My arm was sleeping, I am more
aware of it when it sleeps than when it’s awake. The cause of its drowsiness was also
asleep. I could have readjusted, but the
last thing in the world I wanted was to disturb her. Unlike my angry arm, sleep
brought her such serenity. Those
legs. Sweet, soft and stretched like
caramel candy.
A tickle came through the window.
It swirled around the room, eventually settling on her bare back. The tickle
inspired a roll, releasing my arm. I left
a kiss on top of her head and made my way out the door. I suppose I could have left a note, but a
note in isolation isn’t very representative to the song in which it
belongs. She’ll understand, she usually
does.
The air was tight and cool. Wisps
of clouds hung in the air like unanswered questions. The sun seemed reluctant
to crawl over the horizon. I made my way down the lumpy streets, still
unmolested by the diesel burps of busses and tuk-tuks. I ambled past red,
yellow, blue, coral, lemon and teal until I reached el Mercado in the heart of Antigua, the primordial point of the day.
The shopkeepers were unfurling
their shops, like rows of opening eyelids.
A round bodied, flat faced woman stood over a boiling cauldron.
“Un café por favor”
Two scoops through a strainer, and
the scalding morning motivation rested in my hands. I took a sip savoring the dark quemado taste that came first,
immediately followed by a forgiving sweetness.
The sun had finally crescendoed
over the volcano San Pedro. I continued past the church crumbs and their
freshly painted replacements, noting how the Mayan deities played and hid among
the colonial saints.
I turned off the road and stepped
onto a small dirt trail. I twisted my
way along the jungle garden mountainside until the vegetation hiccupped and revealed
a bungalow of wavy tin. I clanged on the
side of the shack. “Abuelito!”
From the shed emerged a relic of a
man, stooped over as if he carried the very mountain on his back. Taking tiny steps, he smiled a toothless
smile and raised his hands towards me.
“The wind is always refreshing on my face”
“Yes abuelo, it is good to see you too.”
“The breeze tastes like the salt of the ocean today.”
“Yes, abuelo, I won’t be staying long. I’ve come to say
farewell and thank you.”
The ancient sage paused and after a
few moments looked up at me with glistening quemado
eyes and quivering lips.
“Sweet wind, leave me a kiss.”
I walked over and pressed my lips
to his forehead. “Le vaya bien”
“Breath. It is the smallest wind.” He whispered.
I pondered his words as I wound
down the mountain. When I first met him,
I thought he was crazy like everyone said.
I’d visit and he’d always ramble about the wind. Once I realized that he was referring to me,
the babble became poetry. Bringing him
food and water each week, I listened to his verses. The recluse inspired me and
I lingered on his lips, knowing that soon the final stanza would emerge.
Back at the road, I hopped on a bus
headed to my second stop. The stumbling vehicles rumbled past each other, still
a little groggy. The early stillness was
replaced by the morning buzz. At the end of town, I entered the tortelleria.
She was standing over the hot iron plate, dusted in maiz, clapping her
hands with wet dough, the rhythmic percussion accompanying her angelic
voice. Moments later, the jovial rotund woman
limped over and had me engulfed like a python.
She handed me a papusa, broke it,
and said “here, eat this. You look like
you could use some food.”
The gritty corn mixed with hot wet
cheese traversed along my tongue and teeth.
She smiled as she watched me eat.
It was that smile I came to see.
When the accident happened, when she thought she would no longer be able
to care for her children, when she was ready to let go, I somehow found that
smile and she pulled through. Now, even though she had to sleep in the dirt,
had to hobble 2 miles for water, and cried at night missing her husband and
kids, the sensation of dough in her fingers felt like satisfaction. “Gracias” I
offered as I rose out of my chair.
“Leaving already?”
“I can’t stay.”
“Very well, I see there is no point to argue.” She smothered me in another enormous
hug. When she let go her cheeks were
damps with tears. I brushed them with my
thumbs.
“Little oceans, tears are.”
She said. Then she turned and pat-pat-pat-pat, resumed the rhythm and
later, the song.
I found a corn farmer who let me
ride in the back of his truck. I lay in
the bed watching the alert sky race by. My destination, the crater lake called Atitlan, was a sapphire surrounded by a fortress of gray
stone. Some steps chiseled into the rock led me to a group of cabanas. The owner of the retreat emerged with freshly
washed white linens in his arms.
“Cha!” I called
“”Cha!”He echoed. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”
“Am I in your way?”
“Yes, but so what?
Come have a drink with me.”
He took a bottle of mescal and
poured a small glass of the pure clear liquid.
“Here, drink this.
Let us remember this moment.”
The agave based beverage slid down my throat, sweet, spicy
and sharp.
“What brought you to this place?”
I took another sip.
“What do you think of sacrifice?”
“What?”
“Sacrifice?”
“Well, we all make them in our lives. I’ve sacrificed money, time, and
relationships in order to get this place. You know this very well, you’ve been
here in the hard times. Sometimes the best things in life require some
sacrifices.”
“Sure, but what about real sacrifice?”
“Like slaughtering an animal?”
“Or a person.”
“Seems barbaric to me.”
“Perhaps. What about
all those heroes of history who have paid the ultimate price for their cause?”
“What about them? How
are they different from the nameless ones that didn’t have an observer to put
them in the history books? Being
martyred or murdered seems to be just a matter of circumstance. And people are killing themselves everyday
for less than noble ideals. I think
there is a thin line between suicide and sacrifice.”
“That’s true.”
“What’s this all about anyway?”
I hid nothing back. I
explained about the meeting with the Shadow Man. I told him how for once I felt
like there may be a way for me to truly help others. Years as a social worker were
marked with so many painful things happening to too many good people. Then
there was the depth of love I had experienced that I wanted others to
experience in their lives. The Shadow
Man offered me an option to bring good fortune and happiness once and for all
by committing a willing act of sacrifice.
“And you are actually going through with this?”
“Yes.”
“You believe this will actually work – that this isn’t just
some lunatic who’s got you crazy?”
“Yes.”
“What about how useful you could be still alive?”
“I’ve come to realize that my abilities are extremely
limited, that things I fight are beyond me. A breath is nothing compared to the
wind, tears are insignificant compared to the ocean.”
“What about-?”
“She’ll understand, this is for her as well.”
“I don’t know. I don’t like this. There’s only one outcome
here that for certain if you do this.
Death.”
“I must.” I stood to
leave. He kissed me on the cheek, but
said nothing.
The circular door has the Mayan calendar etched in the wood.
The room is scented with incense. The stone walls have slits near the roof to
reveal strips of starry sky. The Shadow
Man enters chanting, feather plumes on his head, robe over his shoulders and
blade in his hand. The moment is here, is now.
Breath is wind. Worth dying for. Tears are oceans. Worth dying for.
Caramel candy legs. Worth dying for.
Worth living for. Worth living for. Worth living. The blade comes down. My hand comes up.
The moon washes the streets in silvery blue. An amber window glows. I enter the door. She hears me come in. “I missed you mi amor” She says, as she rolls
her wheelchair towards me. She notices the crimson soaked rag in my palm, and
looks at me with concern in her eyes.
“What was once asleep, is now awake.” I explain with a grin, and I begin to tell her
about my journey though the Guatemala streets.
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