horrifying visions being replayed over and over and over again. Day after day, night after night. Every time he closed his eyes the fire raged anew.
He shaded his eyes and looked up. The sun burned brightly through the narrow gap in the roof of his tiny hut. He knew that the light would soon move on, and he would be left in the grey-green shadows that had colored his existence for what seemed an eternity.
But for now, the sunshine was blinding—and he welcomed it. He struggled to pull himself to a sitting position. He knew from experience that the ropes of vine that bound his feet were loosely tied, affording him reasonable movement, but he also knew—again from experience—that the ropes that lashed the door of the cagelike hut were expertly knotted and closely guarded.
He sucked in a breath of the heavy jungle air, scarcely aware of the searing pain in his lungs, pain that had been with him now for as long as he could remember—since the fire, since his nightmare had begun.
Too quickly, the sun crawled lower, leaving him in the shadows once again. He felt his spirits sink with it, and he forced himself to think of hopeful things. Sing the songs, recite the lists, say the prayers. He’d played the games for so long that they came almost automatically.
“A is for air.” He would never again take even one breath for granted.
“B is for bananas. C is for coffee.” The two staples had sustained him day after day.
“D is for Daria.” Oh, Daria. Are you safe? You must be sick with worry. Why haven’t you been able to get help? Has something happened to you, too? Surely the men from this village hadn’t followed Tados and Quimico to Timoné. No! Stop it. Stop it! he silently chided himself.
“Go on now,” he said aloud.
“E is for elms.” Thoughts of his childhood tree house in an ancient elm cooled him on sticky tropical afternoons.
“F is for family.” Oh, Daria… No! “Go on… G is for God: ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” He continued, picking up I through Q. Then, “R is for rice.” Another life-sustaining gift. He went the rest of the way through the alphabet, forcing himself to visualize each blessing as he counted it, not just to recite it by rote.
The Scriptures were next: “ ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…’”
Then the bones in the body: “Mandible, scapula, ulna, radius, tibia, fibula…”
And, finally, the books of the Bible: “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers…”
The afternoon rains had come and gone when he finished these litanies of sanity. Though he wasn’t sure why, it helped give some purpose to his days to have those tasks before him.
The days and nights melded into one another, and he could not guess if he had been here for weeks or months or years. He remembered picking up little Miguel from the fire, discovering that he was already dead. He remembered going back into the flames, then the wall of the hut falling outward. He remembered moving toward the opening as though in slow motion. Everything was a blank after that. Until he woke up here in this hut, in agonizing pain, burns searing his legs and arms, his lungs on fire. He wondered now if perhaps he had also contracted the illness he’d come to cure, for he had been delirious, drifting in and out of consciousness for days—or perhaps it was weeks. If that were true, it was a blessing, for when he’d begun to regain consciousness for short periods of time, the pain from the burns was excruciating. He was ashamed to remember that he had prayed to die—he had screamed in agony for death to come. In his anguish, he’d cared nothing for Daria’s grief, for the safety of Tados and Quimico, for the Timoné people he’d been called to serve. He’d wanted only to be released from the unbearable, torturous pain.
Though he had no memories of being cared for during the time immediately after the fire, at some point food had begun to appear at the door of his hut and eventually a drink that he suspected contained something that eased the pain and caused him to sleep deeply. As time went on, his delirium ceased and his wounds began to scar over. His were second-degree burns, and he knew if he could stave off infection, they would heal completely. Then he would find a way to get home.
But where were Tados