Julie the Jungle Girl: Treehouse

It took a hearty individual to survive in Greystoke’s jungle. There were members of the Teo who lived in the wild over the years, and Julie Vidic and Karza were, in essence, as honorary members of the tribe, taking part in this tradition. So no, it has nothing to do with them being “superior civilized folk”. That’s a… problematic reason, to say the least.

But the fact that they’ve not only survived, but thrived in this harsh environment is still praise-worthy. Tarzan and Mowgli would be proud.

So-called “rugged” individualists/survivalists might look at them and envy them, but the fact of the matter is, they’re NOT survivalists, especially when it comes to their ideology. The survivalist movement is filled with crazy, paranoid nutjobs convinced that THE END IS NIGH, and many hold libertarian or right-wing views (there are, of course, left-wing survivalists) whose survivalist ideology is based on shaky grounds, at best.

Julie and Karza are NOT survivalists, they’re a modern-day Tarzan and Jane who live in the wild because they love it and it’s their home.

They’d separated several minutes ago to go off on their own thing. Karza went deeper into the brush, Julie made a bee-line for their treehouse. Yes, a treehouse. They may spend the occasional night out in the open, but it’s a good idea to have some shelter just in case. Also part of the reason they spent time with the Tribe.

Holding onto her quiver of arrows, she climbed one of the taller trees. Every now and then her foot slipped. But she kept going. In her opinion, bare feet were better for climbing trees than shoes. Having done this in Northern California as a girl, going with and without shoes, she had reason for this preference.

Once she found her footing, it was easy for her to climb up the tree and to the top, where she looked out over the green expanse of threes extending out for miles, ending at the blue of the Pacific Ocean and the grey cliffs in the distance. The treehouse, from what she could tell, was two kilometers to the northwest.

There we go!

She quickly climbed down, but carefully. She’d slipped once on a shorter tree, but that adrenaline that coursed through her arteries was… not pleasant. It may have been a short drop before Karza caught her, but she’d never been more frightened in her life, and this was after being chased by a predatory cat that led her to being saved by Karza—and thus how this whole thing started.

Once she got down, she pulled out her compass—no one was that stupid to just drop it—and found her way northwest. She adjusted her quiver and pressed on.

It took half an hour before she reached the three house. A rope ladder had been rolled up to discourage anyone. It just took a climb up to another tree to get up. She jumped off the thick branch and onto the porch of the treehouse.

It was a simple, two-story abode that was perfect for a jungle couple. It was stripped down, with only a few electronics. There were two battery-powered radios, one to listen to music with and a HAM radio. It was also stocked with books, ranging from To Kill a Mockingbird to Tarzan to Harry Potter and a number of John Steinbeck novels. Karza had kept these after the shipwreck that left him here on Greystoke.

And yet, it had a fully-functioning solar panel that powered much of this. Given that they were supposed to be living in the wild, it would be a little contradictory for them to have solar panels, and therefore, electricity. And they even had a laptop, which only added to the contradiction, because Julie liked to blog about her life as a jungle girl. It seems like a contradiction, but you can take the girl out of civilization, but you can’t take the civilization of the girl. The best bet is to strike the right balance and live and let live.

Their bedroom, on the second story of this humble abode, is just as bare-boned, save for a bed and the bookcase, but an amazing view of the rainforest.

Living close to/in nature allowed them to enjoy the simple things in the world, like a sunset over an untouched tropical rainforest—Spirits know just how many of those are left on this planet.

A little later Julie sat on the roof of the treehouse with a book in her hand, her bare feet dangling and kicking while she read how Tarzan saved Jane from the clutches of La, Queen of Opar. While she and Jane shared some similarities, it was only the movie and Disney Jane that she had the most similarities to. Book Jane wanted Tarzan/Lord Greystoke to be civilized. Movie and Disney Jane wanted to stay with Tarzan. It wasn’t until later that Jane became the Queen of the Jungle in the books. For someone used to the jungle girl portrayal of Jane, it can be pretty confusing.

It’s one thing to assume that since most jungle girls and boys are pretty mayo, it’s a racist concept.

On the contrary.

It’s only been the last 2,000 years that Europeans have moved away from old pagan ideals, where they were aware of how close to nature they were. Christianity—or perhaps Greco-Roman civilization—ended that, separating humans from nature. This is because according to doctrine, God created the animals first, and then the humans to have dominion over them. Again, it might not be so clear-cut. That’s not to say there aren’t Christian environmentalists, of course, there certainly are.

As Europeans became more urbanized, the separation between human and animal only widened. Concepts like the wild child have tapped into that old, pagan ideal as well as our wild side. Humans are animals, after all, we just tend to forget that sometimes. These concepts are universal, from African tribes, to Native Americans to the Polynesians. Sadly, some of the early contributors to the genre had different values that we modern folk have.

Anyway, getting back to the story.

