Shanti. That’s her name, the girl from the Jungle Book. It’s a name that nobody knows because it’s not in the movie, and it’s not in the movie because Shanti is not a girl. She is a girl being watched by a boy.
I am Mowgli in the jungle. I wrap myself around coconut trees and feel warm aluminum against my naked chest. I climb by inches, hoping for the world to turn upside down so that I may fall to the top, pluck the glowing fruit, and drop into the clouds. My feet are bare that I may stand as an extension of the earth, that I may feel the burning asphalt like magma against my soul heating me up until I glow orange in the dark. Seconds bleed in the jungle, mixing with one another until time becomes indivisible, less the passing of a car and more the air I breathe. And I will breathe forever. The only threat to my immortality is the man-village. I see it like a faded moon in daylight. It lurks in my peripherals. There is smoke on the horizon, a black infection against blue sky that rises from the man-village where they burn everything that matters. Pokémon cards, candy, Clue, and crying are gathered up and thrown onto the pyre to be consumed for fuel. Made useful.
