"Coup De Noche" by Isaiah Acevedo

Coup De Noche 

by Isaiah Acevedo 

Ever since the regime change, Diego wasn’t allowed out at night. Militias patrolled the streets and had forces in and surrounding the city. When the coup took place, Diego was climbing thick kapok trees and harvesting their cotton for his mamá. Parrots screamed when the gunfire shredded the peaceful sounds of snoring jaguars and humming horseflies. He was a boy, and to him, cenotes were wonderful deep clear pools that fissured into the earth. He had swum in so many and spent much of the humid season floating in them. He watched a wounded soldier trip and fall in his favorite cenote. The clear water browned with blood. He quickly ran home barefoot. 

A boy took in the violence and chaos of the revolution. Bodies littered the streets like slaughtered cattle. Fires claimed homes and acres of rolling greenery. Camo jeeps ran over citizens and policía fought militias in a series of unorganized battles. Foreign powers funded the terror and installed a dictator they could control. Transitions of power are never peaceful. Diego and his mamá hid in their home. They waited out the transition until the country became unrecognizable. 

One of the biggest changes was the curfew. Forbid a man or woman get caught in the darkness. The jaguars, anacondas, and caimans were the usual beasts that made the night so dangerous. Now the citizens had to think about a new type of creature that prowled their country. The militias, having become integrated as military and army under the new dictatorship, were things with knives, bullets, and targeting systems. It went on like this for a while.

Night after night, as the currency lost its value and the grocery store shelves didn’t get restocked, the curfew only became bleaker. Diego longed for the days of playing in the forest. He wanted to wander the void after sundown and explore the new dynamic. His mamá forbade it. Don’t ever go outside after dark! They will get you boy! She reinforced a great deal of times. No matter if he knew the dangers—he had seen the violence and heard of his neighbors being kidnapped—Diego still dreamt of walking in the darkness. He would see stars and lights and hear the unpolluted rattle of cicadas in the fresh breeze. 

Maybe all boys are meant to go against the rules of their elders—this behavior is unclear. After mamá and he fell asleep to the empty pain in their stomachs, he slipped out of her bony arms and walked out. Like a feeble rabbit who twitches its nose in curiosity, he carefully hid in bushes and stalked behind debris. The militias made their rounds. He thought their vehicles were broken, that their bumpers and mufflers were dragging. He held his breath when he realized they dragged necrotic and gnarly bodies from their jeeps and trucks. Spotlights shone over compact patches of grass. Diego crouched and scaly skin slid around his feet. He did not move. Motor oil and dead animal smell trickled as the militias passed him. He started to move further when he stepped on a shard of broken glass. He cried in pain and screeched silently. Diego hobbled back home. He slid back into his mother’s arms and waited for the ache to go away. 

When we woke up, his mother did not. He put his ear to her emaciated ribs and kicked at her varicose legs. Diego wept as much as a boy could. His sockets bulged with irritation and his head inflated, then popped with grief. In his grief, he pulled the shard out of his foot and used bullet ant pincers to close the wound. He used a wheelbarrow to haul his mamá into the depths of the forest. He dumped her into the cenote and sat there until nightfall. In the wet and dark scenery, his remorse did not die down. He had to do something. He couldn’t just whimper.

So he closed the distance between him and the militias. Now a rider of the darkness, he did not crouch or fear; he galloped like a predator who smelt the hormones of prey in the air. Their convoys would be circling the streets soon, and Diego had the advantage of surprise. The spotlights grew closer. Their Western language was clearer. Diego readied his attacks. He leaped out of the thorny bushes and charged them. He pounded on their reinforced vehicles and sobbed all over himself. Their guns aimed at him. They considered this animal to be a little boy. They laughed and congratulated the boy on his bravery. Strangely, they took pity on him. 

Diego kept sobbing. 

They used their radios to signal to their leaders of the discovery. Diego was on autopilot and couldn’t comprehend everything. His skull tremored. It happened so fast. His mamá became a sunken memory. He broke with confusion and anger, mostly tears. He didn’t realize he was wrapped in a blanket and being hauled back to base. He forgot these men were invaders—foreign conquerors. 

Then he would soon forget what it was like to be hungry when they fed him. He would grow healthier by the days. And one day, not today, but in the far future, Diego would forget about this night. He would forget the pain and let his trauma burrow a hollow core. He would grow up and be raised by these kinds of men and their politics. He would be a mammal influenced by its environment. He would be tasked with simple aggressions that would escalate into casual oppression, then culminate in murder. His livelihood would revolve around the government and its injustices. The land would no longer welcome him. And one day, not today, he would forget everything that the darkness had stolen from him. How it had claimed him. And how it would be impossible to distinguish the boy from the monster, because, as Diego would learn, everything looks the same in the dark.