Velorio by Xavier Navarro Aquino

Velorio by Xavier Navarro Aquino

Author:Xavier Navarro Aquino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-11-18T00:00:00+00:00


Banto

Ceremony was ritual. Ura mandated every citizen of Memoria need not only attend, but also participate in sermon. He expected everyone to give half-hour decrees by the fire. They served as announcements of gratitude. Toward Memoria, toward the reds, toward him. At first it became repetitive nonsense, the reds performed and spoke of Ura’s eternal gifts, his giving soul, and they even acted out short skits as tribute to the hero, as they called him. They used props found and harvested from Utuado; disjointed and rusted car doors, blue FEMA tarps they stole from houses that were abandoned over the months, black electric cables from fallen and dead utility posts, even the abandoned electric transformers were put to use. The reds used these things to build Memoria, and whatever was left over they applied to the evening skits. It was the new television. Ura sat in the center of ceremony, he had the reds fashion an old Mercedes car seat and place it smack in the middle. He could oversee everyone, observing and enjoying the entertainment acted out by the reds. As much as it became routine, when the decrees were given by people other than the reds, I heard genuine gratitude and that confused me.

This was every night’s ritual. The great fire was built by the reds. There was a designated crew that wore black tracksuits and they’d go off into the dark night to collect the fallen trees, broken logs, brown and aged shrubs. Upon their return they banged on the metal trash cans and they chanted “Ura, Ura, Ura,” as they piled the wood and readied the evening events.

Cami hardly moved from her corner. She spent days petrified on her cot after they took her sister. She didn’t eat. I walked up to her and sat on the dirt in front of her and she just looked through me. I talked to her about the weather, the forest, the river and how it still roared and rumbled in its crest. I mentioned how Memoria started feeling like home because kids who weren’t the reds showed up. Mentioned Moriviví and her friend Damaris. How they came all the way from Florencia, where Bayfish and I were from, and told her I thought they meant good, they were good people. I tried bringing her some cooked goat from dinner, but she’d leave it, let it collect insects, roaches, ants, and poked at it with her big fingers. She even allowed the bugs to crawl onto her, the roaches skating from one finger to the next, the ants marching angrily over the palm of her hand. When I made to toss the plate into the trash, she grumbled deep, so I left it. I spent many nights in her corner of Memoria hoping my presence gave her life. None of it shook her out of that trance. The only words she mumbled were to herself and most of the time she just repeated Marisol’s name, sometimes rocking herself to sleep, sometimes pretending Marisol was the rotting plate of food.



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