The city was quiet and dressed in the deep of dark; it was hours past midnight and dawn seemed days away. I wandered to the elevated rails of the public transit system and boarded a train to the mainland. It arrived—sparking, yet noiselessly—as soon as I stepped onto the platform. I remember sitting, but never stepping in. I was alone in my car and I realized I hadn’t brought anything with me. I had nothing—no keys, wallet or belongings. Not even coins.

In a city of what should’ve been millions, I was alone. The dark metropolis passed by the scratched windows with little spectacle, save for the occasional flash of muted railway spark. The buildings were dark and looming up ahead. I wasn’t sure why I was riding that train at so dark an hour, but I did know where I was going and who I needed to find. It was only ‘why’ that eluded me. I wasn’t sure what day it was and when I tried to remember anything, nothing came to me. The train descended into a tunnel and the world became even darker—as I raced beneath the mighty and lifeless honeycombed core of the city.

An uncertain time later, the train ascended, miles from where it had slid into the Earth. None of the many stations it passed had names. Had the train even stopped while I was on it? When the train opened to let me out, I drifted down the length of the platform and descended to the street level, where I continued to walk—guided by instinct. I was in a landscape of chipped brick and graffiti. I recognized objects I couldn’t remember names for: pages torn from magazines, empty bottles, burned mattresses, garbage cans and cars. I didn’t stop to reflect on this deficiency of language, I continued walking—though I could not feel my movement.

I went the way that felt safest; I would know it when I saw it. As I wearily traced the predestined line I could not see, I came to what I’d been searching for. What I had only seen in dreams stood before me; it was a small brick building of five stories. A mural of a desert landscape—stone structures, palm trees—composed its entire façade; blasts of golden yellow, fire red and deep blue. The door to the building doubled as an entrance to a temple in the mural: To enter one was to enter both.

I focused and let myself in the front door that (under ordinary circumstances) should’ve been locked. My entrance stirred nothing. The walls appeared to be made of polished, sand-colored stone. The imposing central stairs were silent with the peace of night—they were enwrapped in sleep. I closed the heavy wooden door behind me and surveyed the height of the staircase. As I climbed it, one floating step at a time, I felt the urge to go back down.

I went around the grand metal staircase of ruin, and under it, until I saw the frosted glass door of a café or restaurant. Something rumbled past, outside on the street—the entire building shook. I heard music, which meant that someone had turned it on. Why hadn’t I heard anything before this? Someone was in there. It was the brassy music of the streets, the manic drums of sex, of the islands—except that the streets were dead with night. The music of the living has no place here, I thought to myself. As I opened the door, the wave of sound went loud with crescendo, my fresh ears overwhelmed. Taking a moment to adjust, I continued. Seeing no one, I entered.

The room was painted bone-white and was clean, dimly lit. Turning a corner to my left, I saw a small glass-topped café table with two chairs of chipped white metal latticework. On the wall opposite was a small mural: a red fishing village on a green island, being watched over by a blue sea goddess with a yellow spear in her hand. Fishermen dragged nets full of fish to the piers. The sun smiled down. Children jumped through the air and elders watched from above, on balconies.

The music stopped on its own—as if a guillotine slid down, to sever it. The room darkened and all light sank away. I heard someone walking in the hallway. I heard the door (the very one I had entered through) open again. Being out of my view, I could not tell if someone was standing at it or not—my eyes strained to adjust to the lack of light. I can see and I can hear. When I pushed forward to go check, I heard someone behind me speak—from where I’d been seconds before.

“You made it,” I heard the rough voice say.

My simple mind raced to assess the situation and my heart yearned to pound in my chest. Once my night vision set in, I saw the figure of a large man sitting at the table. The dark between us prevented me from viewing him well, but his tall and strong outline was evident. He laughed deeply when I tried to find my way out: I was trapped with him.

“Beautiful day it is out there,” he continued, “…beautiful day.” The strange man began humming a spellbinding melody. He took off his banded straw hat, fanned his face five or six times with it, and rested it on his knee. He was sweating (I could see a sheen in the dark) and his smile, the little I could see of it, was one of eerie mischief. His clothes fit tightly on his lean body—ordinary jeans and a light t-shirt. Black shoes. His neck was weighed down with gold chains, heavy with machetes and praying hands and pointing fingers. These details came to light as the first feathers of dawn started to fan in through a window above me, bathing him in smoky light, slowly bringing him into focus.

He smelled of sweat and vanilla—a mysterious haze of smoky aromas arrived with him; colors perceived with the sense of scent. My head filled manically with the aromas—my newly awakened nose afire with the deep musk and flowers that surrounded me. The bitter odors turned sweet—from dark to light and vice versa—the sweeter ones to sweetness beyond description. The odors sedated me and I began to swim pleasantly in my powerlessness.

I held my arm out to him and he scrambled to his feet. He stood up quickly—too quickly in fact—to introduce himself, his cunning leaping before him. It was while he approached me that I noticed he was dark—very dark—and that his eyes were different. One was as brown as his skin; the other a blue that had been dulled by a gray and milky glaze. Taken aback by his sudden jump forward, I moved back and he returned to his chair. He moved quickly, in the beat of a blink.

