March 11, 2005, 10:28 a.m. Miami

Absolutely nothing lasts forever.

If there ever was an absolute truth, that statement is probably it.

As I have mentioned countless times before, everything we know and take as a novelty now, for sure, has been experienced before. Everything. From the holy to the wicked, everything is a repetition. That’s why we keep records—be it in the form of history books, pictures, archives, or, in my case, journals. We do this so we can always go back and remember specific details of our past or just to tell our story; but most importantly, most of us do it so we can avoid making the same mistakes and be always prepared for the future.

History is the blueprint of mankind. Every next generation can improve and excel by taking advantage of past experiences. It is not a coincidence that the biggest catastrophes come to pass every time history is ignored.

I would never again underestimate those forces I don’t know.

*******

I’m in darkness, lost but not deaf, not dead. My senses awoke to the smell of flowers. I felt a weird sensation crawling up and down my leg, and I knew it was my blood circulation awakening too. I was not dead, but I was not Renzo anymore, which pretty much made me feel as if I had truly died. I felt cold and hot at the same time. I knew I had to open my eyes, but I didn’t have the strength. I wanted to stay here in the darkness with the smell of flowers, away from everything.

*******

1994, South Carolina

The little girl screamed in pain. She ran as fast as her legs allowed her. Dad was after her. His belt was wrapped around the fist of his right hand, while his left hand held a bottle of whiskey.

“Don’t you run, little shit! Don’t you run like your whore mother did!” he shouted.

I closed the bedroom door and hid behind my bed.

My body jumped after each blow delivered by my dad against the door. I heard him screaming names at me. I couldn’t stop crying. I moved to the farthest corner of the room, away from the door. I closed my eyes and prayed.

Pray?

This was not me. This was Erika. She was the one praying. She was the one crying, the one who was scared.

“Please take me away, please,” she whispered with intensity.

The door opened after her father had delivered a furious kick to it.

“I’ll rip your skin off!” he shouted.

I opened my eyes and watched in fear as he walked toward me.

“Please, please, take me away,” I prayed with desperation.

No, Erika said.

Dad swung down his belt, landing furious hits over and over on my head, shoulders, and back. I tried to cover my body, but my arms were not long enough for me to do so. He kept hitting me until I lost consciousness and fell to the floor.

*******

I walked slowly toward the sofa. Dad was deep asleep on it, snoring. I was holding a drawing I did for him. I did it this morning with some used crayons I found in my room and a torn leaf from Jacob’s notebook.

Maybe after he had seen my drawing, Dad would forgive me. He would know how much I loved him.

In my bare feet, I moved carefully on the carpet, careful not to make a sound. I stopped in front of him and put the paper on his chest. There were a couple of empty bottles next to him and a third on the floor.

I stepped back, creating space between us. I looked at the drawing I made for him: It was a picture of him and me at the park, and I was picking flowers.

Flowers?

The smell of the flowers was so intense.

*******

2002, South Carolina

I was on my bed next to . . . my boyfriend?

He was the local pastor’s only son. His dad thought I got close to him because I wanted to get closer to God. The only thing I got was the casual sex on the backseat of his car or in my room after school when Dad was not home. I also got cheap drugs. I often wondered how the pastor would have felt if he had found out that his only son was the school drug dealer and was bedding the daughter of the town loser almost daily.

We just had sex, and now we were doing each other with heroin. That was the closest I was going to get to any god. He drew out the needle from my arm, and I felt the heat and the sense of relaxation induced by the drug. Finally, I was at peace and away from my reality.

It was almost nighttime, but I didn’t care if Dad came back and found me naked next to him. I didn’t care anymore because he would defend me. I knew that because he was my man.

He caressed my hair and lay down next to me. I felt his body, and I wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes and let myself go in his arms. He kissed me on the forehead, and I felt I was in heaven. I could feel everything around me, his heartbeat and mine, the silence, and the distant wind. Then I felt numb from my spine up.

It was a familiar sensation.

“Here’s happiness,” the whispering voice said.

My eyes opened to the night, and I sat on my bed. I looked around and tried to identify its source. I felt the wind blowing through the window, and I knew that the voice was in it.

“Here’s joy.”

I couldn’t keep my eyelids open. I was completely drugged.

“Here’s love.”

“Dad, is that you?” I asked.

“No,” Erika asked.

“No, not him,” the voice replied.

“Jacob?” she persisted.

Her reply was silence.

“Am I dreaming?” Erika asked.

“You’re awake . . . for the first time . . . in a long time,” it said softly.

“What do you want?” she replied with a question of her own.

“You pray every night . . . you cry every night . . . ‘No more. No more,’” it answered.

Suddenly, the room was filled with a different smell, one that was good.

“Are you God?” Erika asked.

“I hope you can guess my name,” it said.

Erika’s brain tried to scramble between all the hallucinations and madness inside, but it was useless.

“I don’t know. Who are you?” we asked together.

“The one who always listens…” the voice whispered in one last breath.

“OK, then. I’ll call you Captain Flint,” she said.

The wind stopped, and I was alone in her room. But then it was not her room anymore; it was the bathtub. I felt a rubber band wrapped around my left arm, and I saw that I had in my right hand a syringe filled with the liquid venom.

I have been crying. I’m deeply saddened, so broken . . .

*******

December 2004, South Carolina

I smiled a silly smile at the night. I was almost lying in the bathtub filled with water.

The needle was deep in my arm, streaming a great amount of the drug into my system. I felt so sleepy, so tired.

“Soon, we will be together . . . forever,” the voice whispered calmly in my ears.

I cried without consolation as I pulled the needle out of my flesh.

