WARNING: *MENTION OF WAR AND CONFLICT*

His trembling hands opened the door, where he found the room where he lost his innocence.  The wall’s plaster drooped down to the floor exposing the bricks and gadua foundations as if still mourning the loss of this  virtue. He could still remember his own mother, her willowish figure and soft obsidian eyes, looking down at him from the doorway while he was playing with his wooden yoyo. The same one that laid on the floor, chipped and broken. 

It wasn’t always like that, Nestor remembered when he had gotten it. It was before the roads up to the cities and the neighbouring veredas had been closed down by the men of the village. It was before his village had chosen to follow the marksman, a military leader that had brought them under the cover of red blindfolds. The same vermillion colour that painted his house, after the army had breached through the makeshift trenches his neighbours had built around the village. The same blindfolds were put over his father’s eyes as he faced execution. 

They were once farmers who earned as much  as they harvested, people that had lived off the land since time immemorial. Their lands might have been taken and their dignity stolen and their identity repossessed. Nonetheless,  they had always resided on the same land. It was a beautiful land of evergreen forests that adorned the landscape. A natural tapestry that had been formed over the years woven by God himself. At first, the people planted corn in terraces, pulled out roots of yuca and picked guava from the branch. Afterwards, they harvested coffee aided by stubborn donkeys while also breeding cattle and poultry. 

Nowadays, under his watch, they cultivated crops that were once sacred to their ancestors. Crops that had now been defiled and violated. All for the profitable goal to give cowards the strength to steal and the privileged foreigners to indulge in a hallucinogenic pleasure. 

Though it wasn’t always like that, when he was young, the humid smell that flushed the valley, the ever sleek wind that flowed through the high reaching peaks. It brought him a sense of warmth and calm. One stronger  that any impudent gringo could ever hope to feel when snorting their harvest. 

It was the smell of familiarity, of belonging, of love if you could very well call it that. It was something that made him whole. His land, his home, his people. Which is why he didn’t feel much grief when he buried his father, rather he felt proud of him. He had been inspired by him, the man who rallied the whole valley to protect themselves from unrest that swept the country and continued to bring cities down to rubble.

 He remembered his words, the words he had said to his brother and him before he left for the front lines: “Wether the dogs of those conservative swines who have sold the country off as well as our lives or those war hawks from the north that expect us to be their slaves,” his father declared“I’ll fight them with hearth and soul, with body and spirit. All to protect our livelihood, our land, our family.” 

For him his father was his entire world, the path he wanted to follow, the sound he wanted to mimic. As such, as a young boy, he still remembers how he gently placed his favourite toy in his father’s hands, “If you get bored,” he shily said. 

In many ways it was poetic. The way things ended how they began. He had been handed that yoyo, moments later after he had been born. That year’s harvest had been bountiful and the city had just returned to a sense of calm, his grandparents had begged the father to take their daughter up to a good hospital, all so that she wouldn’t die from having her fifth child. He had bought it from a street vendor, an old man whose home, which coincidentally was also his shop, had been burned down during the Great Violence and now he made his living selling what little he had saved. 

Much to the annoyance of the doctor and the worrying of the nurses, Nestor tried to swallow the wooden toy. Just then he noticed how my eyes wandered around the room, those little obsidian trying to find the source of a new sound, the voices of more people. People other than the one who had given birth, other than the one that pulled him out the back door, and other than the ever worrying nurses that doted on him. 

“Jefe, we need to leave, those meddling gringos are coming all the way down here, we can’t be found here they’re monsters,” 

Much to the annoyance of the doctor and worrying of the nurses, they left as soon as they could. They were lucky enough to enlist the help of a young intern that wanted to do some charity work who left with them during her summer break. It was a trip he much enjoyed, his eyes wandering like a traveller over the verdant landscape, he learned to walk as soon as he got to the entrance of the house. In this manner, he earned his name Nestor, “The one who returns from travels,”. 

He travelled the hills and forests, jumped through the brooks and the ditches with one of his older brothers Mesias. It was one of those days, when they got back and entered the house through the backdoor, they knew they shouldn't have come back.. They heard their father, amidst the loud sound of profanities being yelled and the muffled sound of their mom’s desperate sobbing, the whimpering of their siblings, the disheartening pleas of his father. That was when it dawned on them that they should’ve left as soon as they got in. 

