The Wilds (19 page)

The pamphlet,
Regeneration at Mukti
, features a color photo of a pupa dangling from a leaf on the cover. Inside is an outline of the bodily restoration process. My treatment has borne fruit. I suffer (oh, how I suffer!) from the following: urushiol-induced dermatitis (poison oak rash), dermatophytosis (ringworm), type-I herpes simplex (cold sores), cercarial dermatitis (swimmer’s itch),
herpes zoster (shingles), and trichinosis (caused by intramuscular roundworms). Using a blend of cutting-edge nanotechnology and gene therapy, combined with homeopathic and holistic approaches, the clinicians of Mukti have transmitted controlled pathogens into my body through oils, funguses, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. As skilled therapists work to reroute my mind-body networks to conduct more positive flows, my immune system is tackling an intricate symphony of infections, healing my body on the deepest subcellular levels: banishing free radicals, clearing out the toxic accumulation of lipofuscins, reinstalling hypothalamus hormones, and replacing telomeres to revitalize the clock that directs the life span of dividing cells.

I itch so much that I want to scrub my body with steel wool. I want to roll upon a giant cheese grater. I’d love to flay myself and be done with the mess. According to the pamphlet, however, not only does scratching interfere with the healing process, but the mental discipline required to refrain from scratching strengthens the chakra pathways that enhance positive mind-body flow.

I have a beautiful dream in which I’m rolling in a patch of briars. I worm my naked body against thorns, writhe
ecstatically in nests of prickly vines. I cry out, convulsing with the sweet sting of pleasure. I wake before dawn, pajamas stuck to my skin.

For me, consciousness is nothing but the seething tides of itchiness, hunger, and thirst, a vague sex drive nestled deep in the misery. I live like an animal from minute to minute, appointment to appointment, meal to meal.

Morning: a bowl of oats with flaxseeds and blueberries, followed by a kelp bath and castor-oil massage. After that: a cabbage poultice administered by experts, who then slather my body with shea butter and wrap it in sea-soaked silk. Before lunch I must descend into the bowels of the Samsara Complex for blood work and nanotech nuclear restructuring. Then a lunch of raw vegetables and fermented organ meats, kombucha with
goji
and spirulina.

Postlunch I do a volcanic-mud bath, then hydrate with a goat-milk-and-basil soak. Next comes a green-tea sensory-deprivation session, then Kundalini yoga with Gobind Singh. Staggering from this mind-fuck, I head straight for the Samsara Complex for stem-cell work and injections of Vita-Viral Plus. Then a light coconut-oil massage and I’m good to go.

At supper I’m startled by Red’s appearance. Yes, I’ve been monitoring his Incrustation. But I wasn’t prepared for the new purple swellings around his eyes, or the dribbling boils on his chin. Ditto the lip cankers and blepharitis. Of course I’m aware of my own hideousness. Of course I recoil each time I see my face in the mirror (think rotted plums and Spam). And the itching is a constant reminder of my state. Nevertheless, deep in the core of my being, I feel unscathed, as though the process were happening to someone else.

Though Red and I haven’t touched each other in weeks, we eat together most nights, fresh from soothing therapies and tipsy on our allotment of organic, sulfite-free wine. We have about an hour until the itching becomes unbearable, then we slink off to our respective tree houses.

Tonight we’re enjoying the fugu sashimi with pickled dandelion greens. The humidity hovers around fifty-five percent, great for our raw skin. And the ocean looks like pounded pewter. Though we’re both disgusting—it’s as if we’re mummy-wrapped in putrid flesh—our real selves remain tucked down under the meat costumes.

“I was thinking about the hot springs,” says Red. “Since our infections seem to be stabilizing.”

“Quite a hike,” I say. “It’d be hell on our swollen feet.”

“You can do the whole trip on an
ATV
.”

“What?” says Lissa, who’s hovering over our table, wearing a full-body catsuit of black spandex, only a few square inches of her polluted flesh visible through eye and mouth holes.

“I wanna go,” she says, sitting down on the other side of Red. “I hear the springs help with collagen reintegration.”

