They Make Me Tell Them

I think I was about seven years old. I wake up with my face pressed against glass, thousands of feet in the air, looking down at a luscious green island in the middle of bright blue water. 

I pick my face up off the airplane window and look back to my smiling aunt beside me. I must’ve just fallen asleep and when the pilot made a sharp left turn and I woke myself up by smashing my face. 

I look back down below me at this gorgeous, bright blue river cutting through through the island with little sandy beaches and huts on each side. That’s where we’ll be staying for our luxurious vacation.

And then I swear to god I see three sharks swimming in the river past these huts. From the center of the island towards the beach and into the ocean.

I try to say something to my Aunt, but she brushes it off as my boyhood imagination. To be fair, at 7 years old my imagination did run pretty wild. I had 13 different stuffed animals who all had names and brought their own joie-de-vivre to our conversations. I was the commissioner and star player of 3 different professional sports leagues with full rosters and backstories on every player. Let’s just say I was never bored.

Anyway, I was always pumped to go on vacations with my financially successful aunt and uncle and their two boys who were more like brothers than cousins. Apparently this time, they were really upping the budget with a remote island destination that we had to take our own little prop plane to get to. I was ready to be pampered.

The plane lands and we’re taken to our hut by the immaculately-dressed staff. Tuxedos in the jungle was an odd-choice, but I didn’t question it at the time.

We get to the hut and it’s incredible. 7-year-old me is ready to live like a king. We walk up a few steps and open the front door. Inside is one enormous room with a kitchen on the right, a dining room behind it, and a living room with some classy couches and chairs that were taken off the set of Mad Men. Floor-to-floor windows slide open to a deck that hangs over the river. The open floor plan and lighting were just 🤌.

To the left after you walk in the front door is like an attic door, but on the ground. Our staff member pulls it open to reveal steps leading down to the basement. 

We walk down and instead of a basement, we are descending into a master bedroom with muddy, Texas-Longhorn-orange walls and a giant king bed that’s stark white. Your classic 5-star, exotic, luxury resort James Bond hideout. 

Then one of the staff members who I fell in love with immediately because she was beautiful and sweet and was also probably in love with me as well, but knew deep-down that our age-difference was going to be an issue, presses a button and the left side of the room turns from wall to aquarium glass. We realize that we’re under the ground watching the river flow by. Sparkles of sunlight flicker through the blue and green and fish appear and scatter and seaweed and sediment drifts. I’ll never forget that moment. But more importantly, I will never forget the beautiful staff member. Who will remain nameless, because I forgot her name.

The bedroom that I’m sharing with my cousins is on the other side of the master and looks nearly identical except there are two queen beds instead of one giant king. 

We’re fucking around in our room, pressing our faces against the glass and I look in the river to try and see the sharks that I saw from the plane. Tim and Will don’t believe me when I tell them so instead we breathe on the glass and draw penises and write bad words and do other hoodrat shit. It’s dope. Life is good.

The next day, someone from the staff shows up and leads us down a skinny trail to another spot on the river where there’s a dock and a beach. This staff member is not my new future lifelong lover and soulmate, which was disappointing. Maybe I’d made too much eye contact the day before and scared her away. 

This new guy though, was the absolute worst and not just in a “you’re not my future wife” kinda way, but in a heeby-jeebies, definitely serial killer, kind of way. I got the same feeling when one of my mom’s friends came over with her Bernese Mountain Dog named Axel. I loved all animals, but this was the first one that made me want to sit in my mom’s lap or on the kitchen counter and away from its teeth. Eventually, my premonitions proved correct after the dog bit off his owner’s top lip.

The new, creepy guy brings us to the beach where we’re supposed to go snorkeling, but I didn’t want to because of the fucking goddamn sharks in the river that no one believed I saw. So instead, Tim, Will, and I sat on the edge of the dock and threw sticks and stones into the water. This grows old and Tim and Will start dangling their feet, their hands, dumping their entire heads… into the shark-infested water. Laughing, shouting, and pleading with me to join them.

Like the idiot with zero backbone that I am, I do join them. They’re happy that I’m finally playing, but then I look up-river to my left and notice movement in the water. A massive, dark shadow getting bigger and closer. The surface of the water breaks and a fin appears on the surface. I try to warn my cousins. I try to shout or scream or screech or say anything, but I’m breathless. Like the person in the horror movie who you’re jumping up and down and yelling at from the couch to move, yell, DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!

Our feet are dangling just a few feet away when I see it’s mouth open and I knock both of my cousins backwards and fall with them onto the pier with our legs in the air. The shark splashes back into the water.

I try to catch my breath. I’m petrified, but at least my cousins will understand that I’m not acting crazy anymore and there really are sharks in the water. But then I turn to them… and they’re just laughing. Cackling. It couldn’t have been funnier. 

