City of the Sun

THIRTY-NINE

When the darkness goes away, along with the cold of the night, and all is thick with heat and quiet, like now, he dreams of touching his mother ’ s face. He isn ’ t sure how old he is anymore. A long time has passed. His birthday has as well. At least one, he is sure. But he remembers her face well. The soft, thin skin of her cheeks…the slight circles under her eyes…of pressing on her full lips with his fingertips…of knocking his forehead against hers as he did when he was a child, the code for their love when he felt he had grown too old to speak it. It is a dream of peace out of reach. The dream visits him almost every time he sleeps. It haunts him, and drives him to try to run. Even though he doesn ’ t know where he is — only that he thinks it may be called Cuando Tiempo, for those are the words he hears most often. And even though he doesn ’ t know how far, he knows it is a great distance from anyplace else. They have taken his shoes. It is their practice to do this. He has been left alone for a long time, but he feels that something is about to change. His visits from the guards are more frequent now, their checks on his condition more focused. They had given him more food for a time, the occasional Coca-Cola, but not so much recently. He looks out the window and sees the cactus just outside. Low, flat plants with clusters of spines that shine in the sun lay around the building in every direction as far as he can see. He has seen others from time to time. And then not for a while and he knows they are dead. Like the one who was inside the van ’ s well with him, cloth sacks over their heads. Chris Something. The other had said a last name, but he can no longer remember it. He only recalls the moment when he knew Chris Something had died, lying heavy on top of him, the smell building up in the small space as the van drove.