"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" - Colossians 3:23
I had breakfast the next morning in the courtyard of the hostel- a cobblestone floor and mosaic walls, with vines and flowers hanging down accompanying my black coffee and pancakes. I saw a hummingbird that first morning, as I wiped up the last drop of the maple syrup with the final quarter of a pancake. It was gone before I was able to fully recognise it, but in my minds eye I can still see it clearly, all these years later. Like a photo my memory has stored for me, made more beautiful for me, gilded with gold for me. It was like a little welcoming treat from the city to see such a rare bird for the first time in my life, and it put me in a good mood. "I think I'm going to like this place...", I thought to myself as I headed out the front door half an hour later...
Glorious sunshine and a slightly stinging heat met me as I stepped out from the shadow of the doorway, and put on my sunglasses. The first thing to highlight is the very first thing I noticed, which was that it was a low city- the entire city had been declared a UNESCO site, which meant the majority of buildings had only one floor, with only a couple of places in the centre and the central plaza extending to a second. Everywhere, without exception, was a cobblestone street. Small shops, divided between each other only by the changing paint-job on their exterior- dark red, sky blues, canary yellows, and all crowned with typical red-tiles- lined every carefully aligned street. Although their paint-jobs varied in colour, the one thing they shared was the fact that the paint itself was rarely perfectly kept on. Often it was crumbling off the wall's exterior, revealing the hard cool-grey cement beneath, and giving the entire city a rustic, mildly worn charm to it.
Huge, artistic wooden doors stood proudly in the native stone archways- the type of entrance which would be fit for the governing generals of colonial times were now fashionable entrances to trendy new restaurants and hookah bars. Cigar smoking foreign men in sunglasses, shorts and trilby hats sat at tables which were only enclosed within the restaurant by a stylised cast-iron railing, allowing them to practically lean into the path of pedestrians if they desired. Foreign women with braids and brightly coloured cotton "hippy pants" and flip-flops sat opposite them, drinking bright orange smoothies and peering down at copies of Lonely Planet that they had rested on the table.
A portly, dark skinned indigenous woman, dressed in brightly coloured native robes was fanning a barbecue on the corner of the street. She was taking up most of the corner with her stand, and traversing the narrow pavement was clearly going to require some manoeuvring from me. On approaching, I saw a young child, a girl of about 6, sitting at her feet, holding a doll. She was dark as well, like the woman who I supposed was her mother. She looked up at me, curiously and cautiously as I walked past her, through the smoke of the barbecue, and I flashed a little smile at her to accompany my good mood.
Being sure to remember the street where my hostel was, I directed myself towards what I assumed was the centre of the city by following small crowds, and checking to see which streets looked busiest. The central plaza was a leafy park with high palm trees and classical, cast-iron benches below them for tourists and locals to sit in their shade. It was encircled by a cobblestone street, and all of that was enclosed by a colonial two-story arcade, whose archways sheltered all kinds of businesses; from banks to tourist offices; from restaurants and ice cream parlours to tourists shops.
"Hey- you wanna baa wee, man?", I heard a gruff but young voice approaching me as I was crossing the cobblestone street on my way to the bank under the arcade.
It annoyed me a bit to have my admiration of this beautiful centre interrupted, but I laughed it off. "Nah, man...", I said to the young man who was unable to pronounce the words "buy" and "weed" properly. He was probably a little younger than me- maybe 20. But he was brash and abrasive, and I'll admit I took an instant dislike to his aggressive selling technique...
"You wanna BLOW YOUR MIND?", he continued, and turned in the middle of the street to walk in the same direction as me. He sneered up at me, probably unaware of what a bad impression he was making on me, or maybe knowing and not caring.
"Nah, I'm good man...", I said, without laughing this time, and I altered my path subtly so that I was walking away from him. Far beyond the second level of the arcade on the southern side of the plaza, the giant volcano was poking out, a stark contrast against the brilliant mid-morning sky. I tried to admire it...
"F*** you then!", I heard him call after me. I could feel myself flushing red as I wondered if people were looking at me and wondering what I'd done to provoke such an aggressive reaction from this attempted drug-dealer. But I was too unwilling to get myself into a fight with a stranger, especially in this new city where I was already aware I had to be cautious... By the time I casually looked over my shoulder, he was already walking away from me, towards a tall pale couple who were looking at a tourist map. His search continued, and my good mood dried up a little.
Despite the cobblestones, tuc-tucs sped past, with their driver and passengers being jolted and shaken about inside. Beggars under the arcade reached out to me, and I ignored their cries and pleas, passing them with a sympathetic smile. The smell of cigar smoke, incense and the more-than-occasional trace of marijuana are three smells that will always take me back to that city and back to that first day exploring it...
