(translated from its original Spanish language submission)
Rivera Dario Alonso Gomez
Second place, Fiction, Heard/Alexandria Detention Center writing contest, July 2022
While I was driving home in the middle of peak hour traffic I thought about how absurd my life is. Who am I? Only one more among millions trapped in the routine of daily life from work to home. The problems, the children, the bills to pay, all is monotony, a life without meaning. My wife is no longer the beautiful youth whom I married, she has gained weight and her hair is turning white and to be honest I’m not the same either, my hair has fallen out and left me bald, a huge belly has grown and don’t even mention these eyeglasses without which I don’t see well.
I felt pretty depressed but finally arrived at my home and now I was so tired I just wanted to sleep for many days without anyone bothering me, so I went directly to my bed and I laid down. Suddenly I felt pain in my chest that woke me up, it was very dark and I was sweating.
“Marta, Marta,” I call my wife, but she does not answer. I try to get up but the pain in my chest is sharper, stronger. I call my wife again but again she doesn’t respond. I reach out for her next to me but she isn’t there, I am alone, and now there is no pain but my feet are cold and slowly the cold climbs up my body.
With difficulty I am able to sit, I look in the darkness for the lamp on my night table to turn on the light but it isn’t there. I don’t understand what is happening, I remained sitting, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Finally I rose and began to walk with my hands in front of me, looking for the door, but I walked and walked and couldn’t find the door, nor the wall, I don’t understand what is happening, I must be dreaming, my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and in the distance I saw what looked like the shadow of person who walked with downcast eyes. I approached him and stopped him.
“My friend, excuse me, could you tell me where we are, what is this place?”
“Friend? I don’t remember knowing you, I have no friends.”
“That’s ok, please forgive me, but tell me please, where are we?”
“Well, here.”
“But where is here?”
“Where we are, that’s clear!”
“Do you not know where we are?”
“I know very well where I am, the one who is lost appears to be you.”
And he simply went on his way.
This left me more confused. In the distance I could see many more shadows and I walked toward them. They were all the same, people or better said the shadows of people, walking from one side to the other with downcast eyes and no real direction and no expression at all. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t dare stop anyone, just kept walking in a straight line expecting to run into something but I walked a long way and nothing happened. I could only see darkness and shadows, but what place is this and where am I?
Tired and desperate I fell to my knees. I thought of my wife and my children, where could they be at this moment. Suddenly I saw a light, very pale but it was there. Perhaps there is an exit there. I rose and ran toward the light.
When I was near it was a person like the shadows but this one shone in the darkness and very emotionally I asked him, “My friend, could you tell me where I am, this is such a strange place?”
“Can it be that you still don’t know, Andres?”
“How do you know my name, by chance do we know each other?”
“Of course we know each other.”
“But I don’t remember you, please tell me, where am I?”
“This is your heart, Andres.”
“My heart! You’re joking!”
“No Andres, this is not a joke.”
“And if this is my heart why is it so cold and dark? Could I be dead?”
“No, not yet, you’re not dead.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“Well, Andres, your heart is cold and dark because that is how you have filled it… over the years.”
“And all these shadows — who are they?”
“Your preoccupations, your mistakes, your deceptions and your bitterness.”
“And who are you?”
“I am Love and there is still some light in me because there is still some love in your life, but every day I dim a little and one day I will be another shadow. Before, we had hope, faith, charity, but all those have been diminishing one by one, only I am left, but not for long.”
“Please don’t disappear, do something”
“Only you can do something, remember it is your heart.”
“But what do I do, tell me”
Love, Andres, Love.
And the light went out, and I was back in darkness and desperation.
What do I do? He told me that I should love. I have love in my life and I love my wife, I began to remember the day that I met her. I thought about how I felt when I went down on my knees to ask her to marry me, how emotional and nervous I was. Soon Love began to shine again, though dimly.
I remembered the day my son was born, and I held him in my arms for the first time, and the joy I felt.
Love shone a little more.
“This is working,” I said.
“Yes, Andres, it is working.”
Then I thought about my little daughter and her precious smile. And Love began to shine so brightly that everything was illuminated but at the same time it began to distance itself from me.
“Please don’t leave.”
Suddenly I felt a blow on my chest and an electric current that coursed through my body and a flash that blinded me. I tried to open my eyes but some hands detained me.
“Love, is that you?”
“No, Mr. Andres, I am Doctor Rivera, don’t worry, everything is ok.”
“What happened?”
“You had a heart attack.”
“That explains the pain in my chest.”
“Yes, Mr. Andres. And when you arrived you had a second heart attack. You were clinically dead for five minutes and we have just resuscitated you so please be calm, I am going to make sure you are out of danger and will let you rest.”
Five minutes dead, I thought. For me it was an eternity.
“Doctor… and my family?”
“ They are outside, Mr. Andres, when you get out of Intensive Care we will give you a room and you will be able to see them.”
Finally after many checkups and nurses coming and going they gave me a room and let my family come in. Everyone advanced toward me, crying. I hugged them with all my might and I felt filled with Love.
At that moment I felt God in my life.
Thank you Father for giving me another opportunity. Now I know who I am.
It all started the moment I turned 18. Well not that exact moment but you get the gist of things. I grew up with amazing parents who never skipped a beat. They were active in me and my brother’s life’s, making us a family that was close.
I redid the whole dynamic of my family the day I started using. I took 18 years of the same routine and natural life and turned it upside down and inside out. I stole somebody’s daughter, and someone’s sister the moment I started IV’ing my arms, I stole her and didn’t give her back to her family for the next 7 years.
For the next 7 years that family was going to loose their precious little daughter and their older sister to the disease of addiction. She was going to be alive but at the same time her presence would thin out in their life’s, her life wasn’t about anyone but herself and her disease for the next 7 years.
Her brothers didn’t have anything to do with her, they gave up, I mean how many times will you believe someone who comes home once in a blue moon and breaks down crying to you that they will never do what they have done, only to walk out the front door that very night again?
My disease not only robbed them out of their daughter but it robbed me from me. I was replaced with this human being that I thought I would never be, I was foreign to the body and mind I was living in.
I had nothing to show for the past 7 years of my life besides a lengthy record which marched me right out of several jobs.
I had nothing to show for the past 7 years besides some track marks and tattoos.
I had nothing and yet the drugs I was partaking in made me feel like I had everything. The drugs made me think I was whole and happy when I had them, but oh were the drugs taunting and screaming at me when I didn’t have them yearning for my arms or my nose or lips to take them in, so they could make a home inside of me.
The drugs had taken me out of my home so they could make their home inside of me.
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