What makes Survivor... Survivor? Lushness, music, silence. Eyes glancing every which way. People. Moon and stars and a blazing sun. Suffering. Hope. Human will, as covetously pathetic and purely grand as it can be. The moment — a surreptitious sway — that crawled upon my sodden mind and shook me alert — that that's what this magic is!! — revealed itself on a rain-soaked makeshift Yaxha pool platform floating idly somewhere in Guatemala. There, still a strange surprise to me, the Yaxha kings — Danni & Brandon — gathered together to subject their fellow chums to a bleak vetting. The sky ran gray and the mood was blacker still...

By David W. Taylor (Email The Author)
Reality Reel Media
10.31.05

Brandon was standing there, next to Danni, his back to the Yaxha lake that was now boiling and almost disappearing in the haze created by the liquid downpour that was pelting all around. Danni was soaked, and drained, looking like a rail. Brandon's long brown hair was now matted and pasted to his moist skin, dripping, dripping wet. They had both escaped to this man-made thatched dock to hold court, to pass judgement, to slay. Brandon was taken aback by the heavy responsibility, his arms folded in rigid contemplation, his soul searching for benevolence. The musical soundtrack undulated grayness and the sky was dappled in darkness and the mood was blacker still...

Brandon looked down at his water-slogged shoes, his expression an unreadable blank — almost a glowering — culled from an unforgiving life knocked hard. "God... I was hopin' it wouldn't come to this, you know," he pronounced uneasily. Danni knew this also, but she wasn't as moved nor as troubled; she wanted her anguish to move upon Brandon. Then, it came to me... like an arc-light... Brandon is Yaxha. He himself has taken on the weight of marshaling its destiny. He is their conscience. That cornpone (aw shucks!) farmer is the one behind the curtain, levering the controls. He couldn't dig out an Immunity puzzle piece fast enough but here he was anchoring the crucible for Yaxha! Gary had told Amy the scuttlebutt earlier: "Danni and Brandon are runnin' Yaxha and if they're looking for loyalty I've got to show to them loyalty." That's why Brian went out without the slightest struggle...

As the rain unleashed its droning numbness, Danni raised the spectre that sought to change Yaxha's fortunes and to save Amy: "The only thing..." she told Brandon. "Bobby Jon and Stephenie have had a chance to play this game before and none of us have." Brandon rolled it over a mite and spoke in the honest, guileless way he surely does when considering planting seeds or calculating crop cycles: "Yeah. Like she's probably more deserving to be here than Bobby Jon and that's, that's what's been gettin' to me, you know, because you form alliances and then you end up voting out people that may deserve to be here more than other people that are in your alliance." Brandon looked bothered. The rain sullenly roared; the steaming earth unfocused and shrill was also at a momentary standstill... and a large silence strode nearby. A moment — this moment — you will not find many other places. The dread on Brandon's shoulders was as suffocating as the rain.