Category: Tall Tales
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Big Men (X)
<= One day, as we’re baking in our cells, Silvio does the unexpected and asks me a question. “Why were you going to Esmeralda?” I am laying on my back in the corner of the cell that doesn’t have a sun beam blasting through it. The floor is cooler but not by much. After the […]
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Big Men (8)
<= I had spoken with command in my voice to a Senor of a noble house. Me, a potter’s son. People have been whipped and jailed for less, but there I was doing exactly that. Somehow I have the audacity to continue, my mouth running before I have a chance to stop it. “These […]
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Big Men (7)
<= “Mizumaru, no!” the woman screams. “Men, take him down,” Zapata commands. “Papi!” the girl with the golden eyes screams. I watch the scene unfold as if I am many legs away, but it is right in front of me. I watch a man furious enough to silence the whispers of death in his […]
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Big Men (6)
<= My eyes are open, have been for some time, but only now do I realize that I am awake. Men, women, familias are snoring all around me. I make my way outside. It is dark, but the moon is out and it is full and I can see enough to navigate to the […]
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Big Men (V)
<= While we wait for the crowd to thread through intersecting roads, I see a man sitting on a rug threatening to eat a glass bulb. It is a curious sight and I stare more than I intend to. After a minute of this he actually does eat the glass and falls over dead, much to […]
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Big Men (4)
<= It takes over two months to get to Sanhles. Our journey is punishing; over land, through desert, round the Gulf of Meycali past the fishing towns, avoiding the ruins of San Dieghuana. One of Silvio’s three pack yamas dies and so I am made to carry some of his spoils. If I missed […]
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Big Men (3)
<= “I have no weapon,” I say, kicking myself when I realize I shouldn’t have said that. He has what looks like a hunting bow, turned on its side with a rifle butt stuck on the end. And I have nothing. “I can see that,” the man says. “What are you doing out here?” […]
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Big Men (2)
<= The denial is first. I can’t possibly be lost. This has to be a dream. Just over that hill is a camp, a road, a caravan train. Something. Anything. Instead there is more desert. More dunes. Not a soul to be seen no matter where I look. I am angry now. Those traitorous, […]
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Big Men (1)
Do you want to hear a story? Then come, sit, make yourself warm and I will tell you the one I know best. Sear Rodrigo called for me in the night as he lay on his deathbed. He was a traveling hermit, old and wizened, who told wonderful stories about people, places and events that happened […]