The Sand of Faces
18 I go to the pawnshop with Father, exchanging money for my camera. I felt touchy, still emotionally attached to the Hasselblad that I sold. Buy something cheap, he said. Make sure the money works. I ignored him. We walked around the mall. It's incredible, I told him. The colors were pastel muted. Like a dentistry. We had lunch instead of eating at home. He picked a meal and gave me his. I'm annoyed. Shocked. I'm choiceless, but didn't speak back. As I woke, an old wise woman told me, Your father is a level ten Chapusa, that will watch me, till the day I die. At first, it was a solace. But then I realized, will he watch me die? 17 At the car park He just finished work with his girlfriend his mother was tired she was tired on the chair we all walked towards the car park she's exhausted she spoke about the incoming HPV diseases Is it airborne? I asked She nodded He threw me the keys. I beeped the car —Mum's old Mazda 626 I waited for the kids to leave. I walked, climbed back up with them making jokes drinking partying having a good time the climb back up became scary vertiginous like rock climbing on sand sand with sculptures of a face precarious easy to slip off I asked for the ladder I was psychoanalyzing this young man he was getting somewhere very interesting at the last moment I asked him to come out of it and give me a hand in climbing I was terrified to slip away and fall from the precarious sand of faces we couldn't get through the last bit he needs to go through the hole to get back to the bar.