For a Wallago
Cloud, Tifa, and Zack accepted an exploration to South-East Asia for rumored giant wallago.
"You know Cloud, this place is called Paradise Island…" Zack, one of his colleagues suddenly slapped his back after saying some nonsense things.
"Paradise Island whatever, we're going to catch that monster fish, live or death." He brushed his hand and continues rolling his special fishing string.
"Cold," chirps Zack, "but really, if your definition of paradise is full of monster fish, then this place is a true paradise for you!"
"You mean this place that not even a map mentioned? Sure."
"Man, Cloud, it is true! I just googled and Borneo is a hella famous for incredible animals!" this man here, who work as a hired taxonomist, do not want to lose.
"Borneo is no Africa," Cloud tried to calm himself, but, "Borneo isn't even close to Amazon," he is not gonna buy this. He is a fish biologist and work for a university research organization for a couple of years, but he never heard once about their destination.
"You bet. If you get that 176 pounds wallago 1), I know you'll admit it. And if that happened, you need to—"
"Stop that shit, guys." Tifa, their only woman crew that assigned to participate in this expedition, interrupt. "And Cloud, you haven't come to this place. Me neither. Not even that big-mouth Zack. Don't you two get nervous?" she seemed irritated.
"Nope. I just have this feeling that we could at least found a new species of snakehead there 1). So, no. Not even slightly. I can't wait to set my foot on a place I've never visited!" he clearly look nervous with that blush across his face, but not sure if it really nervous or just very, very excited. "And don't ask this choccobo-head, he is not even interested."
"It's not that I'm not interested. I just don't want to go there. And guess what, it is my job. Can't escape."
Tifa looks sympathetic to him for seconds before exhaling heavily, "I know, Cloud, it is hard for you. You wanna write your own paper, and not following Barret's order to come with us. But just like you said, it is work. And you need work."
"My ass, Cloud! You still thinking about it?!" Zack screamed irritably, "Well, it's not that I don't mind our budget, because clearly they will cut it for… my goodness! Three days continuous travel from Kuala Lumpur!" 2)
"Not that again, Zack." Tifa said, "We've talked about it yesterday. And I don't want to remember it. Ever again." She crossed her arms and closed her reddish-brown eyes, trying to get some more sleep before they arrived.
"Me neither. But we all have our own problem to accept this mission. See?"
"Yeah…" that's all what Cloud say. He dropped his reels of fishing strings, looked up to roof plane. Finds nothing there except lights and some buttons. He sighs, he was sure that this would be the longest and worst expedition he had ever been through.
The next day after arriving to the airport, they continue the road trip by car. They are lucky enough Barret hired a fluent in English local driver, waiting for them there. He said his name's Cid. Even though he is a quite helper, he is a little rude. Like, how come this Cid called Cloud as emo prick?
"You're all clueless to this place. I don't know why you pick this strange and sacred place, but I know maybe that's what you all lookin' for." Cid went on.
"Sacred? What do you mean sacred?" Zack open his mouth, looking very curious from the back seat.
"See? You don't even know what kind of place it is. What's your name again? Zax?" Cid glances at Zack from rearview mirror. His local accent sounded clear when he trying to figure his name.
"It's Zack. Z-a-c-k. Zack Fair."
"Ya sound nothing like fair, bitch."
" What you just call me?!"
"He's spitting, Zack. Not that he meant it." Cloud, who sat in the front seat next to Cid, tried to break them down.
They were silent for a moment. Cloud turned his head over and find Tifa fall asleep. Again. Zack positioned her head to his shoulder, he doesn't seem interested in this conversation anymore, and probably will sleep as well. Cloud looked out the window. He's done an expedition to South-East Asia before, and here is much like the one in the Philippines. Trees of various evergreen and tall species, blackish peat soil that rich in minerals, warm and humid air; this is one of the best area to plant, he thinks. Cloud glanced at his watch, 86o F. The temperature here was pretty hot, he unbuttoned his cedar colored kiwi short-sleeved shirt he was wearing, showing more of his well-toned chest. Maybe he should have chose a SG-100 T-shirt green camouflage like Cid wear next time. Cloud covers his eyes from the sudden sunlight, he just realized that this car running on the left side and the steering wheel is on the right. A complete exact from his. He then wondered if this country had ever colonized by the English.
