Evergreen Whatever wherever whenever ......That is TAMIL

We got picked up by a ragged crew of Mexican fishermen just before dark. Aside from being sunburned to medium rare, we were physically okay. The fresh air and sunshine did a lot to bring Sarah back, though she did have lapses of non-rationality, and once tried to dive over the side of their fishing cutter. They dropped us off at the tourist site of Yaxchitan, a Mayan ruin on the western bank of the mighty Usumacinta, where we joined an American day-tour on its way back to San Cristobal de las Casas. There we caught a prop flight to Cancun, and then American Airlines to New York. We had no luggage, but I flew us first-class, and I still have the MasterCard slip to prove it. As things turned out, though, returning Sarah to normalcy—or me, for that matter—was another struggle entirely. For me, time, after that rainy morning in the Peten, became an essence that flowed around me as though I were aswim in the ether of interstellar space, pondering the conjunction of g...

bade them a silent farewell, turned, and walked, holding my tears, back through the stone room. The rear of the pyramid was deserted, the steps slippery and dangerous, but it was our way out. I began leading Sarah down, step by treacherous step. Everything had happened so fast I'd barely had time to think about Steve. Those flames, my God. It was finally sinking in, truly hitting me. Had he gotten out in time? Then the slimy Rio Tigre, now swelling from the rain, came into view. I stared at it a second before I noticed the three young Army recruits leaning against the trunk of a giant Cebia tree next to the trail, their rifles covered in plastic against the rain. When they saw us, they stiffened, shifted their weapons, and glanced up at the top of the pyramid, as though seeking orders. Neither group had any idea why the other was there. Sarah and I were an unforeseen contingency they hadn't been briefed on.         What are they...