Green Water

Abstract

51 MANUEL PAUL LÓPEZ Green Water  I. GREEN WATER Nestor once told me that the most unique heroes in life are the ones filled with fragrant water. Nestor said: And mijito, when they inevitably acquire their bullet holes, that greenish liquid that smells of hibiscus and revolution’s camouflage will exit their bodies and nourish the soil your punk ass walks on. What grows from your footsteps is the question. Mmmm, I droned. I couldn’t think of any other way to respond. Nestor didn’t expect me to either. He never expected me to. He was the talker, and I, the faithful listener, the documentarian, the archivist, the dutiful, leather-bound artifact that awaits discovery. Nestor stared at the floor and grinned, still speaking, if you could believe , without moving his lips. In time, for no reason I can explain, my hand raised toward the high desert sun, and it leaned softly into the palm of my hand. Like that, I thought of nothing but salt. And the wild taste of self-preservation. 52 II. THE LANDING Nestor landed in a volcanic crater in El Salvador when he fell headfirst from the sky. At once, birds mobilized and congregated in ceiba trees. They strategized and drew elaborate plans to rescue him with a raft made of discarded tires and burlap bags stolen from nearby coffee plantations. News of the event reached Langley, Virginia, where an irreverent votive was promptly lit and placed on a desktop before an intelligence agency of unrelenting believers cloaked by omniscient data points and bloodwrecked axe handles could surround a man issuing orders through a thick huff of cigar smoke. Instructed to categorize and subdue the conspiring birds, agents impersonated good-willed ornithologists after hastily fabricating advanced degrees and updating their vitaes, the stench of chlorophyll already emanating from their hair. In a single week, they planned for the elimination of all birds and the re-education of trees. 53 III. NESTOR’S DREAM Like a haze of lucíernagas falling, thousands dropping into a green ocean’s tight-lipped horizon Flickering, Nestor said, is how we ultimately go down Flickering And again flickering when we return again 54 IV. THE SKETCH Nestor sketched a clandestine aviary on his clipboard: remarkable architecture , thriving vegetation, and colorful dwellings for an immense chamber of winged inhabitants. Sighing, Nestor then planned for a spontaneous sublimation in the event of a probable siege. 55 V. THEY FOUND SOMETHING They found a crooked spoke that belonged to Nestor’s beloved bicycle in a landfill two miles out of town when a swarm of ants loosened the abduction’s mystery like a persistent wrecking ball. They found his umbrella at a rural southern bus station after a thousand bullets fell from the sky and quenched a death squad’s interminable lust for iron. They found his comb that smelled like ginger and grew antennas during lettuce season on a space station platform near the moon. They found his retainer on a cliff near a waterfall: remnants of quartz, and the ignorant DNA of a rabid breed of wealthy safari hunters. They discovered his wings in a storage unit on Hollywood Blvd. Eaglelike , patinaed appendages that shook themselves awake when LAPD swat kicked open the door and quickly surrounded them: “We’re Goya’s oeuvre, and we will not be apprehended today,” resisted the wings, before escaping through the gap in the fat captain’s teeth. ...