Americo Prakak Free of Torments (eBook)

I

HEAVY RUST

Bleeding to death... that’s how the man fell at his feet. Apparently, the sharp object had pierced him lethally. Death in a chariot announced its arrival. At the intersection of the traffic light on the boulevard, a crowd of people approached the wrecked car that had possibly collided with a pole or rammed into a pedestrian. Although those details were not relevant at the time, what was striking and inexplicable was how no one had yet approached the fenestrated man lying on the ground, perhaps due to the commotion caused by the shocking accident that had occurred a few moments ago.

The man was still in agony without understanding what was happening around him. Unable to utter a word, he only saw the man standing next to him and looked him in the eyes. With his gaze he sent him a questioning look, as if he wanted to understand the event. Without answering, the man in the blue jacket and hood just smiled and in his Machiavellian eyes was drawn the image of something similar to complacency. In his pupils there was simply a cold look. Without a glimpse that something of that sort would happen, after touching his chest, the fallen man extended his bloody hand, and making an effort to reach the leg of the rammer, he tried to get up. But all was fruitless and illusory. The man did not have the strength to do so. The thing he managed to do was to leave the imprint of his blood on those puerile pants at the level of the long finger extensor. With celerity, the man in blue stepped on the dying man’s foot and made his hand crash against the cement.

This man definitely had no compassion for others. After a few seconds, the belligerent squatted down to check for a pulse with his right hand while with his left hand he moved the rust-eaten knife that shattered the ventricles of a barely beating heart. Without hesitation he searched for something of value inside the front pockets of the moribund’s pants; however, the dying man had empty pockets, as empty as the pleading hands of a beggar from Burundi. Then, the man in blue removed the wallet from the pockets and began to pull out a couple of high and low denomination bills. The poor man was not carrying a large amount of money due to his poverty.

He still pulled out the bills, scattered them around him, left the wallet exposed, and took the INE (National Electoral Institute) identification which was inside and placed it near the dying man’s genitals. Suspiciously, this time he put his hand in his own pants pocket as if looking for something inside, then pulled out his hands and patted the dying man on the shoulder. Abruptly, without any obfuscation he withdrew, while the strange, dark complected, and short heighted man died on the frigid and indifferent sidewalk, in a gloomy neighborhood where everything was dirty and abject.

In the meantime, the man, covering his identity with the hood of his blue jacket, left the scene, while another disturbed man crossing the street watched him. Inopportunely, a bystander noticed the injured man, and with shrill cries, called the attention of passersby who approached to help the injured man. However, everything was hollow, in vain, and the single thing discernable was that this man, at the moment of taking his last look at this world, had only pain and doubt left in his sight. Luis Chavez, a medical intern on his way to work, approached and realized this man was already dead. A crowd of people quickly gathered and began to surround the body as if they were to witness the performance of some street artist. The medical intern closed the eyes of the deceased and lifted a bloody article, which lay on the ground next to him. He said:

“This identification may belong to the man who just died. The deceased’s name was Ame” while squinting his eyes, he could not distinguish if the letter was an “a” or an “e”, so the man paused to put on his glasses and at the same time to clean the undissipated blood, which continued to cover the general information and made it impossible for him to read it out loud.

Upon hearing that the man was dead, murmurings began to grow, and at the same time, looks of astonishment increased faster than the sensory magic beads that usually swell upon contact with water. Meanwhile, on the next street and without looking back, the tyrannical man threw away the hospital gloves he had taken off his hands and ran without stopping even to catch his breath, which he gradually lost. After running for a while, the man decided to stop in front of a small grocery store because his mouth was dry. He searched his pants pockets for some coins, but soon realized he had nothing. The only thing his pants had were a couple of old holes from where everything vanished. With no choice he kept walking, and as soon as he glimpsed the nearest church, he headed for it. Just at the entrance, the sun’s rays illuminated his face, revealing once and for all his identity. No one else could be him, only him: Américo Prakak.

Without uncovering his head, he rushed in, looking for any source to quench his thirst, but finding nothing, he chose to drink a little of the holy water which was in a container near the altar. Only he knew what was going through his mind, only he and no one else. By drinking the liquid, the fugitive satisfied not only his thirst with the consecrated water, but also perhaps he imagined this water cleansing the atrocious sin which hours before he had committed on the secluded road. Taking advantage of the fact that the amount of water was vast, he chose to wash his hands to clean the dried blood still impregnated on his skin. An elderly parishioner watching him in total shock stared at him; however, he blasphemously winked at her and seductively bit his lip, alluding to desire and conveying a sign of mockery and impertinence. The elderly lady simply prayed in silence and covered her head with the black mantilla veil she wore. When he passed close to her, he leaned near to her ear and said:

“Baby, you are so hot!” Blowing her a kiss in the air and then bursting into laughter without caring where he was.

The old woman simply closed her eyes and began to pray while Américo Prakak walked towards the entrance.

After a slight rest obtained on one of the backbenches of the oratory, he got up and went to the metal alms-boxes stuck to the floor, thinking it was his only chance to steal something. He did not succeed, as only a small amount of coins at the bottom could be seen through the tiny slot, which were impossible to obtain. A few seconds passed before he realized it was a failed attempt. He left the temple and walked towards the city’s outskirts, but not before throwing something he took out of his back pocket into a trashcan. Was it the stabbing weapon that compromised him? Or was it one of his few belongings and trinkets he owned? No, it was something printed. The only thing left to consider was that the arduously drafted indications for emancipation or prison had been written on that paper. All was uncertainty. He alone knew what he had discreetly discarded. After traveling along several avenues, he approached the suburbs of the big city. Fortunately for him, the distance was already short, and his destination could be seen.

A few minutes later, Américo Prakak arrived at a poor neighborhood. It seemed like he was heading to a compound. However, he turned around and turned back, staying about two blocks away from the place. Then he sat down on the sidewalk and began to watch as the afternoon fell over the filth-soaked houses in the neighborhood long forgotten by ostentation. Suddenly he took out his phone, dialed, and heard the ringing tone on the horn. Seconds later, the call connected.

“It was relatively easy, wasn’t it? I’ll wait for you here; and you have five minutes to get here” said Américo Prakak, the man with a blue jacket and a hood on his head whose identity had only just been revealed.

“But that wasn’t in the plan. So what happened?” Asked a man’s voice on the other end of the line.

Evidently, the communication was not the best, or the signal was almost out of range. However, after several seconds, Américo answered:

“Of course, it didn’t happen the way we thought it would! But, sometimes it is necessary to improvise, although there is nothing to worry about, everything will continue as planned. I’ll wait for you here, you already know the location, and I hope you will have memorized what I asked you to do when you arrive. You’re in for a long night.” Américo Prakak let slip an evil-sounding laugh.

The call was disconnected due to the lack of signal.

In that part of the city, at the Orilla de Tulipanes public hospital, very close to where the events occurred, Yuridia Grajeda, a nurse, was running desperately looking for the doctor in charge. In her haste, she suddenly ran into a doctor and asked:

“Doctor, are you new in the ER? We need to find the doctor on duty, I think it’s Dr. Ingrid Ondiviela, have you seen her in any of the corridors? We need to find her. We have an emergency.”

The man of medium height with large, bright eyes and a white complexion answered:

“No, I work in the adjoining ward; maybe that’s why I don’t look familiar to you. I am a psychiatrist” he said while looking at the badge trying to read the nurse’s name, “and no Yuridia, I have not seen the doctor on duty, so perhaps the best thing to do would be to...