“Good, little princess. No more pain, no more sorrow,” it whispered.

My eyes grew impossible heavy.

“Do you promise, Captain Flint?” she asked.

“I promise,” it answered.

My eyes closed, and my body went under the water. I felt the pressure building up behind my ears from the lack of air, the burning sensation inside my lungs, and the rapid beating of my heart; and after a minute, everything stopped.

*******

March 11, 2005, 2:35 p.m. Miami

My eyes opened to the light of the day, and I heard my new female voice screaming. I felt the tight grip of two hands trying to keep me down against the bed. I struggled until I saw Frank’s eyes staring down at me.

“Don’t move like that, or you’re going to reopen the wounds,” he said.

My eyes saw him, but my mind was all messed up. I didn’t know where or who I was.

“Dad?” I asked.

The old man’s expression was priceless.

I took several deep breaths, and the oxygen helped me focus.

“Is that you, old man?” I finally asked.

A smile slowly spread across the old man’s face.

“For fuck’s sake, Gitano, for a moment there, I thought I had taken the wrong body,” he said.

My body was waking up, and with the waking came the awareness of pain. I must have winced because the old man knew how I was feeling. I tried to sit down, but my abdominal area advised me not to do it.

“Better stay still. This new body of yours has taken quite a punishment,” Frank said.

I fell back on the bed, defeated.

“I don’t remember anything after I called you,” I said.

The old man walked to the table next to the bed and grabbed a syringe, a tiny clear bottle with generic medication in it, and a bottle of alcohol.

“I arrived at the cafeteria when they were taking you to the hospital,” he said.

The old man returned to the bed and sat down next to me. He cleaned my arm using a clean cloth soaked in alcohol.

“Then I had to kidnap you from the intensive care unit,” he confessed.

I couldn’t help but chuckle, and it hurt to do so.

I watched as the old man extracted several cc’s of medication from the tiny bottle into the syringe. Then he took my hand, found a vein, and injected me.

“Yeah, I bet that sounds funny to you,” he said without taking his eyes off what he was doing.

I felt the liquid enter my vein. It felt like I was reliving my fevered dreams.

“What’s that?” I asked, pretending I was not bothered by his actions.

He got up, threw away the syringe, and returned the tiny bottle to the table.

“Just good old morphine,” he said bluntly.

I closed my eyes after feeling the drug’s initial kick.

“Oh yes! I feel it now,” I said, deep in the pleasure of relief.

The old man turned and looked at me.

“What are you going to do now?” he asked.

I opened my eyes again and looked out the window.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Almost three o’clock,” Frank said.

Again, I did my best to sit down on the bed, but the pain made me scream.

“What are you doing? Damn it! I told you to stay still!” the old man shouted.

I tried one more time, and this time, I made it. I knew that was the easy part. Now I just needed to stand up.

I shifted my body and used my arms to move my legs out of the bed. I knew I couldn’t do it without help.

“Don’t stand there, old man. Help me!” I demanded, looking at Frank.

The old man took my hand and, with difficulty, helped me to stand. Once I was on my feet, everything went black for a second. I had to breathe deeply and slowly to regain my posture. Frank looked at me coldly. I looked back at him, not minding the copious drops of sweat all over my face. I felt as though I was floating, thanks to the morphine.

“Take me outside,” I said, wanting to lead but not having enough strength to do so.

Frank took me gently by the arm and walked beside me. I felt my heartbeat accelerating, but it was not because of the grip of death or the fever; rather, it was because of the exposure of my body to the sun rays outside.

Everything was mental. I knew that it wouldn’t hurt me, but my experience was getting the best of me.

Everything in me was asking my legs to stop, but I couldn’t. I needed to expose myself to the sun.

Everything would be worth it if I could only be under the might of Ra again.

Ra, the ancient god of the Egyptians, older and mightier than all the Christs, Joseph Smiths, Buddhas, Kalis, Wotans, Zeuses, and Jupiters put together. Only Ra was the creator of other gods, the creator of life itself; and you better believe when I say that for centuries, the most powerful civilization of men worshiped him. As respected as the actual ruling religions of the world could be, they can’t compare to the faith that was devoted to Ra during Egypt’s Fifth Dynasty.

I stepped outside and felt the sun’s rays on my skin. Its warmth was overwhelming—beyond my expectations, beyond any recollection or memories. Though I knew I couldn’t, I tried to look up anyway. My eyes grew teary, and I couldn’t stop smiling. A single tear ran down my face. I closed my eyes and raised my head, letting the sun bathe all of me.

The sharp pain in my torso was no longer important; nor was the loss of blood. I had been bleeding since I stood up, and the old man was aware of this.

“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out.

I heard him; but instead of heading back inside, I just smiled and stayed where I was.

“You hear me? Your wounds are open again,” he insisted.

Everything ends, from the mighty gods of old to the new. Everything will cease to be.

“It is all right” I said softly.

“We have to lay you down,” he insisted.

“Just a few moments more. Just a bit longer,” I whispered.

I opened my eyes and looked both to the east and west, falling in love with the illusion of blue as the sky’s true color. I was thoroughly under its spell.

I looked at the flowers and remembered their smell.

I gave them my biggest smile, forgetting every wound, humiliation, or near-death moments.

I was alive and seduced by something every mortal takes for granted. I was being embraced by the might of old, by the ruling god of the times of Exois. My consciousness was still that of a vampire enjoying a warm kiss from Ra.

Everything ends. There is perhaps no other truth but that one; and in that moment, I knew that my existence had to continue. It was because of this notion that I finally turned and walked back inside of the house—but by my own, leaving the sun and my desire for mortality behind me, possibly forever.