Creative Nonfiction Scene – Untitled (Costa Rica)

The wind; my throat choked, try to let it all out; trapped inside myself. The wind on my face feels fine, and the city below blinks up at me. The road is rutted, but we fly — the old Land Rover roaring up the mountain, bed and cabin full. We surge forward, each shift — or is it just some gas, throw us forward a little, in unison. One of my uncles — or is he just their friend, well, he holds a rifle. The old-fashioned kind, like from World War II. I’m told it was his father’s, and he grips it tightly, his eyes twinkling and his face bittersweet. He points the gun up, and shoots into the night sky. I hear nothing but the rumble of passing time. The farmland rolls past, now on both sides as we leave behind what we call our village. We leave behind the humble houses with open kitchens; here no-one lives but the cows and some horses, startled by our approach. My uncle Eduardo, the hustband of my father’s sister, we call him lagarto; that means Crocodile. They say it’s because he looks like one. His face is warm and wrinkled with smiles, his skin has been tanned by the fields and sun and rain and mosquitos. He turns his face to the sky, arms spread wide, and lets out a yell, a whoop, full of all the freedom of the night sky. The pain in his hands, gnarled at only 30 years from working coffee. He yells for his lost daughter, her face gazing up from their photoalbum, flanked by a clipping of her hair. I can’t help but shiver when they show me. He yells for his lost niece, she would have been my sister.