Conquistador © 2016 David Lowery neon clouds swirled above the alcohol like a flame yet i followed her for the health of my disease hung in the balance i had no choice i flew southward into a chaotic metropolis i rode in taxis and stuttering streetcars I rode in jitneys up steep hillsides along dirt trails through villages until the chaos dwindled the dramamine and cane liquor shared with strangers i drew closer i knew i was dying at the last town a friendly hotel in the ruins of a conquistador redoubt i shared a room with a cyclops i slept with a knife and an antique pistol we never spoke except in the rowdiness of the bar i shouted in english he shouted in turkish yet i came to understand he was a bandit who likewise lost an eye to a greek sailor languid, drifting, i was without purpose days months or years passed i have no recollection i had lost my purpose i knew i was dying but even that i postponed alas, an unknown offense was committed a huddled circle, murmurs from the shabby tea room a quick glance over the shoulder from the bandit it was settled i was to be exiled the desk clerk obliged me with a guide his name was queequeg he was jolly and earthy but always darkened when my flask appeared and these days that was before the shadowless noon he took me to high valleys to my singlemindedness and at last it appeared we stood on a ridge and queequeg pointed down into an improbable green valley like ahab i limped towards her white tent the grass beating arrhythmic drum brushes on denim queequeg stayed on the ridge counting his pesos then he watched us and waited she greeted me happily the tent was zippered at dusk when we emerged queequeg was gone we built a fire and sat close together I would awake in the tent to bright sun to my stillness the sea of grass eddying quietly the andean cold only a hint in the wind she was always away with the aborigines in their high villages returning only at night awakened by her warmth her moist breath i woke before her one morning the malaise had returned I knew it would stay this time i drank from my flask the earth rumbled below me a curious thing appearing its way along like an aardvark in the grass a vectored wave and then another “what was that?” she asked from the tent that same day we packed and moved higher into the mountains oblivious to those buried under mud brick for the radio had been abandoned when the batteries quit within weeks we ceased speaking full sentences in English or any language then we lost even the single words things were no longer named nothing was discreet there were just areas broad tones yet we lived grunting and pointing like the german tourists in the marketplace in quito the world without names was curious a pull tab glinting in the sun, was also the sun, and the sun was also a smell from my childhood and that ended with watering eyes, a deep and powerful sadness all things ended there the singularity I should be happy i thought eating guinea pigs as snack food in the high villages dribbling quechua still the lurking mass metastasized it blocked the sun I lived in the shadows when the militia men and teen soldiers visited i may have been happy which was also the sound of the grass left behind, and also the burning taste of the l’aguardiente they traded with me our incan hosts feared them weltering like smallpox blisters nevertheless they were stoic they donned their bowler hats an english court formally and coldly played their strange waltzes meters cut neatly in half, by duplets, martial drums marching waltzes other times the shining path in black masks, their ages impossible their violence implicit i shared our dwindling grape with them she was aroused by their danger and violence we always retired early to our hut They drank and took delight listening to our couplings after the earthquake i remember the c-5as enormous but from our vantage above they were playful toys circling otters on the sea of thick air fortified with smoke rising from the ruined city smoke rose always in this land everywhere, which was also her hair which was also a certain smell from childhood which was different than that other smell but ended with watering eyes and the deep sadness the singularity I captain ahab now drunk on fermented quinoa In desperation took a vow to begin speaking again it was awkward i would shout ”likewise a tit is better than nothing” The villagers didn’t understand but laughed with me as days passed I found other crooked phrases i shouted them in the village or whispered them to her at night “never ignored… but never more has been barked” she stroked my hair and rubbed my stiff leg which about the time of talking had developed a tremor I knew i was dying and that was all there she stayed in villages of altitude sickness for a nobler cause than I like a deep sea diver who surfaces to fast i had left the continuous wordless realm, and entered into the discreet world of language too fast noxious gases had formed and chemically bonded with the words new molecules of speech were born twisted strands and double helixes benzene rings an alchemy of sorts i could only share my secrets with other alchemists the rhyme for orange the strange beauty of the word vacuum one night she sent me away with the militia men she sobbed and spoke in perfect non crooked english i was disappointed she did not share my gift i cried and was angry in the valley of the whispering grass a trap was sprung shining path rose black against the moonless sky i laid down in the grass and listened to echoes of bullets the echoes stopped the shining path walked around and slit the throats of the wounded and dying when they came to me i waited for the knife instead water from a cup. a bit of bread “vacuum” said one of the hooded at dawn i woke in the eddying grass surrounded by the still surprised militiamen though of course they were still dead perverse relief i had not dreamed this improbably queequeg was on the ridge where i left him many many months ago queequeg spoke of the earthquake the city was dangerous and ruined full of armed gangs and american marines there was a civil war although he offered to take me to the conquistador hotel bar to see the cyclops i shook my head to decline along the coast to queequeg’s home an old colonial port city curious blacks and melungeons with japanese surnames an endless circle of bars queequeg lived amongst the colourfully painted tin in the tidal flats along the beach each morning he took a crowded bus to the north shrimp farms amidst the dead mangroves disapproving witness to a bloom of nitrates fingering into the sea while i was drunken abuelita on the bus proffered seats and gently led off at my stop the bus cobbled away into the old quarter slums streaming beyond i limped to each bar in succession these a legacy of a bauxite boom in the previous century grave nations preparing for carnage and war had found this gentle place flattered her brought her to flowering and then abandoned her an apartment building on the bluff above was built to resemble a ship porthole windows, looked to the sea jilted only now as an old maid was one of her suitors to return embarrassed by it’s continued youth and virility she pretended to have forgotten him she looked away to the sea at night marines filled the bars i had ceased speaking they called me the mute, they gently mocked me and bought me drinks they helped me into the converted hearse a cab driven by one of queequeg’s uncles or cousins the seasons were a gentle wobbling barely perceptible but at the equinox a rotation occurred the first marines bawdy these were mean conscripts the first night they beat me unconscious i awoke after some days in a military hospital my countrymen were like aliens they smelled of milk and disinfectant they told me i was dying i tried to sign a document i was given cash by a civilian he had a terrible mustache and reflective glasses i was assigned a congenial MP and a wheelchair he talked of affairs i knew nothing about nor cared an oil pipeline had been sabotaged the day before the crisis in my former country he took me to queequeg’s colourful tin but i refused at last he understood and carefully wheeled me into the don quixote with its yellowing bullfight posters and blaring television that night i dove into that lake of drear swimming along the bottom i found a golden dead koala i knew this was my alchemist prize all the crooked phrases had unraveled the singularity i clutched it to me before the blackness hit i was kicked by a barmaid she was shouting in spanish my tattered denims were warm with urine the tile of the floor was cool on my cheek this soothed me a crowd gathered around me as i was dying i clutched the koala to my chest no one would take it