Circumventing Sunday Service/ Meeting with the IMF.

I just escaped the building.

Sunday Service will begin very soon. Everyone finds it very weird and disrespectful whenever I walk right through an ongoing gathering like they’re not there.

Their church gatherings are where they congregate to commune with God. Walking right through an ongoing gathering is perceived as a flagrant disrespect- both to them and to their almighty God.

Well it’s not completely my fault. The space within which they hold these meetings is right between the entrance and the rest of the building. And so sometimes when I need to get into the building and upstairs to the room where I’m arguably being lodged as a guest, I have to walk briskly through their gatherings so I can be on my way.

They don’t like it. They don’t like it at all.

And so this morning I’m exiting the building before their Sunday service even starts.

---

I am at Hotel VIP Praia.

Hotel VIP Praia is a 4-Star hotel erected on the expansive black rocks lining the southeastern coast of Santiago- the capital island of the Cape Verdean archipelago.

I was recently here to make inquiries about the hotel facilities.

At this point in time, I am aware there is a penthouse bar overlooking the awe-inspiring crystal blue ocean water. I exchange pleasantries with the receptionists and head into the elevator.

I am yet to come to a convincing understanding of why the beaches in Cape Verde have such crystal blue water.

I raised this question with a Dutch engineer I met on Sal island. He brought up an interesting idea, and we hypothesized along the lines of sand particle weight.

Maybe the sand particles here were somehow heavier than in other places, and consequently always settled to the ocean floor very quickly- leaving the water crystal blue.

I think it makes sense, but I’m not too convinced that’s the answer.

---

I am at the penthouse bar.

I walk past the bar, and past the rooftop swimming pool on my left, as I head up a staircase.

There is an elevated platform right above. I ascend the stairs up to this platform and take a seat.

I take a few minutes to marvel at the impressive woodwork in my immediate surroundings, while breathing in the refreshing ocean air and thoroughly enjoying the engrossing view of the entrancingly blue ocean water.

I open up my computer and attempt to connect to the WiFi.

My time at a college in the USA whose program was structured around online classes and distributed learning, has given me considerable experience with shamelessly striding into the most upscale of locations primarily intending to make use of their WiFi network.

In the US no one seemed to care if I spent hours in a cafe or restaurant, making pretty heavy use of their WiFi while buying just a few cups of coffee and some light snacks.

In Germany things were also similar, although some places could be problematic.

In Cape Verde, the smaller restaurants and cafes made me feel guilty. Past a certain point I would begin to literally feel the owner/manager’s gaze drilling into my skin. Or maybe that was just me feeling self-conscious.

But this right here is Hotel VIP Praia- a 4 star hotel. This sublime edifice is definitely more than capable of handling my meager WiFi consumption. I prepare myself for a good time.

---

There is a problem with the WiFi. The computer is not connecting to it.

Maybe it’s the location.

I walk about the roof of the bar, and eventually head down the stairs to the rest of the penthouse.

There is a guy working on a computer. He has multi-colored tattoos all over his body. Arms. Legs. He also has a fluffy white square beard. I think he looks really interesting.

I mention something about the Wifi. He empathizes, and says a WiFi extender would be a useful installation. To extend the network to the area above the bar. I agree with him.

I take a seat opposite, and we begin to engage in conversation while I connect. At some point I learn that he’s a consultant with the International Monetary Fund.

Hmmm!! The IMF!!! Hmmm!!

I am very very surprised. I had no idea the IMF hired people who were like covered from head to toe in multicolored tattoos.

My classmates at the US college during my last semester there, were beginning to experience this existential anxiety involving charting out some sort of professional path for oneself. Frantic internship applications were the principal community-wide activity.

Students who had secured shiny-sounding internship positions were being quietly envied by others. The college itself was featuring these shiny professional engagements on their website.

The school hired some Professional Development Managers or something like that. They periodically organized Career Development meetings where they gave guidelines on how to craft the most effective CVs.

I never went for their meetings. One of them kept sending me emails. Jesse or something like that. He was probably a nice person, but the context of his employment in the university and what he represented, made me find him and his emails very annoying. I never replied.

I even began to hate the word “career”, because to me it represented this very ascetic concept that required one to completely shed every strand of individuality and personal idiosyncrasy, to facilitate direly needed absorption into the cold, phlegmatic and completely unfeeling machine of the world of work.

