The Guadeloupe Squadeloupe

Chapter I: Guadeloupe Bridges

Guadeloupe Bridges

"Instead of love and the feel of warmth / you've given him these cuts and sores / that don't heal with time or with age."- What's the Matter Here? // 10,000 Maniacs

You don't have to look at me for too long before you realize I haven't done much with my life. I like to think that's not my fault. My parents died when I was 10 and I was put out on the streets, because I decided anything was better than the foster care of Southern Chile.

By the time it's 10 years later, I'm 20 and I still want to leave the city I've lived in my whole life. Only now I've accepted the fact that it isn't likely. When you've been homeless for a certain amount of time, you figure out there isn't a way to afford any kind of plane fare.

That being said, I'm not really thinking about these things when I'm getting up one frigid July morning.

Yawning, I slip into a thick jacket I found in a dumpster some years ago. It isn't much of course, but it's almost enough to save me from the freezing air of winter. In one of the southernmost points in the world, it's needed. Years as a child lying on freezing concrete taught me that.

Glancing to my best and only friend Bob, I watch as he basically uses his beard as a blanket. On a 72 year-old man, it's long enough to do the job.

Three years ago, when I was still 17, he came into town asking to stay with me. I knew him from times he'd visited before, but things changed significantly this time.

He had an accident back up in a city called San Diego; an accident he doesn't normally tell me about. I may not have many experiences to go off of in my life, but I do know it's best not to dwell on the bad ones.

Having a companion is one of the few pieces of my life that can make me happy. In a routine that only involves scrounging for food and thinking about the emptiness of your own life, Bob becomes surprisingly fun to be around.

I take one last look at his mangled white hair and head out through the creaky door.

The temperature is about the same outside of my "house" as it is inside. For the past few years we've been living in a concrete shack crammed inside an alleyway. There's only room for two makeshift cots. However, I don't mind how small it is; it makes me more motivated to spend my day outside.

The walk through Punta Arenas is no different than usual: comfortable and familiar. There are the only streets I've ever known; I could walk through them with my eyes closed. From what Bob's told me, the city is different from the others in South America. As far as he knows, it's the only area with pine trees and such a cold climate.

All the houses I pass on my walk double as car garages or tourist shops and are crammed together on the side of the road. Most of them don't even have doors, which goes to show that even if you own a house down here, your life isn't that much better.

There was a time when I lived in a house, but that was back with my parents. And when they died they left me with nothing, as if they hadn't been my parents at all.

As I walk past the houses, my head turns to their TVs. They're visible from the streets, and some mornings for the past three years, they've been flashing this strange symbol: it's a circle, half black and half white, with lines of those colors coursing through it.

It wouldn't upset me if I didn't know what it is, but I do. Bob's told me that it's the symbol of HEXA, the organization that Jose Delgato works for. Delgato being the man that abducted him three years ago and ran experiments on him. I know he must see the symbol in the morning too, though he doesn't say anything about it.