@anthonyscribbles
The night is cold when Julio steps outside; the mist kisses his lips as he walks to his car. It’s not a pretty car, nor a new one, but it’s got enough power to be fun. Julio opens the door, and sits behind the wheel. He turns on the engine, praying that his mom doesn’t wake up, and pulls out of the garage.
At the first red light, his phone rings: it’s Camila, his girlfriend of four years. Guiltily, Julio lets it ring, and when the traffic light turns green, he steps on the gas. Again, his phone lights up, but Julio doesn’t answer.
In fifteen minutes, he arrives at the last traffic light before the mountain that looms over the city. The light turns red, and asks Julio not to continue down this road, because he’ll find nothing more than danger on that mountain. But Julio doesn’t listen; he only waits until it turns green again. The light doesn’t want to, but it has a job to do, and when it finally changes color, watches with a saddened sigh as Julio’s car begins to scale the mountain.
Julio drives by the sight of innumerable trees, watching him with broken hearts; they know why he’s gone there. The rocks scream as he passes, and even the mist—who gave him a kiss upon leaving—tries to distract him with her body, but she only makes Julio speed up.
When he gets to the peak of the mountain, Julio looks at the lights of the city. From there, he can see his house, and Camila’s. He can see all his stories in that city: the park where he used to go with his mom, the lot where his dad taught him how to drive, the church where his sister was married, and the theater where he’d had his first date with Camila. His phone rings again. Julio takes it in his hand, looking at his girlfriend on the screen, and lets her fall in between the seats. From the floor of the car, he takes a bottle; where the mist had kissed him, the whiskey burns him. With the bottle empty, Julio revs the engine, and the sky begins to weep.
The clouds cry and sob, and as the rain falls harder, Julio drives faster. On one of the curves, the tires begin to slip, and through the next one, the whole car loses traction; Julio manages to control it, and keeps driving. Now, it’s not only the sky that weeps: the trees, the rocks, and even the mountain allows its tears to fall. But Julio pays them no mind; he just races down the road. His little car goes faster and faster, the motor screaming with all its might, and within Julio, the rhythm of his heart pounds like a wild drum. And for all the crying of the mountain, her earth begins to loosen, until just in front of the car, it slides completely. The mist notices first, and immediately moves from Julio’s sight, and in that moment, time comes to a halt, and the rain is suspended in the air.
An immense serpent, with two heads and thousands of eyes all over its emerald body, flying with the feathered wings of a white dove, opens its mouth. Showing fangs like broken glass, the snake launches itself towards Julio, who sits immobilized. Before the maw of the beast shuts over the car, a monolithic hand, with colors like the earth, grabs the serpent. Slowly, it squeezes until the eyes bulge out of their sockets with a screech. The beast tries to bite the hand, but another appears from the darkness and firmly grabs the monster’s head. The hands throw the serpent towards the sky, and the beast flies until it disappears among the clouds and the night.
Julio stays frozen with terror, waiting to see what the hands will do. When one of them reaches towards the car, Julio gets out screaming, the sound of the rain drowning his voice. Before Julio can get to the shelter of the trees, the other hand grabs him. Its touch is soft and delicate, but the skin is hard, as though the hands and arms of this giant were made of stone. “What are you doing, chiquitito?” The voice is like the thunder of cannon fire; Julio trembles upon hearing it. Looking to the source of the voice, he sees that the arms belong to the mountain itself, which has become a colossal woman. Trying to see her face, Julio points his gaze to the mountain’s summit, but the head is obscured in the mist.
“Why do you do this?” Seated in the hand, Julio doesn’t know what to think, nor how to respond. “Have you come to my mountain to kill yourself?” Julio doesn’t answer her. “But why?” The giant’s voice begins to shake. “I gave you all that I could: I gave you a home, a family…I gave you love. Why do you seek to meet that serpent?” The giant begins to cry with the sky. “I don’t know what to do with you anymore, chiquitito! What more can I give to satisfy you?” Julio wants to answer her, but the words don’t come; he opens his mouth, yet not a single sound passes his lips. A cascade of tears falls at his side, and the giant’s wailing makes a quaking of the Earth. The tears sweep him off the hand, and Julio falls from a great height. His scream blends with those of the giant, and when his head is at the point of splitting on the pavement, Julio finds himself in the seat of his car, with his hands on the wheel. The serpent is gone, and the woman has transformed into the mountain, but just in front of Julio’s car, the wall of mud and rock awaits him.
He takes a breath, and tightens his grip on the wheel. The teardrops of rain begin to fall again, and Julio places his foot on the brake.