[The following are excerpts from the journal of the anthropology student, Justin Guillenot, dated between March 17, 1983 and June 6, 1983, describing his experiences in the Piccolo Islands as part of his doctoral research project. They were discovered at the bottom of an old trunk in the storage room of an apartment building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa that had been scheduled for demolition this year. There is no record that Mr. Guillenot ever lived at the address. Efforts to locate Justin Guillenot have been unsuccessful, and he is presumed deceased. There is, however, a record of his brief enrollment at Clinton State University as a doctoral candidate in the department of anthropology around the time of these journal entries. He is reported to have abandoned his studies giving no reason for withdrawing from school. Similarly, despite his detailed references to the islands and their inhabitants, no such lands nor peoples have been located near the coastal United States, nor anywhere else in the world, leading some scholars to speculate whether there is any veracity to the account at all.]
*****
The Piccolo islands exist off the coast of South Carolina, just past the boundaries of American territorial waters. While they aren’t exactly undiscovered, they had gone largely ignored, being of little interest in terms of their tourist value, military significance, or natural resources. They are simply two small points of land jutting from the Atlantic connected by a narrow isthmus that was often submerged most of the year. The islands are boggy, pocked with treacherous sinkholes, and densely forested with a wild and thorny variant of mimosa trees. It had long been assumed that the Piccolos were uninhabited. As it turns out, however, this was not the case.
Though seemingly inhospitable, over the centuries the Piccolos have become home to a small population of crooks, pirates, outcasts, runaways, and their descendants. Having limited contact with the mainland, The Pics - as they refer to themselves - developed their own culture and customs bearing only a tenuous connection to our own. Their language is a vaguely recognizable bastard cousin of English in the same way that Deep Southern Creole is relative to Parisian French. They were able to make themselves understandable to me, but not without significant effort on my part to decipher their strange pronunciations and idioms. Yet their complexion and facial features were not distinguishable from those you might typically find in Appalachia. By sight alone, apart from their primitive style of dress (or lack of it), Pics could easily be confused for Americans.
[Here is a table translating a few Pic phrases into American English.]
*****
I came to the island as an anthropologist to study the Pics. I spent more than a month gaining their acceptance and earning their trust. On several occasions, I’d come close to being put to death over some small misunderstanding or ignorant faux pas on my part. However, one of the members of the community, Jorell, befriended me and always interceded on my behalf, making my apologies for me, and calming tensions with the other men. I believe they eventually came to regard me as a sort of helpless imbecile, more an object of pity than malice. But it was Jorell who took me under his proverbial wing and helped me understand daily life among the Pics.
Though the surface of the Piccolo islands is treacherous and inhospitable to human life, the Pics have made their homes in a large subterranean network of dry caverns. This may at least partially explain the reason the Pics have been so invisible to the rest of the world. It is inadvisable to attempt to navigate these caverns without a guide, as there is a distinct risk of becoming irretrievably lost, or tumbling down an unseen pit to your death.
(A brief aside: I made a small joke to Jorell about not wanting to get myself into a Pic-hole. He found the play on words quite amusing and has been repeating the joke so frequently that “pic-hole” has now become a popular slang term among the men, though it has taken on more sexual connotations in their usage lately. I must remember that as an anthropologist I am to refrain from influencing the culture I’m studying. I will work harder to contain my sense of humor in the future.)
[There is a crude map drawn of the intricate cave network below the Western island. The various chambers are notated not by name but symbol. However, no legend or key has been provided to indicate the significance of these symbols, and so the purpose of each particular chamber remains anyone’s guess.]
*****
One of the most striking features of Pic culture is the almost complete segregation of the genders. The Pic men inhabit the Western Piccolo island, while the women remain on the Eastern island. There is limited trade between the two groups, but for the most part, the men remain with the men and the women remain with the women. Homosexual behavior is not only frequent but accepted by both groups without the typical social stigmas given to it by more ‘civilized’ peoples. It is not uncommon to see men openly and casually stimulating each other manually, orally, or even engaged in anal intercourse as the mood suits them.
Jorell has attempted to initiate relations with myself several times, though I must report that I have consistently declined his advances, persistent as they may be. I have not been able to shake my preference for handling my sexual needs myself when not in the company of a woman. However, I have gradually been able to overcome my own cultural shame around self-gratification, and now practice it as freely as any of the native Pic men whenever the urge strikes.
