woostify domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/latestwordpress/lonestar.a1professionals.net_public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6131New short stories collection by Robert Paul Moreira<\/p>\n
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At Kamayakli the tunnel resembles a parched throat to Julio. It gapes long and deep before the front of the group in the lantern light. He palms the cool, carved limestone pressing round him to escape the thought of being swallowed. But it\u2019s no use; there it is: Temo, all those years ago, and the pulp he resembled when they finally pulled him out of the canal. Ever since then Julio\u2019s father had made it the Cort\u00e1zar custom each time his son wandered off to say I don\u2019t want to have to dig you out, too, and as a boy he\u2019d done his best to obey. The walkway narrows. The sides scrape the tips of his elbows and steal him from his memories. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A sharp elbow digs into his chest. Keep up, Julio. We\u2019re almost there. Lara\u2019s words bounce off the stone and back to where he staggers. He smiles in the dark knowing he trusts her. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The light widens; the air changes. Julio notices a pair of pudgy tourists coming into the light: a camera-strapped Frodo and Sam, he imagines playfully, joining him in this descent into Moria. They mumble hurriedly at each other in a language he doesn\u2019t understand. He laughs to himself while Lara muffles her own amusement in front of him. The rest of the group settles into their spines and shadows in the dancing pool of kerosene light. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2026Doctor Lara Cort\u00e1zar, the tour guide calls out. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And Julio watches his wife slice through the crowd and out under a wide and heavy archway. She begins in that raspy tone he loves and admires and everyone listens intently, even Frodo and Sam beside him. He half-smiles again as his wife goes on about the one central, cavernous well, and then the wide silos ten stories down, then the ancient stable they are standing in which she helped excavate, and, finally, how the entire complex served as an ancient stronghold against Arab invaders. Julio imagines that this is what Lara is saying, anyways, for her Turkish is as foreign to him as hard sunlight where he stands. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Shh, she demands, and like everyone else, Julio captures the music of trickling water, somewhere. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n She resumes. Her words, her presence, they are ominous in that creviced light. Shadows slowly shift. The congregation bobs collective heads at everything Lara says. As if they\u2019d all gladly calcify hundreds of feet below the surface of the earth, Julio included, just for the chance to hear more. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *** <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This; here. See, Julio? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Where, Lara? There? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t hurt, though. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s big; right there. Right? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ah! But don\u2019t! Don\u2019t squeeze it. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Okay; I won\u2019t. I promise; I won\u2019t. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *** <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since Tenochtitlan, Julio\u2019s father instructs him from the edge, but as a boy he decides to shrug his shoulders. He doesn\u2019t care. Not this early in the morning. Not in this stench. Not on this day of all days! He pinches his nose with one set of fingers and with the other picks the crusty stuff from the sides of his eyes. The sun pokes through a thin slit between a pair of skyscrapers and blurs across the dark sewer water still sleeping in the long row of numbered pools. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paunchy in his thick diving suit, Julio compares his father to an astronaut.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Nezahualc\u00f3yotl, Julio, the great poet and emperor of Tezcoco, he helped construct them, and the Mexica used these sewers before Cort\u00e9s arrived to pump the filth out, just like we do today. It\u2019s when things get stuck down there that I have to go in and clear it all out. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Julio\u2019s young stomach grumbles, and he remembers the chorizo sandwich his father had prepared for him back home, and the vow he\u2019d secretly made not to take one bite from it, just to show his father who was boss. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Eh, mi topo? What do you think? Or are you still mad at me for getting you up so early? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Julio hates his nickname, but he endures it, like his hunger. Don Tacho arrives, his father\u2019s friend and co-worker, carrying a heavy helmet before of him, fastened to a pair of flaccid cables. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And now, time to go to work, mi topo. Happy birthday. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The loud thrum from the oxygen compressor startles Julio. Before he can finally give in and confess his hunger to his father Don Tacho locks the helmet into place, and the boy watches his father tow the cables with him to the edge of the second pool, leap in feet first, and sink straight down. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Julio\u2019s stomach churns. On the concrete the cables palpitate like exposed veins. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *** <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am sad, I grieve <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I, lord Nezahualc\u00f3yotl. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n With flowers and with songs <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I remember the princes <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Those who went away\u2026 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n *** <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Temo stuffs the squib in the hole, lights it, nearly trips on the train track backing away. It sizzles there like a frying plantain until POP!, forcing Julio to wince. He opens his young eyes to tiny bits of cindered newspaper fluttering down on dust as Temo lets out another celebratory guffaw, returns to the same spot, punches his fist into his right pocket for a second palomita, and uses his incisors to pull out the fuse a bit more. He bends down to give it flame, backs up next to Julio again. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n POP!! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a1Eso!, Temo celebrates. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the summer heat the smell of gun powder nauseates Julio more than usual. He spots a cacique darting fast across the sky and into the arbor of a wide guamuchil nearby. Further on, deep in the east, he can see Popocat\u00e9petl and Iztacc\u00edhuatl in tall sleep, their peaks tipped with spongy snow. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n V\u00e1monos, he finally says, fighting back the taste of sweat from his upper lip. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just one more, Julio. To get them out. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n We can do them by the canal, Temo. I told you: if my father sees me, I won\u2019t be able to go. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Uno mas, Julio. Just to get them out. Then we go. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Temo pulls a new squib out, a fat one, makes for the hole again. Frustrated, Julio leans in and curves a sandaled foot onto one of the old abandoned train tracks. He looks behind him down the lazy street busy with a lone fruit vendor, seated on a stool by his cart and swatting flies. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n POP!!! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hah! What I tell you, cabr\u00f3n? Eh, Julio? Look at them! Look! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The dust and newspaper particles begin to settle, and Julio can finally see the exiting horde. They crawl out of their hole in all directions and up and over one another, the fire ants, the same way he and Temo and the other boys spill out of the classroom each day, fondling any girls they can along the way. He jumps on the train track so the ants don\u2019t get at his toes. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And they\u2019re mad as fuck, Julio. Ahora si–\u00a1V\u00e1monos! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n