Trail at dusk (2025-01-16) - Carlos R. Flores (Author)

 When I returned from País Sur, I promised myself that when I started working, the first thing I would do is to save up for a piece of land and start building a house.  I had gotten a job in a stable company, so I drew up my financial strategy to get that long-awaited piece of land, which, hopefully, one day I would call my home.

At that time I lived in the Kilómetro Nueve sector, not far from the Lucomo Hotel, which as you may know, it went out of business several years ago. It was the winter of 1994. The area was on the outskirts of the city, a setting that was much more rural than urban.  I remember that the modest place where I rented was one of those houses that now, with cultural blending, some call townhouses. The small gated community was called "Los Chalés", because of its small two-storey houses and inverted V-shaped roof top, which, apparently, the local architect was inspired – not without several misunderstandings – by a Swiss-style villa, resulting in a hybrid concept, and with the defect of very little ventilation.

I recall that the main road to Sierpe Colorada was exactly eight hundred meters from the entrance to this six houses compound; all identical, with the same architecture and finishes, that the common landlord and owner, had built.

 I was in the personal project of losing lots of weight, for which, since I started working at that company, I disciplined myself to do a daily workout. I went jogging in the mornings; leaving to complete the circuit that ran, from my place, passing to further south of the Lucomo hotel; a route that, the round trip stretched three and a half miles.

When for some reason I didn't jog in the mornings, I was certain to complete the routine in the evening, starting at 5.30 p.m.  That day, I remember that I left work early and arrived home; I changed into sportswear and went out to do the corresponding session.  The path began on pavement, and continued with a gentle descent; then it made a left and entered a picturesque dirt road, which passed through some beautiful guanacastes on each side; there were also espaveles in certain points, and I evoke some leafy genízaros, as well as one or another jiñocuabo, whose trunks looked, as others call that tree: "naked Indian".

Before reaching the end of that route, it narrowed further and ended, like a stop, in a huge rock. There was a fork in the road, where, on each side, two splendid hacienda-houses were located. Access to them was restricted, so you had to stop and start your way back.

About five hundred meters before the end of the route, there was a narrow pass. The trail ran through the middle of two steep walls, which extended for about 150 feet. Whenever I passed through there, I was struck by the barrel cut that this kind of basalt hill split in two halves.

That winter day, before reaching the point of those slopes, I remember that I saw my watch: it was 5.45 p.m. The light of the afternoon was already fleeing. I was walking at a good pace and approaching that pass, where, due to the effect of the shadow cast on the walls vertically, the light was dimmer.  I then saw, in the middle of that point of the road, a silhouette. It moved from left to right.  When I already knew the characteristics of the route, I judged the meeting inevitable, so I prepared to say hello.

I noticed the stance of the figure. He was a young male, no more than thirty years old; he wore fatigue suits, camouflage, the kind used in armies.  I saw the hems of his trousers; these ended tightly in the fits of their military boots. He looked very skinny, and it seemed to me, as a particular sign, that he had something on her neck. His hair was military style, short like a recruit's; hirsute in its buds. He moved a little slowly, as if, in turn, he was waiting for me, keeping his gaze fixed on me; this was remote, with small, glassy eyes. He had prominent dark circles under his eyes.

As I was a short distance away from reaching the meeting point, I slowed down, acted naturally, ready to greet him. It was then that—I believed or remembered—that something on the side of the road, suddenly, caught my attention. For a couple of seconds, I looked away from the figure I was approaching.

Once I put my point of vision back together, I noticed with surprise that the individual had disappeared. When I reached the space he had just occupied, I stopped completely. I wondered how he could have vanished.  I observed the walls cut abruptly; there was no way anyone could climb them like that in a matter of seconds; perhaps only with a miraculous exception of being a mountain goat, something unthinkable, and even laughable, in that time and place.

Not without astonishment, after about thirty seconds of observation, I resumed my journey. On the way back, I thought that maybe I could face a situation of personal security; that is, that the man might be waiting for me, and perhaps to assault me. I judged this improbable, as it carried nothing of value or utility; maybe, just my sneakers.

I didn't look at him when I returned.

In the following days, during occasional evening tours, I saw him again, maybe three or four times. Always at identical posture and facial expression. I could see him at the same point; imperturbable. He looked at me with a languid and distant gaze. On his countenance he had a sad expression, and at the same time, as if absent, or perhaps empty.

