A house on fire

I awoke every day and trembled at the news. More aptly, at the stories- there wasn't any news. It was the steady rise of anarchy, a new breed of jackal consuming the world. And when the prey would fight back, its aggressors howled in contempt and charged anew, now with no other thought in their minds but blood. Blood and sovereignty. For which is more valuable to the oppressor: sacrificing power in the name of goodness, or sacrificing goodness in the name of power? 

They kept certain people from getting married. When that privilege of prohibition was revoked, a few of them refused to issue licenses. 

They took it upon themselves to enforce the law and then shot young men because their skin wasn't the right color. 

They appeared on television and admonished the left, the poor, the disadvantaged, the dark-skinned, the ones who had returned from wars, and anyone else who simply wanted to live a decent life outside of their norms. 

I was thousands of miles away. Yet standing upon a windy bluff, I could see the flashes of light from back home; and it was a house on fire. 

The expatriate

Drying the last drops of water from my face, I had aged twenty years in a week. Somehow the desert was responsible, though I lived in the oasis, the old city, far from the gnarled weeds and dust of the outlying nowhere, mere blocks away from fountains and tables of old men drinking gin and tonics. But I was foreign, an alien in the world to which I once belonged. The beggars seemed to get it. 

Francisco would be calling in a few hours; 10 or 11, he'd said. It could be anytime, really. I'd stopped relying on clocks and had learned to rely on the idea of "cuando puedas". I chuckled in the mirror, thinking of his sense of time and his musings on women. I can't say I agreed or disagreed with him with any consistency; we both knew heartbreak and were disposed to changing our opinions often. Living amid life's contradictions will do that. 

Just a slight breeze, that Sunday quiet, and the repose of a classical guitar in the corner were all that was required to ignite my own musings on love, though mine were more resigned, stripped of levity, worn down. I had aged twenty years in a week. Calm now and slow-moving, I was exhausted by recollections. But I was wiser now. 

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