Soldier of Time

II: Closeness and Await

He hadn’t remembered that for a long time. It was a long time since these memories haunted him. Now he was used to it if anyone could get used to that.

All of his mornings began the same, although not all were preceded by such a sour memory. He would place his cold feet on the ground, he felt the floor gave stability to his body, he washed his face as any man would do, seeing his face in a reflection that told him stories, and then he went out for a run to clear his mind.

Eight kilometers was enough for him to meditate and go home to take a bath. He ate breakfast, and at that moment, he connected with the outside world.

He saw his cell phone had two messages on it. One was from the unfinished conversation the day before, and the other was from Simon.

“Slevin, I found a good job. You will not like it, but it is convenient for us to accept it. See you at El Morro at ten o’clock at Sue’s cafe. Do not miss it.”

He read the message two more times before putting the phone on the nightstand once more. Job. It had been two months since he had worked, maybe it was time to do it again, but with that “you won’t like it,” he knew what the result would be.

After that, he dressed, boots and jeans, all with a white shirt, he buttoned each button slowly, and when he was ready, he made his way to a closet on his wall, when he opened the small door, several weapons appeared in front of him.

His eyes darted over a variety of knife daggers and pocket knives that adorned the closet, only to take the holster and slung it over his shoulder. The handle of his .45 shone on his shirt.

One more look at two daggers with a deer symbol on the wizard, and he closed the closet thinking, and those weapons are from another time. He grabbed a black hooded sweater and putting it on, and he went out into the street.

Las Minas was part of an old coastal city, and it was the center of many businesses before the civil war destroyed its access roads. Now everyone entered and left that place through the train that made its way across the mountain.

There was no other way, and this had blocked the city. The war had weakened that place so much that now it was divided in two. El Morro, which was the entrance to what was once a prosperous city, where the train left and collected its passengers daily to take them to the central city and other places. And Las Minas.

Las Minas was the place you went if you wanted to get in trouble, a place with its own law. Las Minas was the place Slevin called home.

As he left his house, he felt the morning air hitting his face, and he walked along the edge of a coastal path looking directly at the ocean, one of those privileges that only an inhabitant of Las Minas could enjoy.

The city was clearly divided between the houses that made up Las Minas and the rest of the town a little further up the hill, which was El Morro.

He walked among the people, and several of them greeted him with affability.

“Slevin, how are you?” An elderly and friendly lady in a butcher shop asked. Her brown skin and light eyes made her give the impression of a worried mother, and she grinned as she sliced a chicken into pieces.

“Beatriz, always working,” he replied with a smile.

“You have to make a living, son. Do you want the usual?”

He nodded, “That’s how it is. And some cheese this time. I want to see if I can get her to eat something else.”

“I hope so, be careful anyway. Remember not to get too close.”

“I will remember,” he responded with a smile.

Beatriz kindly dismissed him before returning to her laborious task. He walked casually until entering a bakery.

“Boy, how’s everything?”

“Same old...” He said as he watched the man prepare a bag with pieces of bread and orange juice.

“Are you working again?” The man curiously asked.

“No, I had taken a break, but I think Simon got something.”

“Be careful, boy look that you live for two. I don’t want to go back to that old deal. I felt really bad that way.”

“Don’t worry, I know.”

“Say hello from me, son.”

And smiling, Slevin returned to his way. He walked for twenty more minutes leaving all the hustle and bustle of downtown Morro behind. He walked calmly as the morning air caressed his face.

In a few minutes, the landscape changed completely, and all the houses lost their lives, and the little comfort that EL Morro showed disappeared. Now he had only abandoned memories of an old war.

Advancing without stopping, he came to a long building in an area of the city that remained in ruins. He entered without the slightest qualm and slowly began to climb the stairs.

The building was abandoned. Its dirty walls and full of dust showed the lack of care. Going up, he saw how each floor slowly fell into the misery that disuse provides. Only the top floor seemed to have some life.

The boy entered, crossed a small corridor, and came to a light source with a fountain full of plants and water. No chairs, just an edge where someone could lean if they wanted. In front of it was a table and a little farther away from a door that led to a dark room.

Slevin left all the things he had bought on the table and placed himself in front of the plants, observing them naturally, while he checked them and saw how each one of them seemed strong and radiant.

“Amber, are you awake?” He asked with a smile.

The silence did not last long and was interrupted by a beautiful woman’s voice, “Yes. I got up a while ago, and I had a strange nightmare.”

“Ha!” Slevin was surprised before he shook his head, despite still staring at the plants, “even that we share lately.”

“Did you have a bad dream too?” Amber asked weirdly from the darkness of the room where she was, “What did you dream about?”

