My father says a man’s ink is the core of his blood - or at least that’s what his diary told me.

On a morning in the dusk, my bike broke. The joy of watching the splitting water ejaculate from the ground – filling his mind with images of Moses and Exodus, the utterances of bedtime stories and zealous speeches of Sunday mass. I pressed down too aggressively and the pedal snapped in half. I swerved down to the right and then to the left – somehow I don’t think Moses would have appreciated such callousness, then – splash! Ripped knees, eblows and wet newspaper. I lay on the ground watching the sun its morning birth its rays waking the neighbors. The neighbors snarled and hollered for their morning newspapers. I hid them and ran off.

“Palestinian Children Die”

“Chinese farmer starves”

“South American Drug War Claims Lives of Two Hundred Children”

The list went on with the faces of curmudgeons arguing about potential solutions, as the preacher and my father listlessly espoused.

My boss found me. I was stowed away in the corner of the coffee shop, Local Connections, a small place with a few writers, a few dreamers and endless caffeine addicts.

“You’re fired.” The words rolled off his tongue fiercely (he was a friend of my father’s as well, so the whooping at home might be twice, thrice the normal castigation for such infractions). My father’s eye lit up in fury, the red colors under his sockets flared up, revealing a growing stye along his right eye. “Now I have a son who can’t even deliver the damn news!” He stormed off over to his chair by the fire, worrying about the social blame, the man with the son who couldn’t do the job. The Bailey’s cream soothed his mind over, losing him to sleep.

My mother only spoke really (or audibly at least) when my father slipped into his death state (or zombie state)

“You need to find a job and soon.” The “And soon” tripped off her lips not unlike my sleight of hand on my bicycle; the wheels were coming off, unhinging.

There was a hanging just outside the wall of the Post Office. “Part-Time Help Wanted.”

“You’ll do.” The tall dark man said. His face was long and deep brown eyes haunting.

“Just don’t screw anything up, okay?” My parents were relieved – sort of. The thought of working for a black man still troubled my father, though he was somehow smart enough not to show, except when pondering in the red chair.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I screwed up a lot of stuff. Over and over again – he just never knew it.

It was a Wednesday morning, Jahan had already left the office, whistling the same song. There was one letter which came across my desk, as I sorted the mail.

Strange. Why was it coming through this office?

The envelope was slightly damp and the stamp was quite unlike the others. The still sticky stamp, showed a plane sailing from the depth s of what I now realize is likely a corridor of some mosque, the plan’s trajectory seems endlessly skyward. My fingers followed the seam of the letter, eyes taking a swift inspection of the room before running my fingers to open the letter. Paper cut.

Shit. This is not in English. It took me two weeks before treading off to the only place in town where I had seen such scribbles, elegant they maybe, but still scribbles. Their café was along the edges of town, where my parents suggested that I don’t explore. So the town was a bit like a microcosm – both literally and figuratively. But along the outer circles of the town were the immigrant shops. Habibi was the name.

“Why, you’re the young boy who messed up my newspaper.”

I panicked and blushed. “Just ask him the questions you need to ask him and then you can get this back in the mail. Jahan will never notice.

“Sorry about that.”

“No problem, what can we do for you.” The man’s eyes fixated on the paper. “Do you need help translating it?”

“Yes, please.” I said quietly.

Let me read:

“Dear Juanse,

Not sure what I should write here, but I suppose the first thing I should say is hello. My family and I live in Iraq. I am the oldest of four, with three younger sisters. My father is a fighter. My mother stays at home and watches us. I am not sure if I would like to be a fighter yet. I am sure that I would like to meet you, however. The teacher says we would have much in common, I hear that your family is in a similar state?

There are a few photos of my family and I included. I think we look happy in spite of the war. That’s important.

We look forward to hearing from you in Iraq. Be safe in Columbia!

Yours,

Yahya Al-Kareem

I rushed back, and they invited me to dinner. I should have read the news, the rain came crumbling down with the thunder echoing across the sky.

I slid the letter in my pocket walking home. Though, I have found now, over the years that is to avoid temptation.

I was drawn to look at the curving letters, the sweet precision, but my clawd self dropped the letter, in spinning into the ground. Like a lost thought or at least whose content has since been immersed with new – it’s a convolution of new and old.

I stood there, and then it came getting me wet. Not the rain, but guilt. Funny, they don’t they know guilt comes from, looking back, it’s a funny word coming from gylt. Which is of unknown origin. Maybe I knew I did something wrong. When the gushing water along the alley way swept the letter I way, I found myself silent, wihing for the water to become an oil line, a vessel to transport me to Iraq. Let me meet Yahya.

I didn’t tell Jahan. I should have. I think he died knowing something was off.

Weeks passed, and Juanse hadn’t said anything. I stpped reading other people’s mail. Rather, with the advent of email, I saw fewer and fewer letters flow through the desk. Jahan was eventually laid off but I was still there, working.

On a Tuesday morning, when the sweet scent of coffee descended upon the office, the letter was there. Apparently this boy now lived down the street.

I opened the letter quietly. My crude Spanish served me well (for once)

Yahya,

I don’t think I ever heard from you, but there hasn’t been much good going around these days. Strange as it may seem, there isn’t quite a word or a story which can articulate the pain and te experience which hwe experience. Maybe you feel it too. That language, that the roots we share shape s and that we don’t tend to brush shoulders with others too often.

Hopefully you hear from me soon.

Best,

Juanse

I snapped a photo of this letter; I think it is still in the back of my diary here somewhere.

____________________________________________________________________________________

So – where does this memory which bring me now? The years pass, the people pass and the world has changed more so than I imagined it to have changed. That is, it is like no one has lived on this earth

before. Dare I say, such is tragedy – that our names, memories, faces will be gone forever in the passing of our grandchildren. Perhaps a generation at best?

No – that’s too sullen. I will saw this:

My experience found myself looking for these men. Mhy role as an executive has led me to venture down into the sands of Syria, Jordan and Palestine as well as the cocaine carcel of Carcas.

I found what I expected: death. The men who seem to be too worldly end p all but beneath the world.

A man asked me recently if I would consider doing a deal with the enemies. The ISIS, the rebels in Columbia. Lucractive and violenct as it may become, I turned it down.

I suspect they wait for me, but such do the words of thse men inform my thinking.

____________________________________________________________________________________

My father died. He seemed to go missing in the desert. He was one of those men who went under the earth too soon. Let us bring the wordly ones up.