Invariably, he came from the left; he turned his gaze towards me, expressing a feeling of loneliness and abandonment; then he seemed to enter the right side of the solid rock wall of the hill split in two. His look was like that of a soldier who, already defeated, was returning home; someone who has already been beaten down by life.

I told myself that the next time I saw him, I would take the initiative and talk to him, so that he would not have a chance to sneak away. As the days went by, although I wanted to clarify the situation, I avoided, in some way, doing the afternoon jog. I opted for the morning route.

That time, I remember it was Friday. When I left work early, I came to do my jogging session.  He had already had more than fifteen days of workout only in the morning.  When I got to the point, I didn't see him. I judged that this experience had all been something fortuitous or accidental. "It is someone...", of course!, I said to myself, trying to deduce with a logic that seemed rather pathetic to me, "who takes care of some point of the road, or very likely that he is a watchman of some intermediate property, which is not visible from the outside".

I told myself that it would be the last time recall those meetings; this, so as not to distract the mind with idle thoughts. That afternoon, when I returned along the trail, I was motivated by my increasing performance, having reduced a few seconds to the travel lapse. I was already reaching the turn that preceded the stretch of steep walls.

That's when I saw him again.

"Hey, dude!" I yelled at him before giving him a chance to sneak away. "You live around here?!" I repeated to make sure he was watching me and talking to him. "I just want to ask you a question!"

Absolute silence.

I felt that, more than jogging, my legs were flying as I tired the few meters that separated me from the man who crossed the trail. I approached him. My gaze met his; it was a duel of the one who first lowered his gaze, accepting or tolerating the dominant posture of the other.

I slowed my strides so as not to make physical contact and trip over him.  In the dim light, I watched him a few steps away.  He turned his head towards me, as when someone heeds or pays attention to another, but without losing the direction that his own body was heading toward. Around his neck, I saw that he had a kind of white cloth scarf, with profuse stains of dark blood, perhaps from a fresh wound. Without taking his eyes off me, he put his left hand on that piece of cloth, as if he wanted to block a hemorrhage, or calm a pain.

At the last second, when I wanted to talk to him like that, face to face, he continued walking, without taking his eyes off me, until he blurred like a faint specter, or like a fleeing shadow, inside the stone wall that rose vertically on both sides of that point, already dominated by the darkness of the dying afternoon.

I experienced amazement and stupor; but to a much greater degree, I perceived an unknown and unprecedented fear: the possibility that I was losing my mind. I assumed I had overexerted myself during my workouts, and that these were causing me visions or mirages.

I slept with a rebellious restlessness, which I could not control. I chose to try not to think about him anymore, but to concentrate on tomorrow's meeting with Graham, the land explorer, who had called me yesterday to tell me that on Saturday he would show me two properties that were for sale, in the same area of Lucomo.

Graham called me early. He confirmed that he would wait for me at his place, at 3.00 p.m.; to pick him up in my car to visit the two sites.

The tour rendered good results. One of the properties seen was, for me, perhaps the ideal one.

On the way back, we passed by the point where, when jogging, I turned to enter the trail.

"I go out here to workout from time to time," I said to Graham with that absurd pride one assumes when one thinks that by exercising you have a certain moral superiority over those who don't. I go to the end of the path and then turn around.

An awkward silence inside the car.

"Be careful, and try not to get spooked", Graham said without making eye contact. There, at evening, a ghost shows itself in the middle of the trail.

I felt like space-time had stopped. I assumed, as if it were a bad dream, that this dialogue was not happening. Soon after, more than fear, I felt a strange curiosity.

"How is it that they scare you there? Are you talking about a dead man, a deceased one, Graham, or something like that?”

"Certainly. In the middle of the road appears the specter of a boy, who was killed right there, during the war of '79; in mid-July of that year. He was a special forces soldier from Nacho El Joven's infantry school. They were ambushed, and he was shot in the neck. He bled to death right in the pass known as Los Paredones. He is also buried there. Many years ago, some relatives came to locate the site and exhume him, but his next of kin never found his grave. Several other have seen him at sunset.

I didn't say anything.

"What happened to you?" Graham told me. "You turned pale".

 

Author: Carlos R. Flores

direccion@cambiocultural.net