And so sitting here right now at a 4-star hotel penthouse bar, across the table from this white-bearded biker guy covered in multicolored tattoos- the very exemplar of individuality and personal ideosyncracy- who is currently on a professional assignment with the International Monetary Fund, I feel like there is hope for me. Me with my complete disregard for somber career development meetings and lifeless CVs.

I casually give an exposition on some mathematical nuance I’m engaging with, in the course of some of my work involving Artificial Intelligence and Endangered Languages.

He seems very interested. I provide some more detail over which we discuss.

The mentioned research endeavor was one I crafted myself as a conceptual spear head with which I intended to transpierce and forge a path through the nebulous terrain of life professions. It did not exist prior.

It was a number of things to me:

It was an emboldening intersection of passions, skills and expertise which I wished to structure my life around.

It was also an endeavor to procure solutions to what I believed to be a pressing world problem.

In addition however, I think it also sounds very cool and important. You know, something you can casually bring up in conversation with a consultant from the IMF.

---

We’ve been chatting for over an hour, all the while sipping on beers and working on our Macs.

We’ve talked about his motorbikes, about his family and mine, about his children’s disapproval of his tattoos, and about my mother’s sudden visit to Cape Verde to understand why in the name of God I took a gap year from college in the US.

We’ve talked about his frequent travels on the job, and his divorce which was largely a consequence of that. We’ve talked about financial worries and anxieties about the future.

Now we’re talking about his current relationship. With a woman he met in Albania. She recently created a photography page on Facebook, where she posts pictures he takes during his travels. She sounds sweet.

At some point the excited bartender offers to bring up some Cape Verdean girls for entertainment.

The IMF guy turns to him:

Sorry I’m not here for that kind of fun, thank you.

We keep talking.

At some point his supervisor joins us at the table.

First I am very taken aback by the very idea that this person has a supervisor.

The supervisor is a cool guy. He brings some very interesting perspective to the conversation. Sheds light on some illicit activities foreign hotel chains are engaging in:

Leveraging subsidized import duties to sell imported construction materials at a profit on the black market. IMF is here to keep such behavior in check.

Mmm!! Interesting!!!

I nod my head in excited understanding.

We keep talking.

At some point in our conversation, the tattooed guy mentions that I’ve had a very accomplished day. I laugh out loud and express my complete agreement with him:

Escaping Sunday Service to end up having a super interesting chat with IMF officials at the penthouse bar of a 4-star hotel overlooking the Cape Verdean Atlantic. Excellent day.

We talk some more. Later the supervisor gets up to leave. It’s his birthday today. I think it’s his seventieth birthday. He’s probably going in to prepare for some sort of celebration later in the evening.

---

Image: View from the Santa Maria pier at Ilha do Sal.

Capela de Trindade and a Precluded Hitchhike.

I am sprinting downhill in a disgruntled, indignant fluster.

Ahhhhhhhh these guys are leaving me behind!!!

Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!

There is a thorny tree branch hanging out in the way. I pay attention to the pace at which I’m sprinting down the cobblestoned path. As I approach the thorny branch, I slow down and duck.

It is late evening. The sun has almost completely set, and visibility is impaired.

There is a truck revving at the bottom of the hill. I think it has begun to move.

Yes. Yes it has begun to move.

The two guys who are most likely seated in the leaving truck right now, agreed to give me a ride back to the city centre. They said they would call out to me once they intended to move.

I did not hear anyone call out. I just heard the revving of a painfully familiar truck.

I was at the top of the hill, trying to make sense of a Portuguese Creole signboard installed there.

My proficiency in the Creole language has most of its practice in everyday conversation. Making sense of custom signboards at arbitrary locations- in little light, takes a considerable amount of time.

---

I am at the base of the hill.

The truck is gone. The truck is very gone.

It’s just me.

Me, this very large and sturdy looking boabab tree with its amusingly smooth and stubby trunk, and then there’s this garden whose lushness is pleasantly unexpected given how relatively dry the island generally is.

Hitchhiking is definitely a lost cause now. I don’t know who else intends to head towards the city this night with a motor vehicle.

I spent the afternoon at the Trindade water processing plant. I wasn’t granted entry into the plant- apparently it’s not exactly a tourist attraction, but I got to speak with one of the workers there.

He provided me with some information about the factory. Told me the water being purified was extracted via a pipeline, from a river in a nearby town on the island. A place called Joao Varela. He seemed like a nice guy. I believe he worked security at the plant.