Cid cleared his throat and interrupted Cloud's thought, "I saw you got some fancy fishing tools there, and it's not that I want to interfere or what, but what's your intention?"
"We're assigned to find out the existence of a giant wallago there. And maybe to catch some," he replied lightly.
Cid glanced at Cloud questioningly, "Walla what?"
Cloud look at the driver with disbelief, "Wallago."
"'ve never heard of tha'."
"It's a giant catfish that can grow up to 6.5 feet." Cloud opened his arms, guessing how long two meters are.
"Whatever that fish name, but I also drove three people there last week. Lookin' like a bunch of experts like you all,"
"To catch fish too?" he asked with a full sense of curiosity, are we preceded by other researcher?
"Don't think so. They have no tools like you," Cid swerved to the right, avoiding a big rock in the middle of an unpaved road. Cloud quietly relieved to hear it, not wanting to travel here in vain. "they brought a stack full of newspapers, instead." 3)
"What for? Are they there for educational purposes?"
"Dunno man, that's what I wanna know too,"
"By the way, you said Melembah is a sacred village?"
"I didn't say that, not the village. But the lake," The blonde fish biologist hummed, "You seem very chilled for someone who will enter the area of the assassins…"4)
"Assassin what?" this one, Cloud received a pair of narrow eyes from the driver.
"You know, those who behead people for mystical things,"
"What?"
The driver explode with laughter, he stopped when he heard Tifa stirred from her sleep. "Oh boy, where you have been all this time? Haven't read The Head Hunters of Borneo?" Cloud shakes his head. "Ngayau, they call the tradition with that." 4)
"Ngayau?" he repeated, it almost sounds like synonym of the word 'creepy' on his tongue.
"Yap, and I hope they will not do it tomorrow,"
If Cloud feels like it would be his longest and worst expedition, he will add it: the most dreadful.
"I hope you guys don't get bored with me because we're going through the river on a day-long boat,"
"I wish," Zack replied sarcastically. Cloud flinches with the choice of Zack's clothes. In the middle of this heat, he even wore a rolled-up bright oatmeal Sherwood vulture shirt out. Plus his pebble cargo pants, which by looking at it you will feel hot.
"… that is what I always say. But who knows, I got bored easily more." The driver, now a boat driver, started his machine.
"You just parked your jeep there?" the Strife asked. Maybe he worried about it.
"No one will steal it. Believe me." The driver burned the end of his cigar, sipping slowly. "If you go back and found a python sleeping comfortably between the seats; I would be more worried."
Tifa, who seemed a bit smarter than Zack by wearing a gilet waistcoat sleeveless vest and a white tank top underneath, opened her backpack and took a pair of binoculars; one for her and another for Zack. They observed the surrounding mangrove trees. She said she saw a variety of birds species she had never seen before. Even without any binocular, Cloud knows that here at least has two or three times as many bird species from he live. He was not surprised, but didn't enjoy it as much as those two. Three hour after they set the boat, the area around starts to change. The river began to narrow and the trees grew thicker. From a distance you can hear something mutually shouted. Zack asked Cid what is that, and he replied between his cigarette smokes, "You'll know,"
Not long after that, the tree braces in front of them wobbled. Among the bushy mangrove foliage, there was a long-tailed grey macaca. Zack's smile grew wider, quickly opened his waist bag, pulled out a little notebook, that Cloud knew he always carried, and a pen. With a careful hand, he sketched that macaca. Cloud understands, Zack is a zoo-taxonomist, and Tifa is a young conservationist whom Cloud knew during a seminar five years ago. Not just about fish like Cloud, they love these kinds of things.
Cloud closed his eyes and breathed in the air; letting his face feel the warmth of the sun on equator, emerging from behind the sheltering foliage. Listening to Zack and Tifa corrected each other about the Latin names of the animals could be tiring too; so he tried to focus his attention on the sounds around. Leaves blown by the wind, sound of water underneath, bird chirping, and chattering macaca in the distant; whatever it is. If he brings his iPod, Tessa's Steve Jablonsky 5) is the right musical choice to play on his head right now. Or maybe 'My Name is Lincoln'? Ah no, it sounds a bit happier. And I'm not happy.
His kinda-meditation was broken by Zack's voice calling him, "Cloud! Look at that Hylobates!"
