Reading: "Rituals of the Antithetical" from the novel RITUALS OF THE ANTITHETICAL (A.Glass 2023)

Darién Gap, Border with Colombia.

Six person reconnaissance, U.S. Special Forces (7th Group).

1983

Major Derick Oser signals for his men to stop within the thick jungle foliage, looking ahead at what appears to be an object embedded into the fauna. He turns, briefly to his sergeant, signaling him to move up close to where he is standing.
“What’s up?”
“Something’s there. You see it?” Oser says, pointing with is right index finger at what looks like a large shape, which appears artificial in this jungle setting.
“Check it out?” His sergeant asks, as Oser looks ahead.
“Yeah…” Oser orders, as the soldier moves forward quietly towards the object. He then signals for two of his men to cover the sergeant’s position, with the remaining soldiers to guard the rear. The sergeant appearing slightly out of sight, Oser signals at the two other men covering the sergeant, to scout ahead. “...Move up,” he says whispering, as they obey the command. The small unit begins to slowly move forward to investigate the object. Oser notices his sergeant pause, as the rest of the unit crouches down.
Moving towards his subordinate, standing next to the man, they both look up at the object on its side, slumped next to a large Ceiba tree.
“A stone cross,” the sergeant says, as Oser also looks up at what appears to be a hand craft Christian stone cross.
“And its upside down,”
“Old?”
Oser studies the relic. “Yeah, Fifteen Hundreds. Conquistador Vasco Nuñez de Balboa and his mad monk Tomás de Torquemada made the local indigenous people drag this stone across inland. Intended to be set down on the Pacific side of the Darién Gap. They never made it…” He looks around at the unforgiving jungle. “...and all perished here…” Oser turns and faces his sergeant. “...Blind luck…” He then looks at the ominous sight of an inverted stone cross, half buried into the Earth. “...And we ended up finding it here…” He peers up at the jungle canopy. “…In this lush hellhole.”

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Reading: "Rituals of the Antithetical" from the novel RITUALS OF THE ANTITHETICAL (A.Glass 2023)