Once Upon a Guadalupe Night [Flash Fiction]

Down upright streets where a hundred rapping footsteps wed the roaring scratch of tires; down, down that smoking tilted road where peddlers sizzled neon-bright eggs and deep-fried delights; down that vertical, impossible slope of a slope where hazel-haired hawkers howled and thieves trekked steel-eyed; down further still along barking barbershops, and creaking carenderias, and meddling motels dancing under one beating, scheming bandit of a night; one humming, begging meditation of a night — down that sign which bore the Catholic name Guadalupe, stood three lonely shadows.

The youngest of them was a ponytailed schoolgirl. Her acned cheeks flared with a shaking pout as she fiddled with one bag and another, her flimsy hands rushing over the prick of notebooks and pens, scanning for coins to make up the 7-peso pamasahe, ignorant to the truth that she was, despite her growing anxiety, in the happiest time of her life.

And how she jumped when she felt the brown curves of 5! And then, the traces of two 1s! In an instant, her worrisome face blushed lighter, shining light upon the drowsy stars of that peculiar, pretty night, before disappearing in the buzzing blur of a hustling jeep.

In a tower not so far away, a woman threw her birth certificate across a counter, pointing down to the very hour of her birth: 10 PM on a Tuesday, eighteen years ago. Eighteen years! she demanded, she cried, she scowled; she was an adult now, her red-tinted arms tucked around a man with handsome eyes.

After minutes that were hours and years, she was allowed right in the building's petty, dingy halls; rooms that were bare and small but alive and whispering; and there, the divine man showed her heaven; yes, heaven was indeed a place on earth, tucked in a bed that was stale but saccharine.

She begged the night to stay forever, but forgot to pray for love to last the same.

The third shadow was of a woman with a wrinkle-withered face and thin skin flat on bones. How beautiful she was, despite the curse of time, with pearls that rivalled the glow of the moon, and golden clothes that flowed like waves upon the wind! The fresh air of foreign lands clutched her strands of hair, while her eyes misted in nostalgia at the drooping Guadalupe streets.

She came across a terminal from childhood; it was blackened and grimed, with human queues that curved around jeeps like snakes. Heels upon loafers upon her old-lady slippers, laughter upon sighs upon yells of complaints: yes, she thought, this, the Guadalupe! The Guadalupe I know!

Seated now, tight between the familiar push of stranger skin upon stranger skin, she was vexed to find that the measly 7-peso pamasahe now cost five times more!

Despite it, her mouth curled upwards in secret, knowing that she was no longer a child, that she had not been for sixty-odd years, and that she could pay the price, and pay it ten times even more.

As the engine rumbled beneath her feet, she cast a look at the wilting skeleton of a building passing by: for once, it stood proud with neon lights, now it was mere greenery and metal bars. She closed her eyes and thought of how, one vivid night, she demanded, cried, and scowled to enter it. She was eighteen then! Eighteen! But how she missed that maiden innocence, that final night of childhood.

The building disappearing now, her mind wondered about a lover who was not a lover at all.

Those three lonely shadows went about the night, the schoolgirl rushing home, the woman with a mysterious man, and finally, the old lady reliving the good old days. None of them knew of the others, though they thought they did, the gray-haired woman most especially. 

Each of them hid fantasies, fears, and hopes; dreams that trickled with the urban fog outwards and down that vertical, impossible slope of a slope, flying and weeping in one scheming bandit of a night; one humming, begging meditation of a night — under a sign which bore the Catholic name, Guadalupe.