He followed Zack's finger pointing at 2 o'clock, Cloud found nothing but green leaves. "What?" Tifa giggled and lend him her binocular, he accepted it reluctantly. He looks up and finds… "Another macaca?"
Zack shakes his head and explained that it is not a macaca. "We're somehow too lucky to find this endemic white-bearded gibbon in the wild, you know?"
"Hylobates. I don't really remember it's species name, but this one is endangered, Cloud." Tifa added. He takes a notice of this brownish gibbon. If you don't have sharp eyes, you will surely miss it. It doesn't move much and looks very vulnerable, no wonder their population is threatened. Its body generally brown, with dark brown 'hood', has white cheeks, chin and beard encircling it black face. Impressive, Cloud thought. He has never seen a monkey like this. Is it a monkey, though? A gibbon.
"Teef, I believe it's ringed with alibaba or something. Hylobates alibaba? Is that a thing?"
Tifa giggled, "Now I remember, thanks to your silly brain, Zack. It's Hylobates albibarbis,"
Zack sent a smile to Tifa before immediately wrote it on his favorite notebook. It looks like he just got his best record.
"It's called kalawet by native here." Cid spoke. Zack jotted it down, asking Cid to repeat and spelled it slowly. "Kalawet in Nganju's language means 'apes without tail'."
Not wanting to lose, Cloud asked, "What about the fish here in the river?"
Cid said he doesn't know that much, but he tried to explain what he knows. "You may have heard about that giant catfish, but honestly we don't call it catfish. It is called tapah. And we consider it different from 'catfish'. So when you say it is catfish, hah, I wanna laugh."
Cid illustrate some of the freshwater fish, and Cloud knows some of it. Like Clarias insolitus, Acrochordonichthys, Asian Arowana that if he remembers it correctly: Scleropages formosus, and even an adorable spotted eel-loach species. Others are snakeheads and so many from Clarias genus 6). But still, not too much compared from what he heard of Mekong River in Thailand.
The longer it gets, the deeper, the denser, the more Cloud knows the privilege of this place. When the sun began to sink, they arrived at the downstream of… normal river. Because next, instead have the same brownish color as before, the water is black. At first, they think it was water pollution, but then Cid said that in this river, the water contain high level of slate. "Ooh," The three of them chorused. This is their first time crossed a river like that, they even just knowing that something like this exist. 7)
The driver said that we should get to the village right away, because usually the estuarine crocs will start looking for preys in the evening, "You don't want to be their today's meal right? Hahaha," he laughed like it just some kind of joke. It's not.
Thankfully, they could finally see rooftops of the houses. Means they have arrived to Melembah Village. Their destination. "I was thinking that the village might be in the middle of the forest, but the reality is: it's not in the middle of the forest only, but in the middle of a river too!" Zack exclaimed. The houses supported by some wood, making it taller than the surface of the water. Every house is connected by a board, making it easy to walk from house to other house.
They were greeted by people dressed in traditional clothing. It seems there will be a welcome ritual for them. "Just follow their orders and I guarantee you will come out scratch-less." Cid whispered. All of sudden, the thought of an assassin who has a hobby beheading people crossed Cloud's mind. He shivered.
Strange ritual like stepping on an egg without breaking it have passed, they are believed will not bring and suffer misfortune, finally welcomed to their home stay. Cloud was picking up his flashlight and other items when a woman approaches him. Cloud turned and he found an impressive pair of green eyes glanced back at him. Her fair skin illuminated by the evening sun, in stark contrast to the black slate water beneath them and a black traditional torso-wrap clad on her slim body. Her brown hair tied behind her back, braided with a pink delicate ribbon. She looks the same age as him, or is one or two years older. But the shine in her eyes suddenly made her looks younger.
The woman gave him flower he never knew smells so nice, and she smiled at him. He was literally agape when she asked him, "What's wrong?"
"No-nothing," he brushed this kind of feeling you wanted to play a cheesy romantic instrumental song in the back of your head.
She smiled again, her smile fits her perfectly. "My name is Aerith Gainsborough," he skipped a beat, just realizing that she is not a local resident. And not only her smile that fit her, her name also. Gainsborough sounds like she is from UK, or somewhere fancy. "We're here for our research too,"
"Cloud Strife," he managed to say his name, "a fish biologist," he was silently grateful for his feeling to wear a dark gray tight camouflage T-shirt yesterday. He wants this woman in front of him to notice that at least he has a good body.
