encasement of a gigantic strangler fig tree that had wrapped itself
around a long-dead acacia tree. The natural container of roots and
hanging vines formed his house walls shielding him from the daily wet
times when water poured violently from the sky.
Besides his daily forage of the abundant fruits and seed pods which
he would eat, the jungle boy would exit his tree home only to draw
pictures. This was his true passion. He would draw the slow sloths,
the green vipers, the playful monkeys, the friendly tarantulas, and
even occasionally the elusive tapirs. Using banana-leaf paper and
natural flower-dyes, his paintings were stunningly beautiful,
especially for someone who lacked formalized art training.
The pictures he drew spoke to him, but he was the only
one who could hear them. He did not realize this fact, until the day
when the golden-haired woman "discovered" him.
The woman with the golden hair had good intentions, but
when she attempted to clothe and bathe the jungle boy, he resisted
furiously. He never spoke a word during this and future encounters
because he could only communicate through his drawings.
The golden-haired woman attempted to "educate" the
jungle boy with strange-looking letters that would form weird-sounding
words. Without his banana-skin paper, his yucca-strand brush, and his
flower-dye paints, he was speechless.
After years and years of trying to societize the jungle
boy into a white-man's world, the golden-haired woman finally released
the jungle man back into his home. His strangler fig tree home was
just as he left it. That very day, he began to draw the wonderful
animals of the rain-forest again. They were his true friends whom he
loved and missed all through his time spent in the foreign, lonely,
concrete world of the white man.