I took photo after photo of that beautiful city that whole morning. Everything that caught my eye, I snapped, determined to capture it and to show that I'd been here, even if only for a month, in case this whole crazy adventure was snatched away from me. Colonial churches got snapped. historic archways got snapped. Quiet, traffic barren streets got snapped. Just walking through those dainty streets, not knowing what I was going to find round each corner drove me into wild excitement, which could only be traced by passers by from the broad smile all over my face. As it turns out, I would become very familiar indeed with that city over the following months. And little did I know at the time that, before 2011 was finished, those quaint, cobble-stone streets would be the stage for an act of cowardice which would haunt me for years afterwards...
---
I wouldn't say I was a workaholic. Not at that stage, at least. But I certainly loved my job as a teacher trainer. And I loved the praise I got from Karl. January 2011 was going to be my first 1 month course alone, and there was a lot of work to do in the new office to make sure that my feedback at the end of it was satisfactory...
Terry and Sean were my only two students that month. And they were both extremely likable and easy-going. I remember climbing the stairs to the classroom the first morning of that first course, and hearing Terry's wild laugh echoing from the open wooden door as he chatted and joked with one of the girls from reception who had come to help me with orientation. It soothed me, calmed me to know that they were probably a lot more relaxed about the whole thing than I was...
"He's my teacher", shouted Terry as he semi-slammed the bottle of beer he'd just taken a sip from on the wooden table in the crowded bar. It was Friday night, the first Friday of the course, and five days since I'd ascended the stairs and first met Terry and Sean. I'd been a little taken aback when Terry had asked if I wanted to go out for some drinks after work, but I was more than game. It was about 2a.m., and all around us were young locals and adventurous travellers, all looking to get the most out of their short time in the city. The Australian girl Terry was talking to looked shocked at us both, as I took a swig of my beer and shrugged. She laughed:
"Isn't that a little..." she paused as she looked for the words... "...unprofessional?"
Terry and I looked at each other and laughed. She was right, of course, but we were still a few months away from Karl calling an end to all socialising with clients during the course. By that time, Terry would be back in New York, and I would be elsewhere. We drank until the bar was almost empty, save for some tired looking local barmen collecting glasses and sweeping the floor. My head was throbbing, my vision a blur, my mouth dry and my speech slurred as I forced Terry to put his wallet back into his jacket pocket and I paid for all the drinks. Laughing loudly and singing all the way we stumbled out into those cold morning streets, the sunlight barely peaking over the mountains and from beyond the volcano...
We had a very successful month together in the end, with both of them ending the course satisfied enough and with a teaching certificate to show for it. Terry, still with his shaggy hair and wild beard, I would meet a couple of years later after some chaotic and difficult to understand events brought us together in the same city once again.
It was a happy time, there's no denying that. The nights out with Terry and occasionally Sean, who generally kept more to himself. The Saturdays walking the narrow streets before going to the local English bar to watch the football. The new faces and students at the school- young, lively, energetic volunteers and locals perfectly mixing and interacting in this Colonial paradise. Even Estela and I seemed to have grown fonder of each other in our absence, and I found Skyping with her in my hostel room almost every night something I actively proposed and wanted to do. It was one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. My life was going great, and it was largely thanks to Karl and the job that he'd given me.
But in hindsight, it must have been at about this time that my love for the job and the benefits it allowed me began to grow into something that it was never supposed to be...
---
The morning sunlight was seeping into the cell through the steel bars in front of the tiny window by the time the television finally turned itself off. Ironically, it was that which woke me up. I must have been sleeping for hours on end, music and voices and laughs soothing me ever to sleep. Their absence was what woke me up- it was what disturbed me, and I creaked my eyes open, uneasy in the sudden silence...
It was cold and my arms were aching. I stretched my shoulders, and looked around the room. My captor was nowhere to be seen, and I realised that I missed her. I missed her company, even though when she was in my presence she mocked me, beat me, showed nothing but contempt towards me. Still, I missed her, and any attempts I made within my own mind to convince myself that I was worth more than to be treated in such a way were instantly squashed. She had a power over me, a power I'd never witnessed before. She knew that I lusted after her, that I would spend my entire day fantasising about her given the chance. She knew this, and she exploited it...
