Everything Will Be Alright

I’m dead. I can no longer feel my body. My soul has lost all its color. Instead of a being, I am nothing. Nothing but a whirlwind of sadness. Nothing but a lost essence becoming part of a deep, dark void. Somewhere buried inside what I used to call my mind, both Erinn Magee’s and Patty Montoya’s written words echo. Their messages float and intertwine with loose strands of thought “It can’t be…” “Not again…”As someone knocks on my door, the web strung across my conscious ebbs away and I’m thrown back into the world I seem to have left for a few seconds.

How did I get to this place? To figure that out one must journey back: years back, before the worry of death existed. All the way back to what almost seems (forgive the cliché) a land before time. Before I came to Balboa Academy, I attended a school called Colegio Real de Panama. In this school I made many friends. I still have the privilege of knowing most of them. A few I haven’t seen for a while, but remain good companions. And others I will probably never see again, since they’ve moved away. One of them, a boy by the name of Piero Martinez, went to a place I truly can’t follow.

I know I’ve written about this personal experience before, but recent events have forced me to revisit this piece of memory. Current circumstances have forced me to think back on this event I’d hoped I could forget. I was young when it happened. I don’t remember how young exactly. I do remember that day I was in the car with my dad and he was driving me back home from school. I sat in the backseat, my mind a compendium of imagined tales played out by the loyal characters that were the Power Ranger toys I clutched in my palms, and my father sat at the wheel, his hand hanging out the open window, holding a cigarette. I remember that the tip left an ominous trail of smoke behind that I could see out the glass beside me. It’s funny how I always remember the little, unimportant details when horrible things happen, but never the important aspects of the story: like perhaps, how old I was.

We arrived home and, as we were entering the elevator that would dutifully take us to the sixth floor, I remembered an important issue.

“You promised we’d stop by McDonalds this time!” The cry of indignation left my lips as if I was fervently accusing a man at a full-fledged trial, complete with an incompetent judge and a stubborn jury.

“I know, Champ, but you’re mom told me to bring you straight home. The three of us need to talk about something very important.”

“More important than nuggets?!” I inquired with an expression that hinted there was no such thing. A half-pitying, half-amused smile appeared on my father’s face. A few floors before arriving at our destination my father crouched and hugged me. The powerful smell of Marlboro smoke and Spray-On Speed Stick invaded my nostrils, but there was too much emotion in that hug for me to interrupt it, even if I had to endure the uncomfortable scent. As his arms released my tiny frame, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Everything will be alright. No matter what.”

Back in my room, someone is still knocking on my door, and my dad’s phrase claws its way back from a distant past and mingles with Ms. Magee’s and Patty’s as well. As the words drift across the sea of my conscious I believe them less every time. I stare blankly at the screen of my computer, reality’s waves crashing over the unprotected shore of my mind. I lift my hand to my cheek but I feel no tears. It could be because my fingers feel numb, but I doubt it. It’s probably because, as of this moment, there are no tears left. Only heartbreak.

As a younger me stepped over the threshold of the kitchen door I spotted my mother sitting at the table. The minute I saw her I could tell she’d been crying. With one last attempt at wiping the tears with her sleeve, she walked over and leaned down to kiss my cheek. She then sat me down at the table and took a seat as well, leaving my father to stand by her side, with his right hand planted on the wall behind her and his other making a fist.

“Am I in trouble…?” I asked nervously. At this my mom’s eyes swelled up; she made a feeble attempt at a reassuring smile.

“No honey. Something bad has happened. It’s Piero.” And with that my mother told me a story that I’d never forget. My friend had been playing with his brother and a cousin with what they thought was a toy gun. It turned out it was actually a real gun the owner of the house kept for protection. Someone pushed someone, a finger pulled the trigger, a shot was fired, and my friend’s lifeless body thumped down onto the floor, the only new addition to his face a bloody bullet hole.

I can’t remember how long I cried. I do remember there were days when I’d sob myself to sleep. I felt that the pool of terror and unreality into which I had plunged the moment my mom had told me of Piero’s fate was vast and deep, and I was now drowning. With time, I learned that Piero went to a better place. But this didn’t ease the pain. Still, it made the scar less visible both to others and to myself.

Now, I sit in the dormitory of Columbia University’s High School Program gazing at two new messages that now embellish my otherwise eventless Facebook Inbox. One is from my former history teacher and the other is from Patty Montoya, sister to another friend I made much later in life.

A few years after leaving Panama for his native country Colombia, Pablo Montoya became ill with leukemia. I soon learned he was fighting it with all his might. At school we all supported him and cheered him on. Then the wonderful news came: Pablo, the friend I had feared so much would die, leaving me with another bitter batch of childhood memories to mourn over, seemed to be getting better. He seemed to have beaten the silent killer, and he was even planning to visit Panama.

I read Patty and Erinn’s words over and over, making sure I didn’t miss something that might change their meaning to a less world-shattering one. But nothing changes. The words are the same. Pablo’s dead and there’s nothing I can do about this one either. This it the second time I have to ask myself if I’m dreaming. The second time that I’m mad at God. The second time I’ve died along with my friend. Every passing second I find my father’s words harder and harder to believe, “Everything will be alright…” Everything will not be all right, not this time.

This is what it’s like to be Rafael Mendez right now. My heart has stopped beating. I no longer feel. I remember joy, I remember anger, and I remember excitement. I remember what these and many other emotions feel like, but I don’t feel them anymore. I’m not designed too. All that fills me up is pain. Pain and sadness. Despair clogs my lungs. I can’t breathe. But it’s all right; I don’t need to breathe to cry. I don’t need to breathe to bleed inside. I don’t need to breathe to punch the walls of my room. I don’t need to breathe to dig my nails into my palms. I don’t need to breathe to scream.