She heard Karza’s call off in the distance. Looking up, she smiled as she could see her mate coming in her general direction, swinging on vines and the tree branches until he landed on the front porch, at which Julie jumped into the porch and greeted her boyfriend with a crushing hug that almost knocked him off the porch, but he managed to keep his balance.

"Wow," he said.

"Sorry," she laughed.

"I got some marlin from the seaside village," he said, holding up the bag he was carrying. "Come on, let's get to work, I don't want these to spoil."

They ate a dinner of grilled marlin, that they both made, in comfortable silence. It might sound bad that they didn’t talk much during dinner, but that’s not a bad thing. Just looking up at him, she had a conversation with him with her eyes, which ended with her having a little giggle fit and almost spat her mouthful of marlin onto the wooden table.

After dinner, they retreated to their room upstairs, which was lit by candlelight tonight. The laptop was closed—it was usually closed, and only opened so Julie could write her blog—but their books were open. And they read for the next several hours in quiet peace, simply content to enjoy each other’s company.

“We should give you a new name.”

Julie looked up from her Harry Potter book to see Karza giving her a suggestive—not sexually, of course—and inquisitive look that made her put her book down.

“I didn’t know you were still thinking about that,” she remarked.

“It just popped back into my head,” he replied, also putting his book down. “I was using the researchers’ laptop and I came across some names that I want you to try.”

“Um, okay,” she said.

“So, the first one I found was Kuli,” he said. “It’s the Hawaiian version of your name.”

“Okay,” she said.

“And then I found Kau'i,” he said. “It means, youthful beauty, kind of like what your name means already.”

She blushed at that and couldn’t hide her smile and giggle.

“And then there’s Huri, which is the Maori version of your name, and probably closest to what the Teo speak.”

“It’s um, very interesting,” she said.

“Do you not like it, or…”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said. “I just didn’t know you still wanted me to change my name to something more… jungle girly.”

“It’s just a suggestion,” Karza laughed.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

Karza always loved getting to see the early morning scene in the jungle. When he awoke the next morning and after donning his loincloth, he stepped out onto the porch of the treehouse to look out over the jungle.

He heard the padding of bare feet on the wood and turned around. There stood Julie, topless but donning her top, in all her wild glory. They slept naked, but only out of practicality because of the heat (but it did make you-know-what a LOT easier) and humidity. He smiled at her, remembering why he loved her so much before turning around and letting her snake her arms around his body. “How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Wonderfully,” she replied, nuzzling into his bare back. “Are you alright, honey?”

She looked up at him to see him gazing forlornly into the distance. The early-morning mist, haze and fog hung over the trees, lit by the rising sun. Though one can’t find Greystoke on a map or by satellite, that doesn’t mean it’s in its own little plane of existence where the laws of time and space have—SHOT.

Sorry, we were supposed to be describing early morning in the jungle.

Karza’s bare soles were already wet from the little droplets of rain that fell the previous day. It’s not called a “rainforest” for no reason, after all. That name’s gotta come from somewhere. And judging by how deep the water was in the collection bucket, they had plenty of (filtered) rainwater to drink for several days. Cha-CHING! “I think I’ll do some hunting today,” he said. “What about you?”

“I think I’ll go to the Teo,” she said. “I’m going to help them move to the new village at the peninsula.

He turned around and held his mate tightly, while grunting like an ape. She smiled and grunted back before kissing him. But they grabbed some supplies first, like their compass and weapons before they could be ready to go. He lifted her up, she wrapped her arms around his neck and he grabbed a vine to swing downwards.

While she could take care of herself, Julie always loved hanging onto Karza like she was Jane and swinging like this. You’d have to experience it firsthand to know what she loved about it, though.

They landed in a primal, three-point stance on the massive root of one of the massive trees. And with that, Julie went off in the direction of the village, while Karza went off in a different direction.

Julie mostly went by foot. It took her several minutes to find her bearings before she recognized where she was and started going in the right direction. She couldn’t hear the sounds of anything sinister, so she wasn’t concerned. Even when she had to climb over fallen tree trunks, rocks and other things. The only thing watching her was a cat; Ginger, one of the wild cats that were native to the island.

There was also a squeal of one of the wild boars that lives on the island, earning Ginger’s attention and, judging by her sudden departure, hunger.

Julie chuckled. It doesn’t need to be mentioned in great detail that Julie loved cats, including the wild cats.

Her movements soon became more feral and primal as she moved along the fallen trees and foliage. It was faster this way. Sure, it was nice to walk, but it was the best way to get around. Besides, as mentioned in the last chapter, it was that getting-close-to-nature thing that drew white dumbasses like her to the whole archetype of the jungle hero. Might as well go as far as she can go.

Crawling and prowling around the trees, it wasn’t long before she reached the walls of the village. She could hear some rustling, but since she couldn’t see what it was, she just shrugged and dropped down to enter the village.

And she thought, Kau’i’s a nice-sounding name. And “Kau’i the Jungle Girl” had a nice ring to it.