes in the Amazon rainforest that have no idea larger civilizations exist.”

“People with such little knowledge of technology would be a breeze to conquer, the war would only last a couple of hours even if I was the only one fighting on the front lines.” Famrine adds on, “So, what did you do with the neighbor anyways?”

“Nothing,” Roc says, “Her mom heard us talking and I jumped out of the window again before things got ugly. I managed to find one of the football tickets lodged between two picket fences but I'm still missing the other one when it flew out of my window.”

“Shut up!” Famrine exclaims, “You mean to tell me the whole reason you climbed up to a second story window and almost died was to retrieve your football tickets.”

“Well, the game is tomorrow, and I was going to invite you but now I only have one ticket. I don’t know where the other one went but it has to be outside somewhere.”

“Let’s go find it then,” Famrine says and they both go back to the side of the house and look for the ticket.

“It’s not on this side Roc, is it ok to go to your neighbors' side and look there or do you think it’s too weird since you damaged their property.”

“Let’s just forget about going to the game.” Roc says while looking at the cracked dirt.

“Hey boys! Are you looking for this?” A voice calls out from above them and they see Ward sticking out of the second story window. In her hand is the other football ticket the boys have been desperately looking for.

“Hey, you have my other football ticket,” Roc calls back, “Can I have that back please?”

“Only if I can go with you two to the game tomorrow, I happened to really like football.”

“Okay but you have to buy your own ticket, that ticket is for Famrine.”

“Yeah, don’t make us come up there and fight you for it.” Famrine adds.

“Shut up dude she has your ticket,” Roc says under his breath to Famrine. “Don’t listen to him, he's just joking.”

“Meet me by the lake in our backyard, I’ll come downstairs and give it to you there in a minute or so.” Ward requests, she then tucks her head back into the bedroom and closes the window.

Roc and Famrine walk to where the white picket fence ends, and a low slope leads to the wavy lake. The boys take a seat on the grass closer to the water and watch the sky get colder behind a flowing geyser of water that is alternating its colors to red and green. After fifteen minutes pass, the sky fades away and the water fountain, with its lights, all stop and become barely visible. Silence has its arms wrapped around the whole neighborhood.

Da! Datta!

The neighbors screen patio door opens, and slams shut. Shuffling of the grass grows closer and Famrine's stomach growls.

“Sorry for taking so long.” Ward says and takes a seat next to Roc overlooking the lake. “Here is your lost ticket, I just bought and printed out my own.”

Da! Damyata!

Thunder bellows from the coast, past the chaotic jungles of mangroves to their grassy shores of parasite infested water.

“We might need to bring an umbrella for tomorrow,” Famrine remarks.

“The weatherman says it’s not supposed to rain at all in Miami tomorrow.” Ward responds.

“I never listen to the weatherman.” Roc says, “I make the forecast myself; one must be careful these days.”

Da! Dayadhvam!

Famrine lets out an enormous fart, one that tries to compete with the thunder.

“Ew!” Ward retorts, “I’m going inside now. You better not be doing that during the whole game tomorrow.” Shortly after she heads inside the mosquitoes get the best of Roc and Famrine and they go inside as well.

The next day, Ward, Roc, and Famrine load up into Roc’s Honda Accord, and they make it to the game on time. Roc and Famrine can’t stand up halfway through the third quarter. By the end of the game Ward was having the most fun, by the time they made it to the post game dinner at Duffy’s for Hangover Burgers and Cobb Salads, her voice was gone. While the two were stuffing their face like it was Thanksgiving dinner, Roc’s eyes are welded to the television playing the movie, ‘1066: A Year to Conquer England’ when his phone begins to ring. Hailey is calling. Roc walks outside of the restaurant and sits on the bench next to the ash tray to answer.

“Hello, Hailey?” Roc says, “Are you there?”

“Hey lil bro.” Hailey responds, “This is urgent, and I really need your help. I found Dad’s address and it’s in Brazil, and I want you to meet me there so that we can confront him together.”

“Brazil? Are you nuts! What am I going to tell mom, that I just decided it was a clever idea to further my education in South America?”

“You’re still living with her? I thought you turned 18 ten months ago. Haven’t you gotten out of that toxic environment yet?”

“Relax,” Roc says, “I enjoy mom’s company but, I do want some closure with dad, just like you do. I’ll meet you in Brazil, I saved enough money from working this summer, thanks to mom.”

“Ok, I’m renting an apartment in Brazil right now, so call me before you get on the plane.”

They hang up the phones, Roc goes back to the table inside Duffy’s where Ward and Famrine are waiting for his return.

“I’m leaving for Brazil tomorrow, my sister found where Dath has been hiding. Famrine do you want to go too, I have enough to bring you along plus we can go check out and maybe try and conquer one of the native tribes you have always wanted to do. How cool would it be to own our own area of the great Amazon Rainforest?”

“That sounds like a dream,” Famrine says, “We’ll have to get some guns while we are there, that will surely beat their bow and arrows and make conquest simple.”

“Well, your new empire will need a queen eventually,” Ward says, “I’ll even pay for my own ticket.”

“Amazing!” Roc exclaims, “Tomorrow we land in Brazil, the next day we create new land and a better life.”

Roc and Hailey sought after Dath, he was living in a small village in the Amazon Rainforest.

© 2021 Sebastian Chipoco