He actually invited me along for a ride back to the city in a vehicle he and a number of colleagues were being conveyed. Initially agreeing, I later changed my mind because I felt like there was still more to that general area which I had not yet seen.

Now I’m heading back on foot in the dark.

Hahaha. Truck guys abandoned me.

It’s not a completely dark night, and so I can navigate my way back via the one major road which winds through the rainfall-paucity engendered savanna of Santiago.

So far I haven’t encountered any animals in the wild. I also didn’t see any information on such online. It feels like the only thing to actually be worried about when walking through these open woodlands at night, is human beings and their capacity for malevolence. Other things being equal, inanimate objects aren’t interested in doing you harm.

Trees don’t really have the time to bother about you. Rocks are completely occupied by whatever it is that occupies rocks. If you trip on a jutting piece of rock, it was inadvertent. The rock probably did not mean to cause you disconcertion. The moon and the stars are doing their thing and minding their business. Human beings are the ones who can consciously decide to do you harm.

I keep heading towards Praia, laughing and thinking and talking and skipping along the winding road.

---

Image: A different island, Sal.

January 2 2017. Nelson Mandela International Airport, Santiago Island, Cape Verde. [2]

It is daybreak. It is my first morning in Cape Verde.

Rolph has left for Maio.

I feel sad. There’s this poignant, albeit relatively brief, sense of aloneness I experience whenever I’m separated from a travel companion. I felt it when the Mozambican left to catch his flight in Lisbon. Now I feel it again.

The airport here feels small. I felt like I spent almost an entire day exploring the airport in Lisbon. The airport here at Praia looks like it’ll take about fifteen to twenty minutes. Skateboarding is not even a possibility. Relative to airports in major European cities, this place feels squeezed.

It is warm. The air is warm- possibly as a function of the climate here, but at the same time I can also feel the warmth of the bodies moving around in the room.

The floor tiles look like they cost less. Everywhere looks less new and less glossy. It takes a while to appreciate this relative absence of glossiness.

The bathroom reminds me of Nigeria. Not in any negative way, no. The sanitary wares just look like the types used in Nigeria.

The morning air smells of leaves and transpiration and the uncertainty of the future.

I’ve had this piece of paper with me since Lisbon. I’ve been writing poems on it. Poems about heartbreak and nostalgia and anxiety. I wrote one about airports. The title is “An airport is multiple places”.

There are some small planes outside for inter-island flights. This is my first time seeing a plane with actual propellers- so far I have only physically seen planes with jet engines. The blades are black, with one like a fan on each wing.

There was an issue at check-in. I was told that I wouldn’t be allowed to board the plane with my skateboard. I didn’t understand.

---

---

What? Why?

The immigration officer talking with me, engages in some additional consultation with a woman who appears to be his boss in the airport employee hierarchy.

He says they’re trying to prevent a situation where the skateboard is used as a weapon to harm the people on the plane.

I am very shocked. I have never heard that before.

Whattt???

Eventually we agree to transport it as baggage. And I don’t have to pay for it. The officer promises to have it transported safely. I think we exchange a knowing look— He himself is surprised by the sudden policy on skateboards. I think his boss is just being irrational this morning.

---

---

I am in the plane. It is a small plane, even smaller than the Wow airlines discount flight I used with an Indian classmate a number of months before.

The plane is sparsely occupied. I think I am the only one on my row, which has about four seats.

There is a brightly colored picture of a laughing Cape Verdean woman dressed in very interesting attire. The picture is up in a number of places in the plane. I’ll later see the same picture on the packaging of some traditional Cape Verdean coffee.

There is a guy a number of rows ahead of me. I have heard him chattering excitedly in Creole since I got in. It is most likely his first time flying. He keeps laughing and chatting euphorically and bouncing on his seat and peering through the window.

The environment in this country feels very different from Germany, where I lived for a number of months. Amongst other things, I am still trying to get used to being around so many black bodies.

The plane takes off.

---

We are flying over Sal. I stare down at the bright brown undulating desert sand, mesmerized.

We touchdown at Aeroporto Internacional Amilcar Cabral, somewhere in the middle of the island.

As I exit the plane, I am welcomed with the warm, relatively-humid air of Sal.

Like Praia, we exit the plane by walking down the stairway at the side. In my previous travel experiences, there was usually this channel that led from the airplane door to the airport- travelers never actually used the stairway thing.

The airport is sparse. There is an excited couple getting their bags. I think the woman is pretty.