Slevin turned his face away from the plants and slowly walked to the table, took the orange juice, opened it, and poured two glasses just before he said softly, “I dreamed that Hanibal shot me. Although it was more of a memory than a dream.”

“Wow! That really sticks to you, didn’t it?”

Slevin frowned, “You think! It’s not easy to get shot, you know...”

She chuckled, “Well, you survived, so it shouldn’t be that difficult either.

With that, they both laughed heartily when the young woman asked, “Do you want me to go out, or will you stay to eat?”

Slevin drank the entire contents of the glass at once and said while he wiped his mouth, “Come out a little. I want to see you. I will not be able to stay to eat. I must see Simón, and I will go back to work.”

There was a long silence before Amber asked carefully, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why going back to work?”

He hummed before chuckling, “Cause I need to eat Amber.”

“But… You don’t need to work. You know we make enough money with the drug companies and the hospitals,” she retorted as if what he said was ridiculous.

“That money is yours, Amber.”

“I can’t do it alone, we are partners, and you know it. This is not about the money, and it is because the Deer cannot stay in the forest. No, the Deer has to go out looking for trouble!” She insisted, her voice louder by every word.

He shook his head, “Amber...”

“It would be too much to ask you to stop looking for shots, you know how difficult it is to be here alone and—” Suddenly Amber fell silent, Slevin stared at the floor with longing eyes as he waited for her to speak again, carefully this time, “Sorry Slev, I got upset.”

He released a heavy sigh before he said, “Look, don’t worry, you are allowed to worry. I’m not one of the easiest people to deal with, and I’m sorry, but we already talked about it from time to time. I must do this.”

“You don’t have to, Slevin. You want to, at least call it what it is.”

“You are right. Can you come out now?”

Slevin said as he looked at the door. Out of it came a tall young woman with short black hair and bright yellow eyes.

The girl was looking directly at Slevin, and in her hand, she carried an alarm clock that read seven minutes forty-three. When she arrived at the table, she set the time, and it began to be discounted while she said, “You know you can stop doing this whenever you want, right?”

Slevin smiled, looked into the beautiful young woman’s eyes, and said, “If I wanted to stop coming, Amber, I wouldn’t come. We have also come a long way. The plants are alive.”

“Yes, but seven minutes and four meters seem like a parameter set by the devil.”

Slevin smiled as he ran his hand through his long hair. His black eyes fell on the young woman’s and said as the clock ticked five minutes remaining.

“The devil did not allow anything, and we made them 7 minutes, soon they will be many more.”

“The way I see it, Slevin, either you die in a job, or you die because of me, you are too positive that doesn’t go with me,” she said with a frown. 

Slevin laughed loudly as the clock ticked only three minutes remaining. The young woman did not take her gaze from him, and her eyes fixed, wishing that time would stop.

“Listen,” Slevin said, drawing the attention of the young woman, knocking on the table with his knuckles, “I will not die, I will not take the job if it is too dangerous, and we will continue where we are, ok? Stop worrying.”

The girl smiled and took the glass of juice from the table while she left two tubes of blood on it. The clock struck a minute, and she began to walk back to the room, stood at the door, turned, and said, “Don’t save an addict with another addiction...”

“Are you addicted now?” He asked with a raised brow, with a half-smile on his face. The clock had reached zero.

“You made me addicted to these stupid visits and those stupid messages. It will not be easy to be alone again,” she muttered weakly.

The Deer moved a little towards the table, and the girl held her breath while she looked at the clock that now accumulated time.

“Amber, I will never leave you alone again...”  At that moment, the air left his lungs, he looked at the clock while his hands moved desperately in his throat. He had accumulated thirty-two seconds, Slevin put his knee on the ground while holding his throat and the young woman disappeared into the room.

A few seconds later, Slevin breathed again.

He put his hands on the table and got up still with difficulty breathing, the room was spinning around him, but little by little, the effects were wearing off. The young man looked into the darkroom and said, “I’ll come tomorrow, Amber!”

“You should be absent. Take a day off,” she said dryly.

“No! We are moving forward.”

“Everyone says you are brilliant, but the truth is you are simply delusional.”

Slevin was silent as he stared at Amber’s room, dark and far away. It seemed far more distant than he could accept. He took the two tubes of blood from the table and put them in his pocket, then he turned and touched the plants again to say before leaving.

“I’ll come tomorrow,” he said softly, and after those words, he left.

The girl came out and took some bread. Among the provisions, there was some cheese. She took it, smiled, and threw it in the trash before she said, “This is more toxic than me, Slevin.”