SAMPLE CHAPTER:
It is the first of June, my second day in San Jacinto. It is the beginning of the wet season and already it is a somber day, as it should be, for the occasion of my homecoming is not a joyous one. Mild rain fell past eleven last night and strong winds howled like a wild animal. It went on for hours. I curled up in bed and faced the large window. In the darkness of my room, light from the deserted street pierced through the thin drapes. I imagined the chaos outside. Leaves trembling, twigs falling, dust spinning, everything amok. That was what I wanted, a cast of the world’s momentary rage. I felt the softness of my bed, the bed of someone who was at once myself and someone else. Who was that distinct other, that version of myself that tossed and turned and withered as the night deepened? Then the faint light that settled on the drapes faded into shadows, shadows of selves that pulsated, throbbed like a provoked heart. And then something else pervaded in the stillness right before slumber set in; an unsettling weight, a sally of portents, the world skipping a beat. A swirl of inner tumult passed. I lay on my back and covered my eyes with a pillow and fell asleep.
The morning-after, this dawn of ashen tint, it is still a drowsy world. There is no inkling of commotion; people are still basking in their sleep. There are branches and litter and toppled pots. I would like to find comfort this way, to stand here like this and just be present in the moment, to take in the early morning sky, standing like another ordinary mortal, nothing to be intense about, joining the world in its transitions from night to day, sleep to waking, witnessing the little details of life unfold, smelling the flavor of the air infused with earth and water, sipping coffee from a large mug, still, whole, combing for other signs of life apart from my own beating heart. But only for a moment. In the last few hours I have plunged into the lowest depths of misery. And a dream last night led me to a time long past, to a displaced region in the mind where one’s memory is summoned to bear witness to an occasion. In the dream, I lay motionless on the floor of my father’s room. It was a balmy evening, nothing stirred. Suddenly I shouted so forcefully that the sugar canes lurched as if a violent wind advanced from the farthest ends of the fields. It seemed like a storm rose from the depths and it remained that way for a while, my voice and the storm making a raging noise until I woke up on my bed with the sheets in disarray and my forehead moist with sweat. But I let that dream suspend for a little while for indeed I am aggrieved, haunted by ghosts and furious at each one of them. I catch myself listening intently to the rise and fall of their voices inside my head, each wanting to be heard. I am the fraying pieces of a man in grief and I am beset with guilt and shame and ire.
So I load a teaspoon of sugar into my coffee as I think of the thick smoke coming out of San Jacinto’s sugar mill and the air smells of molasses. I pace back and forth, pensive in the dawn light as I await news of Don Rafael’s real plight. Better alive than dead. I would like to gather my thoughts and assemble them before he feels my outrage.
It is the first of June, my second day in San Jacinto. It is the beginning of the wet season and already it is a somber day, as it should be, for the occasion of my homecoming is not a joyous one. Mild rain fell past eleven last night and strong winds howled like a wild animal. It went on for hours. I curled up in bed and faced the large window. In the darkness of my room, light from the deserted street pierced through the thin drapes. I imagined the chaos outside. Leaves trembling, twigs falling, dust spinning, everything amok. That was what I wanted, a cast of the world’s momentary rage. I felt the softness of my bed, the bed of someone who was at once myself and someone else. Who was that distinct other, that version of myself that tossed and turned and withered as the night deepened? Then the faint light that settled on the drapes faded into shadows, shadows of selves that pulsated, throbbed like a provoked heart. And then something else pervaded in the stillness right before slumber set in; an unsettling weight, a sally of portents, the world skipping a beat. A swirl of inner tumult passed. I lay on my back and covered my eyes with a pillow and fell asleep.
The morning-after, this dawn of ashen tint, it is still a drowsy world. There is no inkling of commotion; people are still basking in their sleep. There are branches and litter and toppled pots. I would like to find comfort this way, to stand here like this and just be present in the moment, to take in the early morning sky, standing like another ordinary mortal, nothing to be intense about, joining the world in its transitions from night to day, sleep to waking, witnessing the little details of life unfold, smelling the flavor of the air infused with earth and water, sipping coffee from a large mug, still, whole, combing for other signs of life apart from my own beating heart. But only for a moment. In the last few hours I have plunged into the lowest depths of misery. And a dream last night led me to a time long past, to a displaced region in the mind where one’s memory is summoned to bear witness to an occasion. In the dream, I lay motionless on the floor of my father’s room. It was a balmy evening, nothing stirred. Suddenly I shouted so forcefully that the sugar canes lurched as if a violent wind advanced from the farthest ends of the fields. It seemed like a storm rose from the depths and it remained that way for a while, my voice and the storm making a raging noise until I woke up on my bed with the sheets in disarray and my forehead moist with sweat. But I let that dream suspend for a little while for indeed I am aggrieved, haunted by ghosts and furious at each one of them. I catch myself listening intently to the rise and fall of their voices inside my head, each wanting to be heard. I am the fraying pieces of a man in grief and I am beset with guilt and shame and ire.
So I load a teaspoon of sugar into my coffee as I think of the thick smoke coming out of San Jacinto’s sugar mill and the air smells of molasses. I pace back and forth, pensive in the dawn light as I await news of Don Rafael’s real plight. Better alive than dead. I would like to gather my thoughts and assemble them before he feels my outrage.