hen I was a little boy, I had a red wooden truck. One day the truck began to move by itself. It went around the yard and then it came back to me. I went to sleep. When I woke it was just a red wooden truck.

When I was fourteen I was flying a yellow kite. I saw an angel alongside my kite. She was very beautiful. I found I could make the angel move by pulling the string of my kite, but then I fell asleep and when I woke my yellow kite was broken and trampled with mud.

When I was fifteen I loved another boy. He was beautiful, almost as beautiful as the angel on my string. My boy kissed me when it was dark but then I was awake and my father sent me to a far island to be a fisherman.

I was sixteen and I was a fisherman who dived for pearls. I was frightened because the sea has many devils. When another boy came who was very beautiful I was happy for a time. Then the boat owner sent me away to work in a mill.

I was at the mill. A large angry man with a very black face, a belt with brass on it, hit me with a hammer because I smiled at him. He pushed me over some wood and took down my pants. I had to leave the mill and go North.

I picked corn. I picked apples. Sometimes women smiled at me and the men were angry. I bought a blanket. For a little while I had a dog. It died because someone kicked it and it did not want to eat. When the apples were finished I walked towards the brown hills.

There was no work in the hills. It was cold, even with my blanket. I met a man, not a beautiful one, but he was kind and he let me stay in his house. He had one bed and he made me warm but then something happened and the man said I should go quickly. He gave me bread and cheese and a dollar. He told me the dollar would get me to the northern coast on a train. At the coast there would be jobs he said. I could fish for I was strong.

But the sea frightened me. When I got to the coast I did not ask for a job on a boat. I washed dishes where men played cards and drank wine. One day a man killed another man and then ran away. The police came and beat me. I said I did not kill the man. They beat me again.

When I was better I left the coast. I walked and a woman in a truck gave me a ride. I sat with her sheep. They smelled but they kept me warm and the truck went all the way to where the forest began. When I stepped down from the truck the woman – her eyes were brown and slow – she looked at me for a time, then she held her finger to her lips, and then touched mine. She left her finger on my face for a second, then she shook her head, got in the truck and drove away. I did not understand but snow was coming so I went into the trees and built a shelter.

I ate a rabbit and a rat. I ate a bird. I ate some bread and one day the truck came and the woman came. She gave me bread and cheese and some wine. She gave me a cigarette and showed me how to light it. I did not like the cigarette. I took it from my mouth and held it. The woman smiled. She went away and I forgot the cigarette until it burned me.

One day men came. One man came and frightened me. I ran away from my shelter but the other men were there and they pushed me to the ground and sat on me. They took me to the hospital in San Bartolomé.

After a while a man came to talk to me. He said my name. He said, “How old are you, Miguel?” I told the man I was seventeen. He said, no, I was twenty. He said if I was a good boy I could meet the other people in the hospital. I said I would like that. I ate a pill and then another pill and then they took me to see the other people. They were people who walked very slowly, too slow to get to the trees before the snows.

There I met Maria.

Maria had long dark hair. She was very beautiful. I fell in love with her. She told me she liked me. She said inside her was changed about when she came to the hospital. She said she would like us to be married one day.

The weather was good. In the days we walked from the hospital to the white wall and then back again. Sometimes we held hands. Sometimes by the wall, Maria said to me, “Miguel, the wall is not high. We could climb over it and run away.” I said that though the wall was not high, I did not want to run away. I did not know why I did not want to run away. I wanted to be in an another place with Maria. Every day she kissed me and said we should get married. She said if we were married and we ran away a doctor might put her back together and we would have a son.

I was twenty-one or I was eighteen and I asked nurse if I could marry Maria. The nurse said he would find out.

The next day the nurse said, “Maybe, but you cannot share a room. It is not permitted.” I said on the day we are married can we share a room and nurse said, “You cannot share a room. It is not permitted.”

I spoke to Maria by the tree next to the wall. She said, “We can marry, and when you are ready we will run away and we will find a doctor who can make me a woman and then we will have a baby boy.”

We were married on a hot sunny day. There was traffic stopped outside the walls and I could smell diesel and it made me think of the truck that took me to the forest.

I kissed Maria and some people clapped. We were not allowed to go to the church but father came to us like he did on Sundays and Holy Days.

That night I slept in the male ward. When I thought of Maria and got big sometimes I saw Maria, but sometimes it was the truck lady with the brown eyes and a little bit I saw my angels. I lay down on my face and pressed against the mattress.

*

When Maria and I were married. I had one white pill and one yellow pill in the morning, and in the afternoon I had a pink pill and in the evening white.

Sometimes I was upset because I could not sleep with Maria or find a place to hide. So they gave me two white pills in the morning, the yellow pill and an orange pill. Our pills came in little round cardboard boxes and they were all together with our names on. I could read my name but I knew my box anyway so it didn’t matter. We all knew our box.

Sometimes Maria would ask me if I was ready to run away, but I did not want to run away. I was not happy and I wanted to sleep together with Maria but I did not want to go over the little white wall where the road was.

Then a man called Pereq came to live with us. He was a tall man with white, white long hair and sharp blue eyes like lights. He was from Brazil and he was a general.