"Wow, really?" he's not sure why she looks enthusiastic about it, "So you guys are all fish biologists?" she glanced at Zack and Tifa behind him. "And they're Vincent and Yuffie, my friends," Aerith said, pointing at a man with red cloak and a short haired girl respectively, talking to his friends.
"No, Zack is a taxonomist expert and Tifa is naturalist… or conservationist, whatever you want to calls it."
"Oh, why don't you come inside and we could chat for a while," Cloud nodded, and followed Aerith inside. His eyes unintentionally on the nape of Aerith's neck, that was not covered by her long-braided hair. Clear and seductive. He blushed, throwing away the thought. "So, Mr. Strife, why did you come?"
Is this normal? Do I have to answer it?
"Hmm?" it seemed Aerith was cornering him.
"We're here for wallago," he paused, "and Cloud is alright."
"Oh! I know, yesterday Mr. Pak 8) caught a big wallago in the lake!"
"How big?"
"Reaaally big, I think I've never seen such a big fish alive before, Cloud!"
He doesn't know why talking to this woman feels… right, and not wasting his energy, "Really?" and did she just call him Cloud? It sounds like they have been familiar with each other for a long time.
"Yes! I think the fish weigh 9 kilos," … or so he thinks, a 20 pounds wallago is quite common, though. But he appreciates it.
Cloud chuckled, "Bet you never see a killer whale or a humpback, before? They're thousands times bigger than your wallago. And I've caught a 50 kilos one."
She laughed, "You can't compare the biggest living creature on earth with a catfish, Cloud." He looked at her apologetically. "But yeah, I don't know much about fish,"
"Me neither, with fish here,"
"What do you mean?"
"There is not much I know about the native fish in Borneo, I don't even know where exactly we're,"
"You must be kidding, right?" Aerith looks at him playfully, "Borneo is one of my favorite islands in the world! No one knows exactly how many unexplored plants here, nor with animals. This island always surprised me with all of it surprises."
"Is it that special?"
"Really. You know that flower I gave for you earlier? That's a native orchid that blooms only once a year. We still don't know its name. And you must have heard Corpse Lily right?" Aerith paused. "And didn't Latimeria is a quite popular?" 9)
Cloud chuckled again, "Coelacanths doesn't live here, they're in Celebes, and they live at 2.5 miles under sea surface."
"Wow. You did a fish expert."
"What is Corpse Lily?" He knew. But he wanna hear more from her.
She frowned, "Rafflessia. You must be missed your history class, then. I need to explain you this." She seated herself closer to Cloud and spread her fingers, "Back in 1818, two English botanists conducted exploration in Sumatera; Joseph Arnold and Sir Stamford Raffles. But unfortunately, Arnold died in the exploration, so…"
Cloud listening to it, honestly! And not instead of paying attention to her sweet-looking lips… He shakes his head. Focus!
He is lucky, because soon after, both of their friends come over. They are all acquainted. Cloud finds Vincent as a quiet and reserved person, and Yuffie as a nagging and exhausting girl. That night, Cloud Strife for the first time in his life, secretly steal a glance to the botanist beauty; Aerith Gainsborough.
He smiled to himself.
If Cloud feels like this would be his longest, worst, and the most dreadful expedition, before; he feels like he will marry someone once it's over, now.
FIN
1) Inspired by fish biologist, Zeb Hogan from Jungle Jaws on NatGeo WILD (2013).
2) Melembah Village is located deep in the forests of Borneo, Indonesia and takes three days to get there from its closest neighbor Malaysia; that's three flights, a six hour car ride, and one full day by boat.
3) Botanists will use newspaper more often to store samples, especially for dry preserves; because the material easily absorb water and relatively cheap.
4) Ngayau is a Dayak tribe tradition that inhabits the island of Kalimantan (Borneo), both Dayak who live in West Kalimantan and other area. Head Hunters of Borneo (1882) by Carl Bock.
5) Tessa - Transformers: Age of Extinction – The Score (2014). My name is Lincoln - The Island (2005).
6) Clarias = catfish genus.
7) Indeed, exist.
8) Pak means Mister, so she doesn't really say the fisherman's name and instead calling him: Mr. Mister.
9) It is Indonesian coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis) is one of two living species of coelacanth, identifiable by its brown color. It is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN.
NB. I don't know anything about Borneo, but Wikipedia is life.