Matijas
The shattered remains of a once great man sit in front of me,
smoking like a chimney,
drinking like tomorrow is a thing of the past.
"Don't start with this stuff, its from the devil.
Keep your fingers as far away from it as you can,"
he manages to mumble between sips, "Don't start with it."
He walks and talks as if his life is already over.
"I'm burned out," he offers as an excuse, as he light up his tenth cigarrette since we arrived not thirty minutes ago.
Look closely and you see an artist who has been called on to defend his homeland, and by so doing kill hundreds of enemy soldiers.
Upon him rests a burden I hope I'll never know. His head is full of memories too gruesome too share.
Here, right before my eyes, sits Matijas--poet, soldier, father, artist, friend of many.
"One day, God will call me, wanna bet?" comments my now intoxicated friend.
He continues, "God will make me stand up and I'll have to do just that."
"What?" I ask, pretending not to know.
"Be judged," comes the reply, along with a solemn look.
He takes another sip and changes the subject to something a little brighter.
"Give me my shoes back, you crocodile."
"I'm no crocodile," I say, feigning insult.
"Okay, elephant."
"That's better." I begin to untie my shoes and he stops me,
insisting that I keep them one more day, just like last time we came.
"Do me a favor. When you go back to America, take this cactus to your mother," he says as he puts a bright green cactus into a plastic bag.
"Why?" I am astonished.
"What I have, I give," he says.
"Well, that's no reason to give my mother a cactus.
What if she doesn't want a cactus?"
"Nonsense. Everyone wants a cactus, your mother is no exception."
That's Matijas. He made me take the cactus.
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