He said look, and he told me his uniform. At first I did not see it. He said, “Miguel, see? I have a bright green tunic, and here gold braid, and here are my medals. On my sleeve here I have the numbers twenty-nine and thirty-one. I have a silver dagger in a fine leather scabbard and I wear a pistol which I keep well oiled.”

I said, “And do you have a green hat, with gold leaves on the front. It is soft and droops a little at the sides?”

“Yes, yes!” Pereq said. “Now you know I am a general. Here take this red sash and wear it always.”

That evening I told Maria about my sash and she was unhappy.

The next day, Maria walked with me past the tree and to the white wall. She said, “I am unhappy Miguel. I think you will never run away from hospital.”

I said, “I am still gathering my strength. I will leave soon.”

“You will die here,” Maria said, and she did not kiss me.

That night, Pereq was very handsome in his uniform, and he showed me his well-oiled gun. When I held the gun up to the light and said it was a beauty, Pereq laughed and gave me another sash to wear.

But in the morning, nurse came to me. I took my white pills, the yellow pill and the orange pill but they gave me one more pill which was blue. I said, “Nurse I have two white pills, a yellow pill and one that is orange. I have no need for another pill.” But nurse made me eat my pill and my legs felt heavy like trees. Then nurse said about Maria, how she was dead and the bed was full of blood and that a mirror had been stolen and was in her bed.

I was very sad. I wanted to be angry and though a little anger was in my belly my belly was heavy and sticky and my anger could not jump out. I went to sleep but I could not find Maria.

The next day and the next day and the next day I had my pills plus the blue pill. Then nurse said, “Today no blue pill, Miguel. You have been a good boy.”

Pereq was kind and a good leader. So I asked him, “Pereq can I have a big fur coat, like a general? I have to travel a long way.”

Pereq said, “Can you see my new medal? It is an Order of the State First Class and is encrusted with diamonds.”

Of course I can see it.” I said, and Pereq gave me his finest coat.

The next day I climbed over the wall and I ran away. I ran a long way and once a man pointed. Another time children chased after me. But no-one came after me and I took some work-clothes from a hut and I ate some vegetables.

One day I was walking along a road. It was straight like an arrow and was black with a line down the centre. A big truck came but did not stop. It made a roar and went by me and I hurt my hand.

But I kept walking. I walked towards snowy mountains and a place where trees covered everything. Though there was snow on the mountain, I did not think it would snow on me, so I walked as a steady man walks when it is many weeks since he has taken his white pills, the yellow pill, the orange pill. More big trucks passed and I became very hungry but I cooked an animal that had died on the arrow road and there was water in the gutters which was fine but smelled of oil.

I walked this way until I reached the mountain forest.
But I was a wiser man and I did not stop in the forest. I killed a bear with my ax and I cut out its heart and I sucked on it as I walked. I walked for exactly one hundred days, first until I could not hear the road, then until I could not see it. When I could no longer see the road or hear the road or remember it, I stopped and I built a house.

My house was wood. The trees were long and straight. At first I took some time to cut them but I became quicker. I built my house, and I moved in. I made a table and two chairs and I slept in a corner under my blanket. I grew a beard so I would look old. At night I sat outside my house and looked at the stars. I tried to remember Maria but it made me sad I had no sashes, no coat, no dog or a dish.

When I was thirty I went to a town. I told a man I had cut down a forest. He was amazed. “Give me a horse and a cart,” I said, “and I will give you half my forest and you will be rich.”

“Three-quarters,” the man said, and I will give you the horse, a cart, a leather coat, a plate and some gasoline.” He stopped. He held out his hand, “And a woman for tonight.”

The woman was fat and her face was pink. Her lips were red. We went into a room and sat on a soft bed. She took off my boots. She pushed me down and I remembered a big man, a hammer. She undid my pants and was astride me where I had become big. “I was married,” I said afterwards, and she smiled.
“I will have a child,” she said. “In nearly a year.”

I have a radio now. I have a machine for cutting the trees. There is a road close by and the man sends a truck to me. He sends me boxes of wine and candles. He sends me gasoline. I have a refrigerator and a bed, two sets of plate, cup and saucer and I have pictures on my wall.

My house is under the greyest mountain. The mountain is steep and cold, but when the sun goes, before I hear the night come, the sky is red like my wine and I sit. I am not happy because I married Maria and we never shared a bed together. She broke a mirror and made the bed red with her blood because I would not run away.

I ran away, but Maria couldn’t come. So we did not have a boy. I had to go to the town woman with a fat belly, big thighs and a red, red mouth. She did not kiss me. Maria kissed me and I loved her. The fat woman showed me a son but said she would not marry me.

Once in the forest I found a deer stuck in a tree. The tree was young. I could not move the deer, so I killed it. I left the head because it was stuck. The tree is grown now and has eaten the head. The branches have swallowed it. But I know where to look and I can see the teeth. Sometimes I drink by there and know a tree can bite.

I have a child, a boy and because I am old, I have an insurance policy. I will be very old and I will die soon, somewhere out in the forest. I will sit down, the snow will fall down on me and I will become the earth. And when the money is gone, I will be forgotten.

© Alex Keegan