12.2 Wall of Doom

One, two, three, four hours passed. My legs were screaming and my bums warm and sleek on a straw mat. I could hardly sit still. There were no stars in the sky. The wall of the cemetery standing hundred and fifty metres away appeared in a deep blue tone. Sometimes I felt there was an intensity in the glow but it disappeared into the dark background. The streetlights that spread a glow into space over the wall gone from my eyes. It grew dark and darker and yet that blue wall loomed beyond in different elevations in the black curtain.

Abruptly, I saw a shooting star crossing over my head. A big fireball zoomed towards west across the sky. We heard a fizzing noise as it passed meaning that rock was low at its altitude. The cemetery wall gleamed in pure white and its light lit the creepers and white sand filled in the cemetery. It created shadows. The murmur of their cries stopped and they watched the meteor. It turned all silent and dark again.

Someone threw a towel. Asmr said, “Kawla, wipe your body and get up.” I needed to dry my body badly. “It is time you walk.”

“I walk?”

“Yes,” he said, “we stay behind. You walk ahead to the main gate and out you go. You’ll find your clothes on your motorcycle. Pull them on and go home.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s all. The ritual is over.”

“Mi falda! Is this a joke?”

“Kawla!” he cautioned, “You are under a spell. If you like it or not, you go home. We go home.”

“Aren’t you coming with me?” It was hard to get that oily stuff off my body.

“Our cycles are by the rear gate. Get your motorcycle and come to the back gate.”

“My phone? My cigarettes?”

“Everything is on your cycle.”

I began to walk slowly towards the gate. At once I caught that visual snow in my eyes. I turned back to look at the twelve men. They rolled their mats and picked their stuff. I continued to walk with that visual snow heavy in my eyes. I staggered a bit. I didn’t like this oily stuff they put on my body. I reached the pink gate. I turned to look back at the Divis but they were absorbed into the darkness and just black figures moving in a cluster.

I opened a width and peeped out of the gate. The road lay empty. My bike stood few spaces from the gate. Not a soul on Avenida Medio. It was close to dawn and I believe some light was in the sky. I took that one big step to the low ground.

Do you know why this ground was elevated? It was not natural topography. As to some mythology, folks would tell that bones, skulls and skeletons were removed from Mirador Cemetery almost a century ago and topped up with sand. Nothing has been buried here ever since.

Anyway, they left me with those pink panties to wear, hanging on the left handlebar. Only those panties and they took away my shirt. First, I wiped again my body with that piece of underwear and pulled it on.

I was not sure into what I was getting. Last time they cheated me with a Black Orchid stunt. This time he promised it would be different. There wasn’t a hint other than that fireball. I felt slick on the bike as I coasted on Orange Hill Road to the back gate. I stopped. There was no sign of those twelve men and their Harley-Davidson bikes.

I continued homewards and climbed Carrera 1, watching the streetlights and a purple sky. A cool breeze caught my naked legs and I felt a rather severe hard-on. In twenty minutes, it did not go away and then I was in Safa crossing the narrow Havana streets. Soon, I reached Huvafen, parked my motorbike by the gate and entered. I noticed those two doors of the main section and the east wing left ajar and dark inside. Perhaps, those folks were awake.

I entered my cubicle and wiped my body with a towel. Then I pulled on a white shirt, I recall. I heard those heavy stomps and hurried footsteps. I quickly stepped on Kamana Boulevard. As usual this road lay dead silent and coolness hanging in air. Orange glows from the beacons on remotely placed posts glimmered through the leaves of branches hanging low. Rosewood planted in rows on the sidewalks and down the middle.

I heard clamours from a distance. Lights came on at the eatery standing by the far corner facing Carrera 4 – a portion serving an inland link to Carrera 1. At that pub called Iceberg, fishermen on the island picked early breakfast. I rubbed my hands and glanced up and down. Few movements out there and a couple of guys entered the café. I saw another bloke pedalling on a tiny bicycle. A lot of folks used to ride those bicycles with a basket in its front.

Few others joined outside the eatery. Now that was a crowd in this sleeping town. A couple of guys came up jogging a bit early in the morning. They passed down the other side of the boulevard behind the ferns heading west towards the end or the bend of the road.

A blue gate in the shadows opened and a woman peered. She wore a long-sleeved nightdress and I couldn’t tell the bottom wear since she stood behind the door leaf. “Kawla!” she called, “What is going on out there?”

“I didn’t ask,” I replied motioning to the joggers reaching the long end.

“A whale washed up on Roja beach,” she said.

“Who told you?”

Her sparse opened wide spilling almost a secret she was keeping, “I heard it on the radio.”

“You are lying,” I said, “Are you sport?”

“No,” she clamped.

“Why don’t you drop in?”

She stepped out of the gate standing tall on bare bottom with a wide gap between the legs. “I can’t, I have a date.” I knew and she won’t be able to keep a secret.

Sophie Nadz was a single mother raising a child and she got a family in Salt Waters. She got shortcut hair, boyish style, dreamy brown eyes, a little chin and full lips on a heart shaped face. Her hair parted from the left and combed over the forehead. Thin legs crossed and arms folded as she stood there with a bursting backside and a pair of teardrops under the thin fabric of her nightdress. She was five feet six and two inches taller than me.

“Who is he?” I advanced towards her.

She tossed a bunch of keys to me. I caught them. “Sabo said he has vacated your room.” And threw another bunch, “Shalin too.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t say,” she said as I stopped jaw-dropped knowing not which way to go. “Aren’t you going to check on the whale?”

“Okay, I go check on the whale,” I turned around to pick my motorbike with a bunch of keys in each hand, “Aren’t you going to come with me?”

“It’s too dark.”