I am told that the Pic women have similar sexual views and behaviors towards each other on their Eastern island, but being male my access to that group has largely been restricted (Unfortunately. I find that the longer I remain here, the stronger are my cravings for contact with the opposite sex, leading to a near perpetual state of frustration.). Perhaps future researchers of the female gender will be better positioned to gather data and deepen our understanding of Pic femininity.
[There is a small sketch of a nude female in a seductively reclined pose with irritable scribble marks scrawled over top of it.]
*****
Life among the Pic men is peaceful for the most part. Pic society is largely egalitarian and anarchically democratic. There are no official tribal leaders, though the elders of the community are often consulted for their wisdom and guidance in tribal affairs. Work is focused on meeting survival needs of the group: Food, shelter, sometimes clothing in the cooler months - though the Pics embrace a nudist lifestyle most of the time. I came to do the same, and after a whil,e hardly missed the cover and modesty that clothes provide.
Once the Pics’ basic needs have been met, the remainder of their time is given to rest, recreation, leisure, and creative pursuits. Every Pic practices a creative talent or craft of their choosing, whether it be drawing, dance, sculpture, music, weaving, face painting, furniture building, etc. They consider that each individual’s artistic contributions improve the community as a whole. It is by their creative efforts that the Pics gain social capital and standing among their peers. Each finds what he is best at doing and works to perfect that craft. Jorell, for instance, is quite skilled at cooking, producing fragrantly delicious foods for the entire tribe.
Though the Pic will eat meat on special occasions they are predominantly vegan in diet. In addition to foraging from the plants on the surface of the island, they have also perfected the art of mushroom farming, cultivating a wide variety of species below ground with distinct flavors, textures, and nutritional properties. The strong, healthy, and virile bodies of the men seem to indicate that their cuisine does not lack in essential nourishment. Quite the opposite.
I considered introducing these flavors to America and discussed the idea with Jorell. However, he believes that many of the ingredients he uses are found only here on the islands. I asked if I might bring back samples, so that mycologists and other experts could identify them, but he shook his head, apologetically refusing. He said that to do so would be to invite more mainlanders to the islands who would harvest everything in sight without appreciation or respect for the Pics' cultural relationship to their environment. As a policy the Pic prefer to remain isolated rather than engage in international relations. Surely, it does seem as if they are sufficiently able to satisfy their own demands without the need for foreign trade negotiations and the interference trade would bring to their way of life.
*****
I have noticed an intangible sense of excitement growing in the men’s community. Jorell informs me that a festival is approaching and everyone is eagerly anticipating the festivities. From what I can tell, it has something to do with Spring and renewal, though the precise details of the holiday still aren’t entirely clear to me. I suppose they will be in time, so I will remain patient.
[There is a dark smudge at the bottom of this page. Mr. Guillenot has annotated it with the words “spore pattern.”]
*****
I have been out hunting with Jorell and some other men. The renewal celebrations are promised to begin any day now, and it is the only time out of the year in which the Pic consume meat. There are no large herd animals on the Piccolo islands. However, the islands are home to a number of avian species, not to mention frogs, turtles, and even an amphibian type of rabbit that exists nowhere else I know of (Jorell assures me that they are delicious, though difficult to catch). Of course, being an island, seafood is also plentiful, though fishing is typically considered a more feminine pursuit and undignified for a male to engage in.
As we surveyed the marshes and swamps of the island for our holiday feast, Jorell urgently grabbed hold of my arm. I followed his finger through the branches and viewed what it was that had him so worked up - a bright spot of pink and orange. It was the first bloom of the mimosa trees.
Jorell reached for a horn that hung from a belt around his waist, though he wore no pants or any other article of clothing. He gave a long, loud blow on it. The other men came scrambling up to us. Jorell pointed to the blossom, and the others began to speak excitedly, slapping Jorell on the back and grinning at him. They reached for their own horns and as Jorell gave another blast, they joined him. From somewhere in the distance, more horns replied. Then more. Soon, the entire island seemed to be bleating, raising up the call. The noise lasted for a full minute, and then ceased. There was a pause full of sharp anticipation as the men exchanged anxious glances with each other. After a tense, silent minute, the response from the Eastern island finally came with the sound of the women blowing their own horns. The men shouted and cheered, jumping up and down and hugging each other gleefully. The holiday had officially begun.
[There is an illustration of the mimosa blossom here.]
