INTENTIONS

I had promised myself I wouldn't look back. I wouldn't change my mind. I wouldn't allow a single thing to alter my course. However, man has never been successful in contending with nature. Even something as innocuous as the soft, hot breeze that teased the wet tendrils of hair on my neck can sometimes overcome the strongest of minds.

As if nature had planned for this to happen, had waited for this moment to interfere, my head slowly rotated in response to the slight tickle on my skin.

That's all it took....like the "man" in one of Jack London's stories, I had let my guard down just long enough to allow the antagonist its entry. The hand holding the wheel must have moved. The wind must have known there was a hole - right there - in that moment - in that place. There was a tiny blip in the surface of the road, shimmering in the heat of this wretched country.

I remember thinking, as I felt the car leave the road, suspended for a moment above the shimmering heat and the vengeful blip, 'this is it...the price I always pay for hesitation, for giving in...'

I could hear them talking, a muffled sound, almost comforting in its strangeness. I only understood a few words of Spanish, but enough to make out that they were baffled, excited, and even, at times, disgusted.

I sat up slowly, gripping the edge of the metallic bench where I had been lying.

I tried to acclimate, but something was too far away...hovering above my subconscious like a guardian angel, ever ethereal and fluttering.

A man came towards the bars. He was taller than the others that I had begun to make out with my faltering eyes. His face was dark, weathered, and covered in tiny droplets of perspiration.

"Hola, Hello," he offered. His eyes looked kind, and he spoke in a quiet, gentle manner, drawing out those two simple words in a way that said, 'I don't know you, but I don't dislike you. Prove to me that I shouldn't hate you.'

I had no response.

He thrust a photograph towards the bars, uncomfortably close to the face I had slowly pressed towards him - towards my captors.

"Do you know this man, senora?" he asked urgently.

I shook my head, all the while knowing that somehow, it was a lie. I knew this man. I knew him indeed. He was the reason I was here, although the diabolical spectre hanging above my head refused to tell me why.

"This man, senora, this man," he drawled out slowly, emphasizing 'man' each time, "this man is dead. Found on the side of the road, some half a mile from where you crashed your car."

I shrank back to the bench, my knees shaking and my whole body breaking out into a sweat. As the droplets began to trickle slowly down my neck, I remembered that the breeze had touched it. I remembered that the breeze had teased the hairs on my neck, causing me to look back....'and that is why I am here,' I thought. 'I had intentions.That is why I am here.'