Memories of a life in Guatemala

 1.  Physical Experience

The darkness was damp and thick.  It wrapped itself around me, blindfolding my eyes.  My hands blindly slid along the ragged grooves in the red brick wall, and then along nothing, until they caught hold of cold metal.  The hair on my neck and arms stood on end from the cold night air, bringing with it the smell of pine, which filled my mind as the cool breeze slithered across my face.  Through the darkness, thin lines from our old antennae stair-stepped into existence as my eyes adjusted.  It hummed with the wind high above the mossy wooden shingles on our roof.

 2.  Scenes

Green.  It went on endlessly.  A seemingly never-ending expanse of trees extended as far as the eye could see in either direction, until it crashed with the graying sky on one side, and a rich and heavenly collage on the other.  Orange had been painted across the horizon, with lines and shadows as if a real paintbrush had left it there.  Rays of gold and red nestled into the paint intermittently.  The angles of light allowed tree-covered mounds to rise up out of the forest floor in sporadic patterns, like green waves frozen in time.  Black shadows of different sizes occasionally soared across the scene, dancing in the last rays of daylight. 

 3.  Speech

“Bug? … Bug, are you alright?” I gasped for breath as a cold burst of air rushing in the open door slammed into my body, waking me up.  The doorknob is still in my hand.  My eyes search the floor trying to make sense of the situation.  “Bug?”, whispered my mother from stairs, “what are you doing?”  Her voice was filled with curious worry.  I remember the surprise in her voice as she stood with her hand on the stairway banister, cautiously looking in my direction.  “It’s the middle of the night.”  Her laughter turned from nervous to teasing as she too drew in the situation. 

 4.  Emotion in the Moment

I have to clench my fists in order to control myself.  “You’re an idiot.  You shouldn’t even be here,” he repeated.  Never before have I experienced anything like it.  It feels like a hot cloud is pinching my shoulders, and then dropping to the pit of my stomach, before surging upward again in a wave through my body.  In my head, the wave tumbled around, making my jaw muscles contract. 

‘Hold it in.  It’s not worth it.’ 

“Are you stupid?” 

‘Okay, that’s it!’

 5.  People of Consequence

I remember sitting there, taking in the scenery, and chuckling, next to my brother.  His scraggly beard was evidence that he had not seen a mirror in months.  His hiking boots were covered in mud, with twigs and leaves plastered to the bottoms.  He clapped his hands together like a seal when he laughed, before leaning his mountain-man-like head on his wrist, his wide shoulders still shaking with laughter.  He seemed so different physically from the clean-cut man I had grown up with, but he was the same in every other sense: always wanting to compliment others; humble; laughed at everyone’s jokes; kind eyes.