The Guadeloupe Squadeloupe

Chapter XXVIII: Guad

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."- Martin Luther King Jr.

It would feel great to see light again.

This thought fueled me ever since we'd fallen into that bunker. But as I climb out into the day, I realize that my thought was wrong.

Seeing light again is useful, but it does not feel great. In fact, it feels like I'm going blind.

I'm the first one out of the hole, and I can't even see what's around me for almost a minute because of the searing pain in my eyes. I only have my head out of the ground, and I can imagine what it must look like to see me like that; scruffy, sticking out of a hole.

Once I manage to get a composure of myself, I check my surroundings. We're in what looks like a field. A few cows graze the field. One stands a foot away, my head only reaching the height of its hooves.

Quietly hissing a curse, I scramble out of the hole and onto my feet. Getting my face split in half by some bovine idiot has never looked appealing to me.

And we sure are in a field. A small house can be seen about 50 meters away. The jungle is visible in the distance. For the first time, I begin to wonder how far we are from that river we were at; it seems like a million years ago that we stood in its shallow waters.

As I dust off my jeans, Perry, supported by Bob, heaves himself up out of the hole. I clasp his hand and help him up, where he puts his weight on my shoulder.

Rather than saying anything, the boy just squints and watches the sun set over the hills. It isn't hard to notice the bruises covering his body. I'm afraid of the severity of pain he's feeling, but also about how we're going to hide his injuries once we get into a city.

Soon, Bob, Alice, Diana, and Janis are all out of the hole too, blinking around at the darkening sky.

And then, as if we don't know, Janis says, "Well this sucks."

For some reason, I want to disagree with her. It's not like nothing good can come from this. Bad things are worth at least something.

It reminds me of a spot of wet concrete by my hut in Punta Arenas. It sucks to walk in at first but eventually it makes life easier.

Our trials aren't something that just need to be thrown away and forgotten in the metaphorical wastebasket of our minds.

No one says anything until I suggest we head to the nearest city. Being outside in the dark is not how I would like to spend my night. Thankfully, everyone is on the same page.

. . .

We search on somebody's phone for the closest city and find that we are at Manaus. It seems we've come pretty far and that we have about 250 miles to go until we reach Bogota.

After being underground so long, what we discover at Manaus is enough to break our eardrums.

Even though it's probably classified at "night" right now, no one in Manaus seems to be asleep. Some kind of celebration seems to be in order. The streets are overrun with people, music and festivities.

Frankly, I've hardly seen anything so amazing. Color blasts everywhere, people are dressed up in costumes, and everyone is dancing.

"Oh my gosh!" Alice exclaims as we weave through the crowds. People bump into us carelessly, and someone is shoved into my back. My worries about hiding Perry's injuries from other people are dissolved quickly: the streets are so packed that no one will notice.

"Where do we go? How are we going to sleep here? I need my beauty sleep!" Bob yells over the noise.

I shrug. The chaos is loud and hard to concentrate in compared to the eerie silence of the underground maze we were in less than an hour ago.