Kissed by Sunset

A sunset-colored shark made its way through the languid Maryland landscape. The southern sun stared at us with a reproachful intensity, as we heard the whisper of a sudden breeze, which caressed the trees with a lethargic tenderness. Like a child who had too much to eat, the world was ready for a siesta. I lowered the window, closed my eyes, and threw my heart into the grip of a sweet but painful reminiscence.

Nostalgia is the most basic form of grief, the mourning of our former selves. The feeling blooms from a disagreement between the present and the past. Yet, I only had the present. My past was elsewhere; resting under a guava tree, fending off mosquitoes and looking past rice fields into the infinite blue sky. I used to wonder what was out there, beyond the sea and the boulders of my imagination. Well, the grass isn’t much greener on this side of the fence — not this late into the summer anyways.

Kyle Yoder arrived around two. I recognized his car before it pulled into the driveway. Kyle’s Pontiac Grand Prix looked like a strange tropical shark devoid of fins. Its color was a vivid red on the verge of orange, a sunset covered carriage.

“Hey bud, how’s it going?”

Kyle was slender and handsome, with an

impish Irish face, piercings and a mischievous goatee. Despite his northern blood he possessed the easy going airs of the Mediterranean, with his summer tan he could have passed for a brunette Californian. He wore a suit that was all sharp edges. Now that was a change, the Kyle I knew was all about sandals, swimming trunks, and lacrosse t-shirts.

“You might want to wear something nicer,” he said, as we made our way into the house.

“I guess you’re right,” I replied, a little embarrassed. “I don’t know much about these things.”

I ran downstairs and started looking for more formal attire. Every man should own a black suit and my suit was as dark as the unforgiving cosmos.

“You ready dude?” Kyle asked me as I stepped into the living room.

“Yeah bro, let’s go.”

We made a quick stop at Kyle’s house to get the address for the funeral home. Kyle lives in Hereford County, Maryland, a land of dense woods, steep back roads, reservoirs, creeks, camo hats, bonfires, Captain Morgan, and Jason Aldean blasting through the stereo of a worn down Ford truck.

The Yoder’s home sits on top of a small hill, covered by crisscrossing cornfields, from afar it looked like a knitted blanket made out of emerald thread. While Kyle looked for the address, I took a quick stroll through his backyard. A shiny object at

the foot of the hill caught my attention. The object looked like a strange scintillating creature roaming through the cornfields. The heat must have been playing with my eyes.

“What’s that over there?” I pointed to the bottom of the hill.

“Oh, that’s a silver dinosaur,” Kyle responded with a morose tone. He might as well have been saying “Oh, that’s an old couch.”

“I’ll be damned, that’s what I thought it was,” I said with a smirk.

After a couple of inquiring looks Kyle proceeded to explain:

“My grandpa used to work for a gas station, their mascot was this big metal dinosaur that they kept on the ceiling. When the station went out of business he took the dinosaur, you know why the hell not?” He shrugged and straightened his tie.

The statue looked like a Diplodocus, the iconic long-necked leaf eating giant from the Jurassic period. That is probably what most people saw, but to my mind’s eye it appeared to be a completely different beast. It looked like a Plesiosaurus, a giant oceanic lizard, elegant and forlorn, swimming in a sea of cornfields. I wanted to climb down the hill and take a closer look at the shiny beast, but the hill looked steep and I had a funeral to attend.

I remember my first funeral was a blur. I remember the polite whispers, the religious chants and songs like the repetitious mantras of a lost tribe. I remember the moaning, the denials, and the cries as they rose in intensity and then receded, only to rise again, like the waves of a wrathful sea. That was the worst.

The dirge started with soft sobs and incoherent ramblings, but soon degenerated into something akin to the caterwauls of an injured cat. No human voice could transmit such pain.

The room was redolent of stale flowers and purple-scented candles. The resulting fragrance was conflicting: acrid and strong, but strangely antiseptic, like acetone. Shadows, uninvited guests, danced on the walls with a macabre tempo. I saw familiar and unfamiliar faces by the candle light. I remember the coffin. The steel blue box that contained the material remains of a former being. To me he looked swollen and soft, like he had been stung by bees while taking a nap. His features were tattooed into my cerebral cortex. It was the last time I saw my uncle Francis.

When I was a young boy, I loved my uncle Francis, but don’t remember crying at his funeral. Perhaps I did not understand the gravity of the situation. The experience was surreal. Deep down, I expected he would show up the next day and take

me for a ride on his motorcycle. It did not occur to me that such a ride would be impossible. His motorcycle had been ruined in the accident.

