a long time ago…
Posted on May 18th, 2022 –
… I worked for some interesting organizations.
There are people out there who know where this is. Or was.
… I worked for some interesting organizations.
There are people out there who know where this is. Or was.
Along with the heat and the tropical flora, Mindelo has the feel of some city in the West Indies. Surrounding it, the sharp crags give everything else the appearance of a barren wasteland. On the beaches, the volcanic rock metamorphoses into glistening sand that slides into a turquoise sea.
Sitting on a glistening beach and watching the dreamy image of the boats on the water through the liquid crystal display of a digital camera, Medic inhales deeply and slowly.
He and The Handler are relaxing in the shade of a pavilion off of Avenida Marginal, a sun-drenched road that traces the western limit of the city. They’ve explored a small part of the sprawl which extends east from there in a mix of colourful colonial houses, restaurants, and modern establishments. It was a nice change of pace from the previous night.
Although he finds it difficult to understand why, every day Medic becomes more comfortable with the whole situation, lingering doubt and questions subtly transmuting into proactive involvement with the mission.
“Shouldn’t we be trying to get more info on the Academy?” he asks The Handler after a few days of growing restlessness.
The Handler holds up a pausing finger as she cranes her head forward, listening.
Fast-forward a few days to the middle of the Atlantic.
Once he got his sea legs, the constant rocking of the ocean became just an annoyance for Medic. Early on he noticed that The Handler also got a little green in the face a few times. In fact, the more he observed her the more she descended down to his own level of physical ineptitude.
She’d tripped gracelessly a few times over the bulkheads. She’d spilled food and drinks a couple of times. She’d once worn a shirt inside-out. And there was that bright orange discount price sticker stuck in her hair for a whole day. It made him comfortable enough to start calling her Handy in private. She took it with a sarcastic smile.
Then again, there was one time when Lukas the leisure-suited, gold-chained, slick-haired Lithuanian burst into their cabin with a rifle in one hand, near-empty bottle of liquor in the other, demanding to know in muddled English how she’d convinced him to take his ship to some island off Africa.
Medic slowly regains consciousness as pain and nausea creep in.
With eyes still closed, he tries to remember the previous night. He’d been out drinking by himself, took an unusual shortcut through the park, met some odd characters, then crawled home and into bed.
Right?
No, wait; that was a few nights ago. What happened after that?