Just then, a soldier grabbed the young boy by the neck with his right arm. The same arm, which minutes later, was pierced by the awful sting of a bullet. One of his Father’s men had lended Mesias a revolver, “Just to be safe, take this, it’ll be useful,”. While writhing in pain he called to his compatriots, “Catch them, catch them, catch those little bastards,”. Before he could even notice the gun in his brother’s hand, Nestor was pushed down the back door by his brother.

“Run,”

Maybe I should’ve headed to the mountains, he thought to himself at the window. It had been broken by looters. From the same window, he looked into the house, moments after being kicked out by his brother.  Inside, in a line, stood all of his siblings along as his father, his mother nowhere to be seen. All of them being held at gunpoint by the soldiers. Instead of heading for the hills, to run somewhere safe, he decided to stay with his family. That was something his father would’ve been proud of. Then again, he always yelled at him when he caught a glimpse of him crying. 

The man, whose pride had been to be the protector of the land they lived in, was brought to his knees. He could barely hear what was happening. If only they had a mediocre carpenter install the window frame. Then, perhaps, he could’ve heard what his father was saying to his brother. The agonising choice that Mesias had to make. He saw what he thought was the colonel, or the general. How he shook his brother, how he put the rifle in his hand and pointed at their father then at the rest of his siblings.

If I had only forgiven him, if I had listened to what he had to say. 

It was after he saw his father being shot, that one of his younger neighbours found Nestor. They both left toward the river, seeing as the whole village seemed to be regrouping there. 

After Mesias’s father had been put out of his misery, he was taken away by a convoy along with his sister and his mother. As far as he knew the rest of his siblings were killed by the terrorists which their father was associated with. Their bodies weren’t recovered. The young man swore revenge, promising to end whatever remained of the enclave they had once lived at. Meanwhile, hoping to reunite with his brother and save him from those demons.

These promises, childish as they were, led him and his squadron towards the ruins of his old home. They were hoping to capture one of the leaders behind the guerilla forces that kept backing up a dangerous criminal. They had collaborated with him, exchanging their lands to grow his crops, for money to keep killing soldiers, many of whom had enlisted for the obligatory military service. A service required for all able bodied men of the nation. How many mothers had not lost their children, both to the infamous Baron’s bombs or lost them, having been kidnapped by armed groups, forced to join their ranks. 

Mesias crept up behind him, the man behind all of the bloodshed, finger on the trigger. Just before seeing the face of the man standing in front of him, his brother, his younger brother, the one who he thought to have been kidnapped. He smiled at him, he was smiling, he was smiling. 

“Thank God! Nestor, come one we have to leave now, … I can’t believe this after all these years  I found … what are … oh … oh no,”

“So, he really thought they’d all be spared if he shot down his father ?” Nestor asked, dumbfounded by this sudden revelation. 

“Pretty much,”

“Then why did he kill our brothers, your uncles, that wasn’t the deal!”

“You see, when my old man fought back and shot the private. He piqued the interest of that old bastard. In fact, he even said this before his trial when grandma confronted him ‘He’s a great fighter. He managed to injure one of my best men. I knew he’d end up becoming a soldier, matter was, who would he fight for. If I wanted to keep him close, I had to make sure he’d be alienated from the enemy. I mean, what better motivation than revenge?’. The bastard even had the balls to let out a smile,” The young man loaded the gun, “What were his final words?” he asked.

“He said that ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you, just know that …’” he choked on his tears “‘That I love you and I’ …‘I hope you forgive me’, that’s the last thing he said,”. Nestor cleared up his throat and picked up the old yo-yo. He was surprised why the soldiers didn’t break it, those miserable excuses for human beings would’ve done it for fun. Who did his father hide it from them, even yet how did it wind up back here. He looked back and offered it to the young man saying: “I forgave your father for taking away my dad, right as he drew his last breath. I hope you’ll be able one of these days to forgive me for doing the same.” He kneeled down, “Take it, as a gift,”. 

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll mention it once again, how things begin as they end and the poetry behind it. That old toy, that managed to survive half a century of war and conflict, just to be received by a child once again. As if it had a memory of its own, wanting to purge itself from all the pain it had seen. To forgive and move forward, to feel loved and at peace. Forge memories of happiness and innocence rather than bring only being a painful reminder of the mistakes that cost the lives of many. In the end, it was passed down to a happy young girl, whose first reaction was to try and swallow it after receiving it. She played with it for many years until she left the country, she handed it to father “If you ever feel lonely,”. When she got back, for her father’s funeral, she remembered her dad, teaching her how to play with it. 

“You know, this is a family heirloom, it was passed down to me by my uncle, it was passed down to him by your great-grandfather,”  he explained “You see they were born up in the mountains …”