Life - Message From The Past

24-The Bridge of Souls

The village

As Miguel and Pete arrived at the shack on the edge of the abandoned village the elderly woman exited the dilapidated building. Jeremy's best friend could not read her face or body language and she said nothing as he passed her.

Miguel grabbed the bag of items he collected as his mother approached him at the door of his truck. "No te ves feliz mamá." You do not appear happy, Mama.

Emelina slowly shook her head as Miguel kissed her cheek. She took the bag from her son and spoke as she made her way back to the shack. "Llévalo al pueblo. muéstrale dónde vivía Salina." Take him into the village. Show him where Salina lived.

The son looked past the cacti to the ghost town as his mother walked from him. "¡Miguel!" She cried out.

"Si, mama." The man in his early sixties obeyed his mother and followed her inside to collect Pete.

The elderly woman tapped the young man's shoulder with her old weathered hand. Pete looked up at the solemn woman and asked about Jeremy. "¿Como es el?" How is he?

Miguel waved to him from the door. Pete pushed himself up from the floor as Emelina spoke. "Follow Miguel."

Pete seemed confused but followed Miguel out of the shack. Jeremy looked no different than he had a couple weeks ago and spoke without hope. "Miguel, my friend doesn't look so good."

Miguel shrugged and began to walk towards the village. "I never doubt my mama. You should not doubt her."

"I spent weeks in the village, Miguel. Not much left there." Pete did not see the point to going back there.

Miguel agreed. "Yes, you have seen it but you do not know the stories of those who lived here."

He pointed to the first house half filled with wind-swept sand and even smaller than the shack Jeremy is in. "This humble home had one room and belonged to the keeper of the village. He was ninety-two when his granddaughters convinced him to leave."

Pete walked past this hut several times believing it to be a garden shed and not a home. "Keeper? Of what, Miguel?"

"Imagine this village as the only place in the world you ever knew." Miguel enlightened the visitor. "The people... his friends meant everything to him. He believed the people would return and he kept watch so people did not desecrate all he loved."

Pete had more respect for the garden shed home and the man who sought to preserve the village. The two men walked further into the village with Miguel offering what he knew of the people who lived in the homes.

The two stopped in front of a home that still had a window in the front. "Your grandmother, Salina? She grew up here."

The younger man stepped onto the front porch and looked through the window with interest. Very little remained and what did was buried in the desert blown sand. Pete heard a faint voice calling. "Salinaaaa!" He looked back at Miguel with a frown. "Did you here that?"

Miguel shrugged. "The wind, maybe?"

The voice returned. "Alejandra!"

"You heard that, right?" Pete looked at Miguel who shook his head. "Right. Let's go."

"Alejandra, Salina's best friend in the world, live right next door." He pointed next door to a shell of a building with no roof remaining.

"I wonder how my life would have been if I were born here?" Pete looked around at the abandoned village. "Would I have lived there?" He pointed to where his grandmother grew up.