With a piercing glare of persistence, he said, “I can see you’re not impressed.” He ran one of his hands underneath his t-shirt to scratch his chest—the raking amplifying the strength of dense muscle. He then clasped his hands high above his head, curved his torso backward and cracked every bone in his body—a stick skating across a bone xylophone. Leaning back with his arms crossed he said, “We’re never what you expect—except that we always forget that. But let me convince you. I know that you came from far away and that you’re confused—that was what you were thinking when you first saw me. Just a few seconds ago, you thought that you didn’t know what to make of all of this—which is natural. And now you’re wondering why you feel so suspicious, since it’s not like you—and as I was saying that you thought about escaping again and realized that you can’t. This is what you’re thinking.”

I should apologize, I thought to myself.

He crossed his legs lazily and lit a cigarette. Through a screen of smoke that eclipsed his face he added, “Okay, I will tell you my name. It’s Jesus—except that I came to ask you for forgiveness this time.” With a wide smile that cut his face in half, he threw his arms in the air and shouted, “I promise I’ll never do it again—forgive me papi!” He bared teeth of silver and gold and laughed so deeply and terribly that I thought he would cough to death—yet death had no power over this ageless man.

His infectious laughter spilled forth with no hope of subsiding; his legs went askew on the floor and smoke pumped from his nostrils and mouth. He threw his hand at me—as if to say, never mind, forget about it. Without warning, he went divinely quiet. During this sudden and awkward silence, I could hear the first whispers of another oncoming attack; the more he held it back, the more momentum it gathered. His hyena-like spasms erupted again, for odd fractions of an hour, until silence once again came over him like a falling drape.

I focused all my attention toward him and thought, I’m not sure what I expected, but you at least owe me the courtesy of respect.

My thought was yet another source of wild humor to this odd man. Back went his head and his teeth shone like coins—the pink mouth cracked open as wide as a tiger’s. His nostrils ran wet with sniffles and his immortal eyes—eyes that had seen the splendor of passing ages—became wet with jollity. While dabbing them dry with a red and white bandana, he looked me straight in the face and said, “I’ve heard that one before!” He put his hands over his ears, shook his head violently, dropped his hands to his lap and said, “Come sit. You must be exhausted—poor fellow. Pobrecito.” He applauded himself amidst another storm of hoarse laughter that shook the room—his volcanic fits, never to be forgotten. After a few minutes, he became quite serious and said, “Let’s go to the other room, you and me. Come.” He picked up a suitcase that had escaped my nervous scrutiny and I followed him into the hallway that was being painted with the pale blue dawn.

Pointing his finger up at the ceiling, my jolly host declared, “First impressions are not reliable, they’re as random as anything else. In previous lives, I met people who I wanted to trust—only to discover they were cheats and thieves and men empty of compassion. And many people who disgusted me at first sight rose in rank to holiness.” We entered a room of carved stone—floor, walls, vaulted ceiling. My host lit some candles and set them on the floor around us. I thought of a building I had once been in.

Smiling, he said, “Strange you should remember that. That’s why starting over is such a wonderful thing.” He placed his fragrant hands on my head and massaged it. Every limb and surface of my body went through his hands—down to my feet in a quick sweep. Sensation returned to my fingers, to my legs. I could feel the pull of gravity through my bones and the feeling of the stone floor against the skin of my feet. My fingers and toes felt each other side by side and I felt the sensation of cold overtake me—the room had been cold, yet I hadn’t felt it.

My host put his hands on my shoulders and backed me up against the wall. “You’re almost done,” he said. He retreated to his suitcase, opened it, and pulled out small glass bottles filled with dark liquids. “Lion’s musk should suit you nicely,” he said as he approached me. He wet the palm of his hand with rivers of dark oil.

He rubbed his palms together, placed them on my head, and said, “I give back to you the power of thought and eternal wisdom.” As he said this, my eyes filled with flickering light and my young mind was overcome by a flood of knowledge and universal poetry. My head filled with strange images of many different lives—were they all mine at one point or just fragments of a crammed and convoluted consciousness? I saw the exotic women of dusty lands bathing in rivers; men whaling on the high seas; young and dark boys spearing boar-like creatures in a jungle; classrooms filled with eager children; little girls in ballet formation; the old and fragile dying by windows full of snow; a drunk woman sleeping on a cobblestone street; the fearsome creatures of the deep seas; naked tribesmen posing for photographs; rocky surfaces of desolate planets and the thick city traffic of modern days. The images unreeled endlessly. Visions of things I didn’t understand unwound from within like a thread of confusion. People I didn’t know, whom I could not place anywhere historically; colors I had no names for; forms with definite and simple shapes that eluded even the simplest description flashed through me.

He went on, “I now give back to you the power to feel.” He rubbed more of the oil into his hands and placed them to my chest. Falling through a bottomless sky of emotions, my skin crept with waves of fear and terror, my heart grew heavy with sorrow and my head became light with vast exaltation. I felt the anguish of love lost and the radiance of love realized at the same time. Confusion, anger, longing, adoration, contempt and remorse all took hold of me and pulled my soul with them. Tears streamed from my eyes, saliva and foam from my lips, my knees shook with weakness and my recesses sweated the stench of fear. My chest relaxed with relief.

Putting his lips onto mine, he blew air into and through me. This caused the candles around us to conflagrate, their flames grew by threefold and that was when I realized we were standing in the center of an abandoned and half-destroyed church—its gothic windows pale in the fire glow, sections of stone missing from the wide vaults of the ceiling. I coughed my way back to life, as my heart began to beat on its own. It was then that he whispered, “I now give you the power to pay tribute to me always—and forevermore.”

This story © 2008 Charlie Vazquez All Rights Reserved.

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