His
house was old-old, adobe style, high up in the Andes, way in the deep back
woods of the township called, ‘The 9th of July,’ with its high uncountable umbrella like eucalyptus
trees shading the old winding dirt
roads, clustered all the way to the cemetery, a half mile away. It had a faint
miasmal odor which clings about houses that have stood too long. We all thought
his house dated back to the days prior to or shortly thereafter those days
Catalina Huanca, no joke, somewhere along 1624 A.D., thereabouts. The old man, Juan Pablo was never too glad to
see a visitor, or for that matter, a trespasser, although we had a curiosity
relationship—he and I— myself being a poet, and he liked poetry, and being a
gringo, and not of the area per se, although the Poet Laureate of the township. Plus I always brought him a bottle of Chicha de Jora.
I
don’t rightly know how old he was, but on the wrong side of seventy I expect. He
didn’t seem feeble to me, rather rustic and robust, although his husky voice
with age had sank low, and lately he spoke in ramblings. On the other hand, he
was no protester, kind of blotted out by his neighbors, which he welcomed.
Last
time the neighbors had seen his house, they said it was tumbled bricks and
stones, that a meteorite hit the house. Not sure who started that rumor, or if
it was a rumor, but they told me when they went out there in the dim gray
evening, with all those shadows of eucalyptus trees about his house, they saw a
curious looking grey stone, as the story goes. They also said, there was an
explosion that night, that’s what brought them stampeding to the site. But the stone was so red hot, they kept their
distance. And so this was the story I heard: the story of the stone that fell
out of the sky, and one must remember, the Wanka Race, is a strong and stubborn
race, and some folks up there in the Andes are quite superstitious, and the
Inca could not even put them down without the help of the Spaniards, so they
have pride and satisfaction in what they think.
When I
got back from my trip from Lima, to the Mantaro Valley, I went to look for the
rock, it was missing. So if it wasn’t the rock, what it was, I asked my second-self?
And to boot, where was the old man? The
naked truth, nobody knew, nor cared. I noticed in the back where his house kind
of was, the earth was ripped and the foliage charred. Stone or rocks out of the
sky don’t do such things, I told myself, and told the township board likewise.
And realizing it was at night, perhaps it wasn’t even a stone I inferred. So we
had bizarre optical versions to the old man’s disappearance and destruction of
his home and property. The town folks had a hard time recalling anything, but
one ten-year old boy mentioned something in passing, that no one took serious,
actually they laughed at, he said, “I saw it all, I was in the woods, walking
my dog, they were aliens, they crashed into the house, they acted drunk and
they took the old man, it was a metal disc they came out of, they were no
higher than my height, and they took the old man!”
No one
paid him any attention, or credence. A week later when scientists went out to
see what the real story might lead to, the house, its foundation and all was
gone, without a trace, and only a charred spot, that marked the place the old
man had lived since childhood. All I can say, is those were strange days.
#5067/ 2-11 & 12-2016
Copyright © by Dennis L. Siluk 2-2016
