All participants in sexual activity have been on their respective planets for at least eighteen years.
World Travelers
Chapter 7
David Greene
Several days later, I saw a building. Not a skyscraper but also not a mud hut. It was about the size of a two-bedroom home and stood on a small plot of short green grass which resembled a suburban lawn. The entrance to the one-story building faced the prairie. The back abutted up against the jungle.
Without any coaxing on my part, Broken Horn headed directly towards it and, when we were less than a football field away, he stopped and kneeled, allowing Corin and I to dismount.
We walked towards the house with caution.
"Hello! Is anybody home?" I called out.
Getting no response, we hesitantly approached what seemed to be the front door.
The closer we got, the more confused I became. While the building had some man-made attributes - walls, windows, door, and roof - it was nothing like any house I had ever seen before. There were no square corners, or any distinct angles in its design. The exterior footprint was a giant oval. The windows were also oval shaped as was the door, albeit with the bottom portion of the door oval cut off to allow a direct entry.
The ten-foot-high walls were definitely made of wood, but not wooden planks. The house appeared to be a single, living tree... bark still attached... anchored to the ground by sturdy roots. The roof was a thick tangle of branches and leaves which arched up and inwards, rounding out at a peak some fifteen feet above the top of the walls.
I first thought it was a completely solid piece of wood, some sort of freakishly deformed tree that grew out instead of up. But when I peaked in one of the windows, I discovered that the one-foot-thick walls enclosed a spacious interior chamber.
The door sized entranceway was completely filled with prickly thorn bushes which I guessed was the Panternian version of a home security system. Not relishing the idea of pushing my naked body through the briar patch, we continued around to the far side of the building, unsuccessfully searching for a window large enough to crawl through.
"Do you know how to get in?" I asked Corin. "How do we get past the bushes?"
"If this is part of the Jungle, and it wants you to get in, it will let you. But I've never seen anything like this before. We don't have... what did you call it? A house? We don't have them in the Jungle."
"Yeah, it's kind of like a house."
"How do you get into a house in your jungle?"
"Well, if it's not my house, I guess I'd knock on the door."
"I don't know what those words mean, but can you do that here?"
I knew there was no way rapping on a tree with my knuckles would make a sticker bush magically disappear. But that was the first time Corin made even the slightest suggestion as to what we should do next. Every time we faced a problem in our short history together, she relied on me to come up with a solution and then blindly followed whatever I suggested. Not wanting to crush her first hint of initiative, as small as it was, I knocked on the bark next to the entrance.
It opened.
The sticker bushes pulled away from the door, leaving us a clear path to the interior. Seeing her suggestion work, Corin squealed in delight as she jumped into my embrace, wrapped her legs tightly around my waist, and smothered me with kisses. Since the path was clear and she was already in my arms, I carried her across the threshold, trying to force the symbolism of the act out of my mind.
The inside of the building was one large room with no interior partitions. The floor was covered with an inch or two of soft moss as was the furniture, which consisted of a single, oblong, raised platform, twice the size of a king bed, located in the center of the structure.
I gently placed Corin on the bed, resisted the temptation to join her, and continued to explore. The ceiling reminded me of a geodesic dome, although I'd never seen an oval one before, and it too appeared to have a layer of either moss or some other greenish plant. I took a quick peak out the back door to see a small grass covered clearing, surrounded by thick, impenetrable jungle foliage.
Making a mental note to explore the 'back yard' later, I stepped back into the house to study the artwork.
Yep. Art work. As in pictures on the wall. Not framed oils like you'd see in an art museum, but far more sophisticated than stone age cave paintings. The room was full of them. I couldn't tell what medium the artists used but the brightly colored, extremely detailed images were a permanent part of the bare wood interior wall.
Just like the works displayed in the Louvre and the etchings in ancient caverns, most of these pictures told a story. However, towards the back of the house, there were also a series of drawings which appeared to be instructions.
Corin and I went from image to image, studying them like art students in a gallery. We silently stared at the pictures, trying to determine the artists' true message... what they wanted us to glean from their joint efforts. We looked at each masterpiece individually, marveling at the detail of the lifelike renderings. Then walked down the line to understand how each image flowed into the next.
It wasn't an exhibition of modern, abstract art. It didn't take a PhD in art appreciation to understand the message. Corin and I purposely didn't tell each other our individual opinions until we were both sure, in our own minds, of what the house told us.
After studying the story and then the instructions, my path forward was crystal clear. But it wasn't necessarily the path I wanted to follow. Corin apparently felt the same.
"Before we share our thoughts," Corin said after a couple of hours in the house, "can we go back to the herd?"
"Of course, it's almost dinner time."
It was an hour or so before sunset when we returned to our panternalo family. They hadn't strayed far from when we left them. Broken Horn, his mate, and their calf were waiting for us when we approached. Corin gave the cow a hug before settling in with the calf for their evening meal. I retrieved my last strip of dried snake meat from my pack and ate next to a stream while Broken Horn grazed nearby.
When I was done. When I washed the last morsel of dried meat down my throat with a handful of stream water... I walked up to Broken Horn and raised my right hand. In response, he lowered his head, and, through an unspoken bond, we leaned together, my forehead against his, and said goodbye.
Corin cried softly as I led her by the hand to the house. The protective thorn bush opened wide as we approached and closed behind us after we entered.
That evening's gift giving was a meaningful, almost religious experience. The passion of two parting lovers who might not meet again. A soldier saying goodbye to his girl before going to war. An explorer leaving his wife behind as he left for uncharted lands.
"Tell me what you saw?" I asked as we lay together on the moss-covered bed. "What did the paintings tell you."
"They told the story of my people."
"Did it surprise you?"