At some point I’m the only one in the entrance hall and there’s no other traveler in sight.

It is so bright and sunny here. It is the polar opposite of cold grey Berlin. I will later find myself in situations (mostly in Nigeria) where people do not understand why I sometimes just lie out in the sun.

The dull grey cold of winter in Berlin gave me a deep-seated appreciation for sunlight and atmospheric warmth. People who have spent (usually) all of their lives in tropical climates generally see spending extended amounts of time out in the sun, as punishment and as something to be avoided.

And so it’s exceptionally strange for such people to see me lying out in the sun and “punishing myself”. Although it definitely has to be said that the intensity of the sunlight in Nigeria can sometimes be highly unconducive to leisurely naps.

My skateboard landed safely, as promised.

In about four months I’ll give this skateboard as a gift to a neighbor- the younger brother of the Cape Verdean guy with an estranged European family. I bought it at a skate shop along Market street in San Francisco. It has a picture of rotting fruits on the underside. I liked the picture because at the time I bought it, I felt like I needed some sour stimulus- something to jar my reality.

Skateboarding will not be as much of a priority in a few months. I’ll be spending tons of time, energy and concentration figuring out my plans for the future and for my life. There won’t be much spare energy to channel into skateboarding.

I leave my bags at the airport entrance, and go skateboard in the car park. I do this for about two minutes before airport security stops me.

In my perspective, one major difference between the urban experience in relatively developed countries and developing ones, is the presence of stricter security around buildings (and generally locations) of attraction in developing countries.

In relatively developed countries, pretty much everywhere looks nice. In developing countries the relatively nice looking places highly contrast with the less aesthetically pleasing areas (this is also usually the case with regard to relative socioeconomic advancement) and usually require stricter security to prevent such locations from devolving into the less admirable conditions prevalent in the immediate environment.

A consequence of this, is that people living in developing countries acquire this learned inhibition around these locations. Coming from the West however, these locations didn’t seem overwhelmingly awesome to me — They were nice, yeah- just not to the point where I would feel any inhibition around them. And so I would be skating around a relatively nice looking building- like:

Yeah I used to skate around the buildings in Berlin like this.

To the residents however, my behavior was strange, somewhat disrespectful, and (especially to security) unacceptable. After overcoming the stupefaction they experienced regarding how I was able to move about so freely and carefreely in such a “NIICEEE” environment, they would stop me and generally try to influence me in the direction of a more inhibited and self-conscious disposition.

It always pissed me off.

I pick up my bags and get a taxi to Espargos.

The next time I’ll be inside this airport, I’ll be coming out of a police van after spending the night in a cell at Espargos.

I’ll meet Carlos- the Commander of Police on the island. I’ll perceive him to be a pretty interesting guy- very admirable biceps. Conscientious and determined, yet open enough to smile and be friendly.

We’ll sort out the misunderstanding which led to my arrest. We’ll have an interesting conversation and at some point he’ll attempt to introduce one of the very attractive Cape Verdean women working in the airport, to me as a potential girlfriend. She’ll look even more appealing given that I spent the night before languishing in a dark and unfriendly cell at the station. I’ll be too self-conscious after such an experience, to give much thought to his proposition.

We’ll talk some more- he’ll talk briefly about his childhood, and the determination which drove him to acquire a foreign education. He’ll talk to me about some issues he’s facing on the job. Regarding unwanted immigrants and difficulties with politely returning them to their countries of origin.

I’ll wonder why the Commander of Police is talking to me about these things. I’ll wonder what about me makes him afford me such regard. I’ll wonder why he thinks I could possibly have something helpful to say.

I mean, if I take some time to think I’ll probably come up with something- but I wonder what gives him that impression about me. Me who was brought here in a police van, freshly released from handcuffs and a night in the cell at the Espargos police station.

———

Image: Walking along the major expressway in Sal.

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This post is directly connected with a number of others. An index of these other posts can be accessed here.

January 2 2017. Nelson Mandela International Airport, Santiago Island, Cape Verde. [1]

I’ve been chatting with this Swiss guy. We met at the airport in Lisbon, while boarding. He’s a cool guy.

We just landed in Cape Verde. We are at Santiago- the capital. For some strange reason a flight to Santiago (through Lisbon) from Berlin, was more expensive than a flight to Santiago, and then connecting to Sal. The budget was tight, and so the cheaper flight was chosen.

