Waiting for water

Eliseo couldn’t pay his taxes. He was a shoemaker in a city whose laws changed faster than people changed their shoes. Now he owed money that he couldn’t pay, and soon the authorities would come to arrest him.

“We have to go away from here, to a safe place,” he told his wife, “where they can’t find me.”

His wife, Lina, said, “I dreamed of dragonflies again. They said we could follow them. They know the place where fresh water runs through the jungle. We’ll stay there until it’s safe to return.”

Their sons, Mateo and Santiago, had to leave their schools, where they had been praised for their talent. Both had won literature competitions. Now they carried sacks with their books through the jungle, guided by the dragonflies. They pretended their tears were sweat. They didn’t want their father to feel guilty. At night, they quietly recited poems to each other.

The family walked for many days and nights, following the rattle of the wings, until they were completely lost. They couldn’t go back now even if they changed their minds.

One day, another noise cut through the familiar rattle. Nearby curving and splashing freshwater was hitting rocks. At last, they arrived. The clearing next to the river would become their home.

They made bricks from mud near the river and dried them in the sun. They cut bamboo canes to build the walls. They collected seeds and sprouts, and planted them around their new home.

Lina didn’t work. She spent her days sitting by the river, talking to the dragonflies. She said they were singing prayers for her with their wings:

“So that we can all return to the city,” she whispered.

“We will return,” her husband said. “When it’s the right time.”

One night, Lina woke up crying. In her dream, a dragonfly had told her that her daughter must be given to the river and carried to the sky so that the family could return. A torrential rain would come and take the girl away. Only this way the family could return. Lina should not intervene.

Eliseo laughed.

“But we don’t even have a daughter!” he said.

A year later, Anna was born. They placed her near an open window so she would soak in the jungle air. A dragonfly landed on her forehead and wouldn’t leave.

Anna grew up different from her brothers.

“She’s a true child of the jungle,” her father said as Anna played with dragonflies near the river. The next moment she caught a mosquito and fed it to a dragonfly.

“She’s the jungle,” her brothers said.

Anna refused to sleep indoors. She slept in a cradle made of leaves and spiderwebs.

There was another odd thing about her: objects floated around her. Feathers, bark, blades of grass would rise and spin around her, as if the wind was carrying them. Only, there was no wind. Anna just laughed and gave them little taps with her finger.

She barely spoke as she had no one to talk to. Her mother spent her days deep in the jungle, begging the dragonflies to change the destiny. Her father and brothers worked tirelessly on the house and garden. Once, Eliseo found the brothers writing a poem with sticks on the fresh mud of the exterior wall. The boys erased the poem and never mentioned it again.

The day Lina saw the purple clouds peek through the tree tops, she tied Anna to the roof of the house. When she was done, she ran into the jungle to search for any dragonflies she hadn’t yet pleaded with.

The rain arrived like a deafening wall of white water. The river became a furious sea of mud. It lifted the house like a leaf and dragged it downstream, with Anna still tied to the roof. Eliseo and the boys climbed over the overturned furniture and managed to reach the shore.

The rain ceased as abruptly as it had started. The air became bright and silent. The boys sat quietly, listening to the hum in their ears and blinking at the golden light. Then everyone heard the beating of wings.

From above, Anna floated towards them, surrounded by a cloud of dragonflies. Behind her, their house swayed through the air like a balloon tied to a string. Anna landed softly on the still wet shore and motioned to her brothers. The boys rose into the air, like feathers. They floated towards the house together with leaves and dragonflies.

They screamed and gestured at something in the distance. There, for the first time in many years, they saw the jagged line on the horizon. It was their city that awaited them.

Below them, the jungle was growing smaller, keeping those who were meant to stay.