So we’re back in the hut now and I’m sitting in between my aunt and uncle on the Mad Men couch while they’re reading and my cousins are sitting in the Mad Men lounge chairs flicking through magazines and playing with toys. I don’t want to play with them anymore because of how insane they acted on the dock so instead I watch the staff that’s preparing dinner in the kitchen across the room. It looks like a michelin star crew buzzing around. Waiters in white tuxedos setting the table. Chefs wearing chef hats standing over sizzling pans. The creepy staff member from the beach stands against the wall by the door watching them work. I watch him and start to feel uneasy and then he turns his head and meets my gaze. He’s tan with slicked back hair and meticulously groomed facial hair. His dark eyes look menacing, but then he smiles at me and I look away. It was a smile like he already knew who I was. Just an absolute creep show and I probably should’ve said something right there, but I didn’t because I was 7 freaking years old so give me a little slack.

The next day we wake up and we’re in the livingroom area again. It looks like a beautiful day through the floor-to-ceiling windows, but my aunt and uncle are reading and my cousins are playing chess. I ask my aunt why we aren’t going outside. She hates wasting days inside, but doesn’t seem to understand my question and just brushed me off. Play with your cousins, blah-blah-Charlie Brown noises.

I don’t know what to think at this point. No one seems to be acting like themselves. My aunt and uncle hate when we stay inside all day, my cousins have no regard for their well-being, and no one is believing a word I say. Other than the beautiful, female staff member who I made eye-contact with a few times. She gets me. And I get her. But, everyone else - even the rest of the staff who seems to be working round the clock in our new home and the menacing, meticulously groomed man with the black tuxedo who’s just standing by the door observing everyone. Observing us.

I go to bed that night feeling like we’re wasting our entire vacation in our hotel room despite being in paradise.  To be fair, our one day outside consisted of almost dying in a shark attack, but now it feels like I’ve been stuck inside for days. Luckily, the beautiful lady who works at the resort is helping us get ready for bed. Since we’ve developed such strong chemistry and since you can always trust someone based off of how stunningly gorgeous they are, I know that I need to confide in her. I need to put an end to this madness and honestly, straight-up tomfoolery.

So I tell her that I think her shitty excuse of a coworker is trapping us in our hut. We haven’t been outside in hours. Maybe even days. That my family is brainwashed and that we need someone to help us escape this island. She looks at me with compassion and I know I’ve made the right decision. We’re gonna be safe.

The aquarium wall to my right has massive fish swimming by in the dark blue waters. My soulmate touches my shoulder and then walks through the doorway towards my aunt and uncle’s master bedroom. The menacing staff member stands at the top of the stairs and she appears to be walking towards him, but stops and whispers something to another staff member first. Who whispers something to another staff member and then that person whispers into the ear of the menacing man. For context, there are way too many staff members for a normal hotel bedroom. 

He stands at the top of the stairs and immediately fixes his gaze on me through the doorway with that same knowing smile.

There’s no way out. The staff assemble two chairs across from each other and usher me into one. I’m surrounded by tuxedoed staff, my family, the burnt orange walls on my left and the blue aquarium wall to my right. They make a path for the menacing man to enter the circle and sit in the chair opposite me. He’s not smiling, but it feels like he still is. And it feels like I’m about to be sacrificed as part of some ancient island ritual that my family’s known about this whole time. It makes sense. I’m a pretty special kid so I’m sure a sacrifice from me would go a super long way with whatever god they pray to.

No one said anything. It’s like they were waiting for me to admit that I was in trouble and trapped, but I didn’t say anything. Maybe I had just lost my mind and I imagined everything. The sharks, my family acting weird, my deep connection to the beautiful staff member whose name started with an “A” or an “L” maybe? I didn’t know what to think other than the fact that I was scared. Nay, petrified.

He waits for me to say something, but I stay silent.

But he’s playing a game and they’re waiting for me to admit that I’m scared in order to win. Then they could begin their cannibalistic, demon-worshipping, bullshit.

“Why are you so nervous?” Creepy guy finally speaks.

Why don’t they just brainwash me at this point? I’ll play along if I can just be on the same page as my cousins, I don’t give a fuck anymore.

I don’t know what to say so I just look at him. The perfectly tan skin. Well-groomed mustache, beard. Sharp, tweezed eyebrows. Black eyes with streaks of brown in them. And then… I start to recognize him.  

They say Deja Vu is when you accidentally process a current moment as a memory and it makes you think you’ve seen something before when it’s actually never happened. But this is something else.

“I know who you are.”

The menacing grin pulls back and he looks puzzled.

“Why are you so scared that I’m going to leave?”

He’s more concerned now.

“You know I’ve been here before. So obviously I can leave and come back. No need to trap me.”

I laugh. He’s petrified. And getting smaller. Because now I’m floating and looking down at everyone looking back up at me with wonder and fear. I smile. Their faces, the burnt clay walls, gets lighter and brighter like a flashlight from heaven behind my head pointing down at them like the silly peasants they are.  The blue river and green trees all blend together until it’s all white.