“And improving the flow between throat and brow chakras,” says Red, smiling idiotically.

“Really?” says Lissa. “The third-eye chakra? Cool.”

A waitress appears. Lissa orders
kway teow
with fermented beef. The patio’s getting crowded. The music’s lame, all synthesized sitars and tabla drum machines. But Red bobs his head in time to the tunes. And Lissa slithers up next to him, gazes raptly at a pic on his iPhone.

“That’s you?” she shrieks.

“That’s me.”

“A mullet. No way!”

“It’s an alternative mullet, not a redneck mullet.”

“Let’s not mince hairs,” quips Lissa.

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” cries Red.

And then Lissa flounces off to the bathroom, but not without tousling his hair.

“God.” I take a sip of water. “She’s dumb.”

“She’s not as stupid as she puts on,” says Red.

“What does that mean?”

“You know, the whole ingénue act.”

“She’s got to be at least thirty-eight.”

“Chronologically, maybe, but not biologically.”

I want to drill Red for a more precise number—does she look thirty-two? twenty-six? nineteen?—but I don’t. I grab my purse, a practical satchel that slumps on the table beside Lissa’s glittering clutch.

“Don’t go,” says Red. “I haven’t swilled my allotment of vino yet.”

“Sorry.” I manufacture a yawn. “I’m sleepy.”

I weave through the tables without looking back, skirt the rock garden, and stomp down the jungle trail. Deep in the forest, male Kibi monkeys howl, adolescents looking for mates. The small nocturnal monkeys spend their days dozing in the hollows of trees, but at night they hunt for insects and baby frogs. They eat their weight in fruit, sip nectar from flowers, sing complex songs that throb with vitality and longing.

After a four-mile
ATV
jaunt, Red and I finally steep neck-deep in a steaming spring. Though Lissa invited herself along, I scheduled our jaunt for a Tuesday after lunch, well aware of her strenuous nanotech routine.
For the first time in weeks, the itch has left me, and my body flexes, supple as a flame. The hot springs stink, of course, a predictable rotten-egg funk, as sulfur dioxide leaks into the air. But it’s worth it. My skin’s sucking up nature’s beauty mineral, strengthening its collagen bundles, improving its cellular elasticity. Plus, mist-cloaked mountains swell around us. And though Red’s facial blebs have started to ooze, he radiates boyish optimism.

“Look what I brought.” He smiles, leaning out of the pool to dig through his rucksack. “Sparkling apple cider. Organic. Though I forgot glasses.”

“That’s okay. We can swig from the bottle.”

“Exchange
HSV
-1 fluids?”

“And ecthymic bacteria.”

“Ugh.”

We sit in the mystical vapor, sipping cider and touching toes. The haze softens the hideousness of our faces. Our voices dart like birds in a cloud. We talk about Red’s ex-wife, whose weakness for fey hipster boys is partially responsible for his sojourn at Mukti. I tell him about my money-obsessed ex-husband, who once updated his stock portfolio while I was in the throes of a miscarriage. I could see his reflection in the bathroom mirror of our hotel room in Bali as he sat in the other room, smirking over his iPhone. And then I heard him talking to his broker on the phone.

“I’m sorry,” says Red.

“I’m over it.”

I find his hand under the water. We sit floating in a state of semicontentment. Then we start up with the cider again.

Exceeding our daily allotment of alcohol, we drink until the bottle is empty and the effervescence inside us matches that of the bubbly springs. A plane flies over. The sun pops out to infuse our mist shroud with a pearly glow. And then, emerging from the steam as though from another dimension, clad in dingy cutoff shorts, a man steps into the pool. By all appearances, he’s not a patient. His skin has photo-aged into a crinkled rind. He’s got senile cataracts and wisps of long gray hair. And when he cracks a smile, we see a wet flash of gums, like a split in a leathery desert fruit.

“I have company today,” he says, his New England accent tinged with a Caribbean patois. “I’m Winter.” He extends a gnarled hand. I’m thinking he must be an ancient hippie who retired here before Mukti took off.