*****
Later that evening, the men gathered at their end of the isthmus that connects the two islands. Across the expanse the women also appeared. They were as unabashedly naked as the men and all surprisingly beautiful, staring with hungry lust-filled eyes back at us. The connecting strip of land was no more than two hundred yards in length, and only about ten yards wide at its narrowest point. The passage was guarded on both ends by stoic sentries, and rarely used. Each side had constructed a large wood pyramid at their end of the passage.
With everyone gathered, the women set their woodpile ablaze. The men raised a loud cheer then lit their own fire. The women’s shrill excited cries carried clearly across the water and excited me, along with the other men. The sound of their voices reminded me how long it had been since I’d had the company of a woman. I longed for it so badly, it was all I could do to stop myself from running across to them and burying my face into their soft fleshy curves. But the Pic men restrained themselves, and so must I.
From behind the group of women on the beach emerged a dozen or so young men. I had noticed that there was a curious absence of children among the Pic men, but it was a detail which slipped as easily out of my mind as into it. I am one of those people who has never really enjoyed the presence of children, and so they were not missed much. Jorell explained that the responsibility of bearing and raising children falls to the women who collectively care for them. However, when the boys reach the age of manhood (approximately eighteen years old), they can no longer remain with the women and are then sent to live with the men.
A slow, steady drumming began behind me, and the men shouted enthusiastic invitations for the newcomers to join them. Some of the young guys excitedly dashed forward, sprinting across the thin strand of land. Others crossed the bridge between the islands more cautiously, looking nervous but still determined.
After the exchange was complete, another wild celebratory cheer went up from both sides. The sound of the drumming changed, becoming faster and more intense. The women began to sway and gyrate, dancing provocatively. In response, the men began to put on their own displays for the women, swinging their genitals at them. A few Pics on either side made a playful show, without serious intent - of pushing against the guards to get across. The guards pushed back with good nature, standing firm and blocking the passage between the islands.
The sexual energy was growing palpable. The women were soon kneading their breasts, caressing their bodies, desperately slipping their fingers between their thighs, and pleasuring themselves on open display for the men. The men, separated by a mere two hundred yards, responded in kind. I admit that I discovered myself swept up in the passion, instinctively clutching my hardened length in my fist and pumping away vigorously. It had been so long since I’d had a woman, I couldn’t help myself. Between the noisy groans of the men as they pleasured themselves, I could hear the fainter moans of the women drifting over the water to my ears and carrying me away.
As the tension ratcheted upwards, it seemed as if each island was building to its own collective climax, the men on one side and the women on the other. Finally, after several minutes, the dam broke. One, then another arrived at their release with a loud ecstatic shout or moan. Each orgasm seemed to trigger the next. I, along with the other men around me, shot volley after volley of semen into the warm white sand. Across the way, I watched as the women shuddered and shook. They threw back their heads, crying out at the sky, as their hands tugged hard on their nipples. Or else they bent over with their fingers clamped between their quivering thighs, screaming their passion into the ocean as gentle waves lapped rhythmically at the shore.
Finally, as the last orgasms faded, the fires were allowed to die down. Some lingered by the water, reluctant to lose sight of their counterparts on the far shore. Most, however, returned back to the caverns to fall into a calm, satisfied, and pleasant slumber.
[There is an image here of the small land-bridge between the islands with several figures walking across it.]
*****
The newcomers to the male tribe were expected to undergo several initiation rites. I will provide a more detailed description in the future. However, for now, I will simply note that one of the rituals involved each of the younger arrivals providing fellatio to the elder members of the community and swallowing their ejaculate. Jorell noted that this was both a way of signaling the young men’s respect for the elders as well as the elders passing on their knowledge, wisdom, and 'essence' (this is the closest translation I can find for the term used by the Pic, though it doesn’t quite capture the meaning) to the new members as they become integrated with the community. He stated that every new male Pic participates in the same ritual. He had done it when he first came across, and he looks forward to taking part in the tradition again when he becomes an elder himself, though that may not be for many years yet.
There had apparently been some debate as to whether I myself should undergo the same initiation rites. However, it was resolved that since I was not a natural-born Pic, I would not be allowed to receive such an honor. I admit to being less than dismayed by this particular instance of discrimination.
[Here we have a drawing of a large erect phallus in front of a young man’s smiling face. There is some sort of fluid depicted dripping from the corner of the man’s mouth, presumably semen.]
*****
Two weeks passed. The mimosa trees were in full bloom all over the islands, turning them into a pair of soft pink mounds in the middle of the ocean. The air was warm and humid, and carried a salty scent when the breeze blew.