After the funeral we drove to my grandmother’s house. Mamá was overseeing the making of refreshments of the attendees. She had deep wrinkles, and skin the color of toasted cocoa beans. Her hair was like cotton candy made out of spun silver, and her eyes were two wells full of laconic compassion and years — she was beautiful.

In the mornings, if we stayed overnight, Mamá would brush my sister’s hair. She started by rubbing the child’s delicate scalp with aromatic coconut oil and then brushed, back and forth, as she hummed, with a methodological softness. She wouldn’t stop until my sister looked like a porcelain doll. Many years later, Mamá would perform the same morning ritual on my little niece. I believe this was her way of saying “I love you.”

By the time we made it to the Mamá’s house, several cars were parked in the garage. The house was abuzz with activity. It was strange to see the little pink-coated shack so crowded. While our 1985 Toyota corolla made its way slowly through the long driveway, I caught a glimpse of the rice fields. The fields were a living work of art, never static. During the high point of the growing season the rice fields

were tall, lush, and uniformly green, it was like staring into a heavenly pool of perfect grass.

That early August morning after the funeral, the fields looked different. Tragedy struck at the beginning of the plating season. The hired workers were in the middle of seeding the rice paddies, the shallow muddy pools that would turn cyan and white by noon. The paddies were a mirror to the sky.

As soon as we got to the house I headed to my favorite place on the farm. Just like every other weekend, I grabbed a plastic chair and sat on a spot behind the kitchen. My place was under a flimsy guava tree which had pale skin and fruits that looked like pears but with a juicy salmon-colored core and hard seeds that were a bitch to get out of your teeth. I unbuttoned my shirt, it was not too hot for an August morning, and stared into the horizon for a while. What I saw made me frown. I could not find a single cloud, the blue sky seemed infinite. The weather was too nice for such a rotten day.

I took a look at the neighbor’s grasslands. The most impressive thing about their farm was the Royal Poinciana, which we knew as a Flamboyant. The mighty tree must have been at least six stories tall. It reminded me of Iggdrasil, the Nordic tree of life from the old folk tales. During the summer, the gargantuan Flamboyant bloomed; it was as if the tree caught

on fire. The leaves gave way to scarlet petals with a vivid red on the verge of orange. By July, the old tree looked like the plumage of an ancient Maya bird-deity.

“During summer Flamboyants are kissed by the sunset,” Mamá once told me.

I was not in the mood to look at the monstrous Flamboyant anymore, but I did not want to head back into the house either. The longer I could avoid the hollow face of my aunt, and the gasping sobs of my little cousins, the better.

I retreated into a fantasy world. I picked up a stick and started to swing it in the air. HACK, SLASH. I became a knight, a shiny paladin of justice, ready to exact revenge for my uncle’s death. HACK, SLASH. I did not care much about how drunk my uncle had been that night, or how helpful and concerned the truck owner had been ever since. A great evil had been done to my aunt, to the truck driver, and to the rest of us. But there was no evildoer. The events of that night were not a mystery or a great adventure. The whole thing had been a damned accident. I lowered my homemade sword and stared once again into the wretched sky. You can’t beat death with a stick.

I had an uneasy feeling in my chest, a cavity that refused to be filled. In reality, you don’t get the

big denouncement. Most of the loose ends are left untied. We move on, not because we are callous or strong, but because there is nothing better to do. That was a dangerous idea, the kind that can kill the kid in you. So, I did not entertain such a thought for too long. Instead, I went into the kitchen and got a piece of cake and a cup of sweetened coffee.

The cake was delicious and the coffee was not bad either. After I devoured a second slice, I went downstairs where everyone else was having a beer. I approached Kyle and our mutual friend. Tentatively, I uttered a vulgar joke and tried my most winsome smile. I knew that nothing I could say could make my friend feel better, not after the death of his father. He would heal with time, but at that moment my duty was to show my support and to distract him.

That night we drank in celebration of life: the life that was and the life that is. We told stories and laughed until tears bloomed in our eyes. We did those things, not because we were callous or strong, but because we had nothing better to do. If we had stopped doing then, I don’t think we would have been able to start doing again.

We rode back exhausted, drained by the density of the day. I began to wonder about the

irony of life, and how so many men and women live so they can get a great funeral. When my time comes, I do not wish for any great tributes. All I want is for people to remember me with a smile, and a bit of laughter too. As the long night falls, I want to be like the summer Flamboyant, engulfed by the golden red light, kissed by the sunset.

“Hey Kyle.”

“Yeah dude?”

“We should do this more often, but we need to start going to weddings instead of funerals.”

I was not expecting a reply, it was an anemic joke. We rode in silence for a while and I stuck my hand out to let my fingers dance with the icy winds.

“Yeah,” Kyle finally replied, “that would be grand.”

The night was clear and crisp, the sky above us infinite.