"It's OK to want me, you know...?", she'd told me frankly once. It was one of our quiet moments together, a time when she'd decided to work on her grasp upon my mind rather than outright torture me. She'd come to visit, and as she'd locked the door behind her and taken off her outside coat, allowing her chestnut hair to cascade down her back, she'd noticed me for a split second admiring her figure, and she'd smiled.
"You're not a monk, for goodness sake", she said slyly, walking towards me and biting her red lower lip. "Nobody's expecting you to be PERFECT. And who are you really hurting by wanting me so badly? We're even the only ones who know, so what does it really matter?". She was convincing, more so because I wanted her to be right. I wanted her to be telling the truth. "You have needs. That's not your fault. If there really is a God..." she paused as she saw me stand up straighter for the first time since she came into the room. Looking straight at me, she finished her thought; "...then why did He MAKE you this way? If wanting me..." she stroked her hips where her jeans clung tightly over a tanned midriff "... is wrong, then it's HIS fault, not yours, for making you this way".
Even then, even when I so desperately wanted her to be telling the truth, even when I wanted so badly to put the blame onto someone else, ANYBODY else... I still couldn't bring myself to believe that God was at fault. She saw my small spark of defiance in my eyes, and I saw the malevolence in hers...
"... the father of lies..."
That small phrase whispered in the back of my mind, and vanished. I couldn't remember who'd said it, or where I'd read it. But in that moment, I remembered that it was a phrase. And I remembered that it was a POWERFUL phrase...
She saw it. She saw it in the way I avoided looking at her. She could tell from my refusal to look her directly in her seductive eyes that there was resistance within me...
I heard her chuckle to herself. "I'll wait... I've got all day"...
She HAD waited. For far longer than I'd expected her to. I'd stood for hours, trying my best to resist her for a reason I didn't really know or understand. I simple felt that I SHOULD resist her. But as the hours ticked by, and she stood, her feet slightly apart, her hands casually on her hips, smiling with her teeth and raising a suggestive eyebrow quickly at me every time my eyes flicked up and met hers beyond my control, my resistance was gradually ground away. I couldn't justify my refusal to be seduced by her. Every reason that I scraped from the barrel of my mind as to why I shouldn't to give in to her was pounced upon by a much louder, easier sounding option. "It's wrong to be this obsessed with anyone, let alone someone who treats you so badly..." was immediately smothered be "But it's so much easier just to accept it and give in to her". "You shouldn't be objectifying ANY woman..." was ambushed by "But the whole world does it. So why try and resist it?". "It's WRONG, and it's frowned upon by certain people..." was killed off immediately by "But are you really hurting anybody?". No matter how my mind try to resist and push it's way upwards, temptation was always able to stomp it back down to the floor.
She was patient. She waited through the rest of the day, and well into the night before I broke again. I will admit that I was resilient, but I was really just stalling. I knew I would never be able to get that final click that would see her defeated. Nor could I fully banish her from my head. And so I spent hours in the middle-ground, trying to convince myself that I was stronger than I knew myself to be, that this time would be different... but really just too ashamed to admit how weak I was. They say that pride is the mother of all sins. It was pride which caused Satan to rebel against God in the first place. This was my pride. I couldn't admit that I had a problem. And because of that, I failed to resist that problem every time it presented me with a temptation.
...She laughed to herself as she saw my fragile will break, an entire half-a-day after my resistance of her had begun, and I can remember the feeling of despair I felt that accompanied the tapping of her high heels as she strolled across the floor towards me late that night...
"...That's better..." she whispered to herself just before she pushed her hips into mine and kissed me...
It was mid-morning by the time I finally stopped thinking about that night. I lifted my head up to look at the silent and dark television. I could see my own blurry reflection in it. My outstretched arms were resting fully on the slack of the chains. I tried to lift them, but it had been months since the muscles in my shoulders had seen anything close to any form of movement and exercise, and my arms remained static, and my shoulders screamed in agonised protest. I thought about how if, at that very moment, my chains had been released and I'd fallen forwards, then the first thing to hit the grimy and freezing stone floor would have been my nose. Or my cheek if I'd have had the time to turn it as a sacrifice to save my nose from being splattered all over the rest of my face. My arms would be no use whatsoever. They wouldn't be able to MOVE, let alone stop or even mitigate my fall...
It occurred to me that my captor knew this, and that one day she'd come in and unlock the chairs, and then force me into some kind of task whereby I'd have to use my arms to achieve it, and she'd delight in watching me struggle and fail. Or she'd attack me, knowing that the only way I could defend myself would be with the sagging, flimsy limbs that grew from out of the ends of my shoulders and which didn't obey my commands. It was a terrifying thought, and one which was quickly added to the daily worries that exacerbated my incarceration...
