i

his thick sandals slapping up dust from the road. his mouth works in rhythm with his feet, drops of green spittle falling down his chin. the sun is low in the sky and the wind has the chill of night in it already. he tastes the air, reaches low and pulls out a handful of cocoa. pauses to spit out a wad of pulp.

 this air tastes like iron, night is coming. I have walked two days.

enough is enough for an old man.

the land is uneasy, the peppers trees proud and graceful, bend into the wind like  wild horses. the clouds are shallow and thick in the sky, moving quickly before the advancing winds.

they are like animals running before a fire. perhaps a storm, a little rain will do me good.

there is not much pain, no not much. for an old man.

he shifts his blanket pack.

Two more hours. Not more. I will be inside before the first rain falls.

ii

he could feel the dead crowding his back, expressing themselves directly to his heart, to his body. he crumbled a little tobacco.

'calmar, calmar.' 'be calm, calm.'

'There is something that death teaches, and she is a patient teacher. Her patience is her most valuable lesson. Listen to her, old ones. Trust her.'

he took a little of the corn bread, tore off a chunk, chewed it one side of his mouth to avoid his decaying toth. planned his next movement carefully, spilled a little wine on the table top. He could hear the patron cursing his clumsiness, but the sighs of pleasure as the younger, the less decourous of the spirits lapped at the wine was audible even to the drunkard at the next table, who pushed back his hat with one finger and muttered about the sweet sounds of the wind.

in truth, though he was long accustomed to the dead, they were gathering like moths to a light. as he passed through the cities and towns, they had begun to dog his footsteps, perhaps sensing his purpose. he could not conceive of the vast space that eternity encompassed, but he understood it was far greater even than the lush, mountanous jungle of his home where a man might walk for

a hundred days and still find himself with no-one but his own self for company. 

how many souls could eternity absorb before it was full, full like his belly? it seemed that the time had been reached and a great wheel had turned. even the sanctified, peaceable dead were turned away, carrying their bundle of clothes under one arm. truly, the hunting

must be poor up there, the farmland barren.

more disturbing than this migration, the dead had begun to look for wombs, in defiance of the sacred laws of life. predators devouring baby birds and occupying the empty spaces.

he ran his hands over the raw, warm wood of the table, read the names, the curses & threats.

iii

in the night he dreamed he was walking, threading his way along a worn path between luminous undergrowth.. no rest for an old man,

even in his sleep.. these were his thoughts.. but.. something

about the tranquility of the place touched him. Even the insects

moved quietly, lazily, leisurely. Not a single mosquito tasted his blood.

He felt his body stirring in his sleep, a moment of dislocation. The air was hot, moving sluggishly as if under thick glass.

"hermano"

he glanced upwards at a mottled jaguar, its limbs dangling over

a branch. His heart tightened.

"miedo no, me alimentan bien." it spoke in a melodious voice.

"temo no, hermano, sus palabras soy calmante.. tell me, where am I?"

'you are on the trail to the land of the dead, old man. i see by your

meat that you are not like the others, there is something of a spirit

about you.'

"that is well then. cuánto camina la necesidad adicional yo?"

if it were possible for a jaguar to grin, it grinned, making its pink tongue visible between pearl white incisiors.

"not much of a way, old man, not much of a way. but i could not tell you the exact distance. only those higher than we mere spirits know the answer to that."

"Tell me then, my brother.. a sickness has come to my people. infants

 born without souls, the dead among us. Wherefrom this misfortune?"

"easily answered. they, ", the jaguar indicated down the trail with its nose', "are turning back the dead."

"Does thou know for what?"

"Those that come now were never truly living, whyfore would the dead share their hunting with men who are not men, and women who are not women. So they turn them back along the trail, the dead return to the world."

"Everyone?"

"No, not everyone. Many. Más con cada día que pasa. The dead that never truly died."

"Know you the cure for this afflication?"

"Why does a vine flower at the bank of a river but rot on a city wall. You men have forgotten how to cultivate your souls. you forget what is nourishing. You are barely human human now, so quickly are you

made, so quickly discarded."

iv

the humidity pressed down on his body. outside the shuttered window, the insects roared like floodwater. he lay on the thin mat, staring up at ceiling through

partially closed lids and ran his hands over his ribs, resting his palms on his stomach.

what is a man to do with something this weighty. this is not a day for walking,

but there is still much walking to do.

thought it was disagreeable, it seemed inevitable that his journey would take him to the heart of the city. at the best of times, he would sooner swim with the poisonous leech than mingle with those that inhabited the filthy places where up was down, and down up & life meant nothing.

It was a complicated and magical apparatus, the city, something in all his long life that he could never understand. They prolonged life so that men could live on in sadness and misery, like the ancient sad eyed cart horses of the mining towns plodding on through the stink & the smoke till they wore a hole in the ground.

It wove a  powerful madness that affected the young particularly , drove them sweating crazily from their villages to join men who were slaves of coin & strange luxuries.

Even these damn mosquito's, blood suckers though they may be, have more of a sense of community, more of a sense of place. They suck blood for a higher purpose than these men.

he slapped at his neck, closing his eyes.

When we first learned to sit on our haunches, who was the man who first exposed his heart to men? To their teeth & their fists, their clubs & knives. Who took these dogs up from the ground, to the envy of all animals & said be not ashamed. I wish for more men like that now, for it seems we are falling back into the world of dogs once more.