I am at the point of entry into Cape Verde. I am on the queue. Being a Nigerian citizen, I have an ECOWAS passport which grants me visa-free entry into a number of (mostly West African) countries. I learnt about this while embroiled in disorientation and confusion and anxiety, as I researched my post-Berlin plans in late December.

Rolph is on a different queue. I think he is on a visa-on-arrival queue. He is to pay like 50 euros or so.

---

About fifteen minutes have passed. Rolph has long been let through to the main hall for his connecting flight. He’s heading to a different island- Maio. He’s doing some volunteering on a boat there, something like that.

There seems to be an issue with my documents. The immigration officers have been passing my passport about. I’m not quite sure what is happening. I think it’s a Nigerian-citizen issue. They don’t trust my country of origin. They don’t trust my passport. They don’t trust me.

At the same time though, they’re not quite sure how to interprete the visas on my passport. I have a Germany visa which expired 2 days ago. I have a US visa which is still valid.

He has a valid US visa. He’s coming here fresh from Berlin. Surely he cannot be such a terrible human being?? Surely he cannot be a potential drug dealer?? Surely he cannot be a reprehensible criminal element who will make life even more difficult for our law enforcement?

Oh man, but he’s from Nigeria though. Should we let him in? Should we not?

I watch them deliberate. My passport is passed through the chain of command. It goes in and out of a number of offices. I keep waiting, wondering what’s going to happen.

At some point an immigration officer walks up to me and communicates that they would like to know how much I have in my bank account.

I hope I’m not hearing him correctly. I have just about a hundred dollars in my Bank of America account, and that’s my most fleshy account. I did some internship work in Berlin during the holidays, but I’m not getting paid until two weeks time. But even then, that is just a little over a hundred and fifty euros. I don’t imagine those are the sort of numbers that make immigration happy.

He’s telling me how much needs to be in the account for me to be let in.

“Mil euro”.

Mil what??

Mil freaking what??? Did he just say a million euros???

Wait wait, are Nigerian citizens so terrible that they need to have a million euros in the bank to be let in???

See, we’re going to have to figure something out. I have nowhere to go, you guys. I have absolutely nowhere to go- as a matter of fact, my flight ticket here was covered by the generous assistance of a number of people.

He clarifies. Mil euro is a thousand euros. “Mil” means a thousand in Portuguese.

Ohhhhhh. Ohhhhhh okay. Okay I get it now.

He takes my sigh of relief to mean that I have at least a thousand euros in my account. He begins to walk me to the ATM.

---

I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen next. I feel heavy as we walk past the point of entry into the main hall.

The ATM is right up ahead.

One thousand euros.

I am in trouble. I am in so much trouble.

All of a sudden I see Rolph, seated in one of the chairs at arrivals.

Heyyyy Rolphhhh!!!! Wassuppppp!!!!

We exchange excited handshakes.

The immigration officer stares at me with surprise. I think he is trying to re-evaluate his assessment of me.

Hm, he has visas from the USA and Germany, and he is friends with a Swiss. I think this guy will have the required amount of money- maybe I shouldn’t have stressed him with this ATM trip.

We are at the ATM. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I have absolutely no plan. At this point there is zero sense in requesting my account balance, but I do it anyway.

The ATM is taking some time to respond. I think there is a network issue. I attempt the operation again.

At some point the immigration officer tells me not to worry.

Don’t worry, don’t worry- let’s head back to the other room- You’re good to go.

I am superlatively relieved. At the back of my mind I am thinking about the somewhat racist thinking that influenced his final decision (I’m a suspicious traveler until it seems to be the case that I’m friends with a white guy- really?), but right now I’ve just been granted entry into this country so I’m not really complaining.

We head back to the point of entry, and my passport gets stamped.

---

I head back in to keep chatting with Rolph. We talk about skiing and Swiss watches. “Switch watch” is a phrase I have heard an uncountable number of times in my life, but right now- talking with a Swiss about his first-hand experience with watchmaking factories in his country of origin, the phrase takes on a new noteworthiness- a much more personal and less distant significance.

We keep talking. He shows me skiing videos he recorded in the Alps. I am very excited to watch them. I went around in Berlin in December, making inquiries about snowboarding. Visited a number of shops, got information on snowboarding locations. Someone said good things about Oberwiesenthal.

Bucket list: Oberwiesenthal. Snowboarding.

[Part 1]

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Image: Bedroom in the Berlin apartment.

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This post is directly connected with a number of others. An index of these other posts can be accessed here.