"Then, I deserve a bit of indulgence..." I thought to myself, knowing full well that it was her speaking inside of my head. "I've had it rough, especially recently. I've been a prisoner for so long here, and I'm not superhuman. My patience and my fortitude can only go so far. I need something to lift my spirits... I should be cut some moral slack...."
Still unsure as to whether I would really go through with it or not, I looked up at the cold television, and waited to see what I would actually do. Gradually, over a few seconds that felt like a lot longer, I felt the words coming to me, and in my conviction that I was in the right I didn't resist them.
"Entertain me...!", I said, loudly and clearly directly at the screen.
And with that, the television switched on immediately, and I could feel my captor somehow watching me and smiling...
---
Having followed Tom and the others into the woods, I was suddenly alone. Despite my calls to them to wait for me, they'd gone on ahead, through the dark green mass of leaves and branches of the ancient wood at remarkable speed...
"Hey wait up...!", I'd shouted, out of breath at every opportunity. Whenever I'd see a flash of colour of the jacket of one of Tom's friends, it would suddenly disappear as he burst past a thickly coated green branch, and it snapped back to conceal his path, denying his passing had ever occurred...
"Wait for me...!", I'd yelled as I got to that same branch. Each time, I'd burst through it, expecting to see Tom and at least a couple of his friends waiting behind it. I wanted them to be there even if, I realised, they were just waiting there to ambush me in some devious trap...
But upon bursting through branch after branch, I was only ever confronted with that terrible site of more all too familiar forest, and another quick glimpse of colour that vanished almost immediately...
"WAIT! WAIT FOR ME!", I yelled, quite pathetically considering my age. I could hear hooting and laughing from the older men somewhere in front of me, and I spurred myself to go on to join in the fun but, more importantly, to be safe. I glanced back as I ran, but nobody was following me...
...The hooting faded as Tom and his friends moved on through the wood...
Eventually, I stopped running. I couldn't keep going. My legs were throbbing, and my lungs were aching from exhaustion and the cold late-afternoon air that was being forced in, and the warm condensation being forced out. My head was throbbing as I stood in thick foliage, my hands on my hips panting...
"Wait...", I ended up whispering to myself. I'd wanted to shout it loud, louder now that I was stood still, but my body was too busy gasping for air, and all that came out was that rhaspy squeak of a word...
...The last of the hooting from Tom's friend's vanished from earshot. I strained my ears, trying to breathe as quietly as possible with my mouth almost fully open. There was nothing but the wind softy blowing the treetops above me...
Silence, and the wind, and my breathing...
To my immediate horror I realised that, that easily and that quickly, I was lost...
---
Having followed Tom and the others into the woods, I was suddenly alone. Despite my calls to them to wait for me, they'd gone on ahead, through the dark green mass of leaves and branches of the ancient wood at remarkable speed...
"Hey wait up...!", I'd shouted, out of breath at every opportunity. Whenever I'd see a flash of colour of the jacket of one of Tom's friends, it would suddenly disappear as he burst past a thickly coated green branch, and it snapped back to conceal his path, denying his passing had ever occurred...
"Wait for me...!", I'd yelled as I got to that same branch. Each time, I'd burst through it, expecting to see Tom and at least a couple of his friends waiting behind it. I wanted them to be there even if, I realised, they were just waiting there to ambush me in some devious trap...
But upon bursting through branch after branch, I was only ever confronted with that terrible site of more all too familiar forest, and another quick glimpse of colour that vanished almost immediately...
"WAIT! WAIT FOR ME!", I yelled, quite pathetically considering my age. I could hear hooting and laughing from the older men somewhere in front of me, and I spurred myself to go on to join in the fun but, more importantly, to be safe. I glanced back as I ran, but nobody was following me...
...The hooting faded as Tom and his friends moved on through the wood...
Eventually, I stopped running. I couldn't keep going. My legs were throbbing, and my lungs were aching from exhaustion and the cold late-afternoon air that was being forced in, and the warm condensation being forced out. My head was throbbing as I stood in thick foliage, my hands on my hips panting...
"Wait...", I ended up whispering to myself. I'd wanted to shout it loud, louder now that I was stood still, but my body was too busy gasping for air, and all that came out was that rhaspy squeak of a word...
...The last of the hooting from Tom's friend's vanished from earshot. I strained my ears, trying to breathe as quietly as possible with my mouth almost fully open. There was nothing but the wind softy blowing the treetops above me...
Silence, and the wind, and my breathing...
To my immediate horror I realised that, that easily and that quickly, I was lost...