Since the first night after the arrival of the new members of the male tribe, there had been a distinct decline in the sexual activity amongst the men. Jorell told me they were saving their energies, storing them up for the final renewal celebration. The newcomers had each been bonded to the elder whose semen they had received, and the elders were busy educating the younger men in the male tribe’s way of life.
Meanwhile, it was more or less business as usual for everyone else. The men scavenged and worked and engaged in their arts or simply rested and watched the world go by. In contrast to their normal vegan diet, the Pics began eating meat every day. Jorell explained that they were building up strength and stamina as the final night of festivities approached, though he has remained mysterious about the specific details of the event, and I have no idea what to expect.
*****
I am cumming and becumming. Loops inside of loops. I am dead. I am nothing and everything all at once. I am fucked. I am the high holy shining Lord God of fuck. And so are you, as are we all. Everyone. Everywhere. Infinity. Fuck. Amen.
*****
I’m going to try my best to describe what I experienced a few nights ago in some way that makes sense:
It was the last night of the Pic renewal festival. Jorell and I had gone out into the swamps to forage for a special and rare kind of mushroom that only grows in one specific place on the island. We brought back as many as we found there and Jorell made a hearty and tasty mushroom soup from them - enough for the whole community. Everyone eagerly ate without exception.
An hour later, as the sun was setting, we began to walk back to the isthmus, where the large stoic guards prevented us from crossing to the other island. As we walked, I began to notice that the colors were more vibrant, practically leaping off the leaves and flowers and dancing in mid-air. I felt a deep sense of camaraderie with the other men, feeding off of their excitement, though I had little notion myself of what was to come. A breeze blew at my back and it felt as if I was being blown into the present - that somehow, I’d always existed just outside of right now, but I’d finally arrived here at this exact point in time and was seeing it as it really was - a bounded vibrating infinity in each grain of sand tumbling through the hourglass of our lives.
The Pic men and women lined up along each of their beaches, naked, staring wantonly at each other across the gap. One of the men began to blow his horn, and then the others joined him. The women did the same on their island, and the combined sounds came together all around me like the voice of God, building until I thought I would dissolve into it entirely and lose myself. Then suddenly, the sound stopped and the silence that followed it was as deafening as a slap in the face.
The guards at either end of the isthmus silently moved aside. The passage was open. The women cried out and began to flood onto the narrow land bridge from their end. With a loud shout, the first men began to charge across the isthmus to meet them. I followed the herd as they collided in the middle, bodies crashing into bodies, clinging to each other in desperate embrace, a tangle of limbs, mouths, genitals - hard finding soft, sinking into it, being consumed by it.
Around me, reverberating off the corners of the air were the refracted moans of sexual pleasure echoing in my ears. We became an undifferentiated mass of writhing bodies, slick with sweat, spit, fluids. I became lost in the explosive orgy, no longer a unique person but a conduit of need, sensation, and pleasure coursing through my existence as it became bound up in the existences of everyone around me, flowing into and out of myself.
I sucked and kissed and licked and fingered and penetrated and fucked anonymously ejaculating into whatever hole I found myself inside of. No names, no faces, no real way of telling what went where and who got what. I kept cumming over and over again. Just as soon as I ejaculated, someone else was coaxing me back for another round.
I continued until I was completely spent, exhausted and incapable of moving. Then I crawled out of the pile, and back to the shore of the Western island where I collapsed in the sand. I listened to the fading sounds of fucking and looked up at the stars twinkling mirthfully at us. I thought about space and light and aliens thousands of years in the future turning their heads at just the right time and at just the right angle to witness us all fucking our brains out down here on Earth. I felt connected to them, just as I did to all the men and women on the Piccolo Islands, and the entirety of all existence everywhere, my essence flowing into everything and merging with the universe. I fell asleep.
[There is another illustration, an excited circular scribbling with various body parts - male and female - emerging from the messy tangle of lines and curves.]
*****
In nine months, there will be more children, Jorell tells me. They were conceived collectively, and belong to no parents but to the entire Pic community. This is how it has always been done. The renewal will come again next year, and the year after that. Old Pics pass away, new Pics arrive, but the Pic people as a whole will always remain, just like the Mimosa trees that bloom once a year for just a couple of weeks, yet cover the entirety of-
[The remaining pages have been torn from Mr. Guillenot’s journal.]