A New Island, and an Anxious Burglar.

I am on the island of Santiago, in the Cape Verdean archipelago.

I got here a few weeks ago. It wasn’t actually something I planned- a number of external influences saw me on a plane here from Sal, a neighboring island.

It has been an alright experience so far though. I’ve been taking my time to check Santiago out- see what the place is like. It’s pretty interesting. Not as multicultural as Sal because the economy here is not as reliant on tourism, but that also means Santiago is relatively free from the infuriating and frustrating economic hegemony that exists on the other island:

White people generally have more money on Sal because Euro and Europe, and so a lot of the darker skinned people there have learnt to perceive themselves as being worth less than their white counterparts. Europeans own most of the major hotels and restaurants, and Cape Verdean natives / black people in general work at these places- as bartenders and cleaners and some as sex workers. That’s just what it is.

I’m black, and so there are extremely annoying instances when I walk into a restaurant, and the Cape Verdean receptionist is like:

“Sorry we do not have any work available”.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You do not have any what?”

That constantly got me annoyed on Sal. On Santiago so far, not at all. Not at all.

Living conditions are currently pretty alright. I’m occupying an entire floor of a multi-storey building in a pretty interesting district.

I think it’s an affluent district in Praia, the island’s capital. I was talking with this woman at Capela de Trindade. Her teenage son invited me in to show him how to get some stuff done on his new computer. He had a pretty interesting setup, interesting room.

I was in a conversation with his mother at some point. From the information I had gathered from a neighbour, plus my own deductions- she lived in this house with her son, and their upkeep plus building costs were taken care of both by her salary as a teacher in a neighboring school, as well as by her string of boyfriends.

**

She’s asking me some questions and grinning very suspiciously. I’m responding to her questions.

I think she’s sizing me up as a potential boyfriend. We keep talking. At some point she asks where I stay. I tell her. She gives a satisfied smile, like:

“Ah okay, that’s an affluent district. He has money. He’ll do.”

**

I haven’t been back at Capela de Trindade yet. That guy’s mother seemed like she was looking forward to another visit. I’m not quite sure what I think of the whole thing, I’ve been preoccupied with another concern:

The current living space is pretty cool. There’s a room, bathroom and kitchen amenities, the entire space of the whole storey, and an alright view which so far has proved significantly amenable to some interesting thoughts.

Recently I’ve been imagining what life would be like if I lived in a large house with multiple wives and a plethora of children running about. Just wondering. I don’t know why those thoughts have been coming into my head recently. I don’t know.

In addition I’ve been making songs. Sad, indignant songs about wrenching heartbreak. That has been interesting. I really need to upgrade my music production skills though, they’ve been pretty stagnant for a while now.

——-

I am in front of a factory in Praia. I heard there’s a short term financial opportunity here.

I am currently engineering the transportation of a few thousand dollars to be unlocked from a now-rescinded financial agreement in San Francisco, but in the meantime I am without tangible funds. That has been frustrating.

So I am in front of this factory, along with a number of Cape Verdean natives.

A number of guys were staring at me as I arrived. They were staring at the Converse shoes that were recently given to me as a gift by someone on Sal. Maybe Converse All Stars are not very common here. Maybe. Probably.

The guys are chatting excitedly. One of them takes off his face cap, and to my surprise he ages about ten years instantly because of his balding head. With the cap on I would have placed him in the late twenties. With the cap off, late thirties. Possibly even forties.

Wow. This balding thing.

Another of the guys catches my attention. He has long dreadlocks. Medium height. Dark skin.

Long dreadlocks. Medium height. Dark skin.

Long dreadlocks. Medium height. Dark skin.

Why does all this feel familiar?

I recall the words of a young boy to me on Sal, in the agonizing days after my beachfront apartment was burgled.

“He has long dreadlocks. Medium height. Dark skin. His name is Kelton. He burgled your apartment, sold your valuables and immediately fled via boat to Santiago.”

I think the guy a few feet from me is Kelton. I think this was the guy who burgled my apartment.

Our eyes meet.

I recently had a haircut, and so I look different.

Does he recognize me?

Does he?

Immediately he becomes anxious. He begins to fret perceptibly.

Okay this is definitely Kelton. This is the repugnant being who burgled my apartment and caused me so much pain. This is the abhorrent miscreant. This is the severely detestable motherfu—

Something is happening. I think there is something happening at the factory gate.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, Kelton disappears.

——