Toni, Coltor, and the Comet: Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Identical Particles: Heraldo

Age recommended to read: 13+ (mature themes, strong language)

The evening breeze glides over the wet parts of the sixty-five-year old man’s naked body and carries water droplets to the Earth as he walks barefoot towards the grass field. Tonight was the fifty fifth anniversary of his mother's passing, and the best way for Heraldo Espinoza to release his mind was by swimming naked in the ocean. And it couldn’t be just any body of water in Costa Rica, it needed to be this section of the North Pacific Ocean bordering the Acosta Azucar sugar factory in El Puerto. Heraldo couldn’t explain it, but something about El Puerto felt alive to him. The moon was always brighter, the waves more responsive to her motherly calls, and the energy of the factory always felt oddly familiar.

He pushes his feet deeper into the sharp pieces of grass, then shakes his wrist quickly to dry off. The wind is starting to rise, and he can feel his penis shriveling up from the cold. He looks down at his sad, flaccid penis, and starts to reminisce on the days when women were lining up just for a chance to tame it. He smiles at it, then looks around at the grassfield in front of the factory, with both hands on his hips.  The confidence of a commodore never truly leaves. Heraldo closes his eyes, listens to the mellow roar of the ocean, and breathes in the pungent rotten egg smell floating in the air.

“Ah!” he shouts, stretching his chubby arms into a T-shape.

Stray whoops and hollers from some tourists with cameras break his meditation, but Heraldo waves them off with a smile. Guys like these always react to him in this way, nothing new, but something new does catch his eye. For the first time in his three years of swimming here; he spots a woman. 

She has close-cropped curly black hair and is hunched over in a ball with her hands over her face while her belongings are spread out in front of her unzipped backpack. Heraldo can’t tell if she’s beautiful from where he stands, so he decides to take a closer look at the thin woman in the shrimp-like position. He smiles to himself as he walks closer to her, drunkenly unconcerned with his naked state. He stops just shy of two meters from the young woman and yells, “Hello pretty lady!” he stumbles toward her, “First time in El Puerto?”

He feels the beer in his system starting to lose its kick and fade into a dull buzz that circles his forehead. He rubs his eyes, then takes another step towards her. The young woman turns her body to the right, slightly showing him her back, causing the little vertebrae of her spine to poke through her white tank top. He smiles at the sight. How skinny! He continues his unbalanced trek, tripping over uneven patches of grass and raised rocks; never losing sight of the skinny woman. 

“Are you afraid my love,” he yells in Spanish, “My dear, I’m a lover! I’m only here for love and nothing more.”

The palm trees sway in unison with the evening wind, carrying his words to the young woman hunched on the grass.

She starts to fold the legs of her telescope with her back turned and begins to quickly pull her journals into her backpack. Is she ignoring me? Does she not know I’m  El Commodore? Heraldo feels heat flaring up his cheeks, and deep-seated anger rising in his chest. He quickens his pace towards the woman, stopping just shy of a meter in front of her. 

“I’m El Commodore of this port, do you understand, woman?”

“Mhm,” she slowly nods while tucking her belongings into her backpack. 

“Hey!” he steps closer to her, his dry hands cupping his hips, “This is my port!”

The orange glow of sunset bounces off her olive-toned skin, causing a subtle radiance to emanate from the young woman. Her gray camping backpack is only partially zipped, and her back is still turned to the old man.

“Why won’t you look at me when I speak to you?” Heraldo says, vowels slurring.

“Jesus Christ,” she mumbles while continuing to face the other way.

“What,” he says walking around in a half-circle to catch a glimpse of her face. The man lets out a stray belch, a guttural sound from the center of his stomach, and scratches his bald head. He steps closer to Toni and looks intently at her slender yet tall frame. 

“Do we know each other?”  he asks.

“How could we possibly know each other?” she responds dryly.

He nods in agreement, but something about Toni’s disposition reminds Heraldo of someone, but he can’t quite place who. He steps towards her to get a closer look. She turns her body in the grass again, now completely facing the Acosta Azucar Sugar factory and away from the ocean. Little beads of sweat pool at the base of her neck and drip down her shoulders as her jaw clenches.

“Get away from me, while I’m still being nice,” she says through grit teeth. The old man takes a step back and scoffs at her. 

“What are you going to do? Beat my ass?” he says laughing.  

A macaw calls once. Toni turns around.

“I just might,” she says with eyes glaring deeply into his. 

The old man swallows and slowly steps back while cupping his fat hands over his loins. He couldn’t understand why, but he felt ashamed for the first time in his life about being naked. Suddenly, a surge of remembrance flashes across his awareness and lands on the young woman. Her deeply olive skin, long yet toned legs, curly black pixie cut, five foot ten frame with delicate shoulders, full lips, and large honey brown eyes.  

My mother! This girl is the spitting image of my late mother!

Heraldo's eyelids start to feel heavy, and the beer in his stomach starts to slosh around in time with the tides. He stumbles back, and tries to catch himself, but only ends up falling on his butt. 

Heraldo shakes his head. The air around him feels dense, and the acrid smell of the ocean is starting to sting his nose. He places his left hand over his nose, and the other over his exposed lower half. The sun falls another meter, casting a bluish darkness over the lot.

“No, no,” he whispers. 

“If you’re going to whip your dick out in front of people, shouldn’t it at least be bigger than that?” she says coldly.

Maybe he was just seeing things. How could a woman he’d never met be the spitting image of his mother when she was in her twenties?  Like fire, the intensity of her gaze penetrates his center and causes an involuntary shudder down his spine. 

Toni looks at the man, tilts her head, and maintains her glare. Her deep brown eyes sparkle in the evening’s newly forming moonlight.

“I’m not playing around with you, go away!” she yells.

Tears start to well in his eyes.

The old man rolls to his knees, paying no mind to the jagged rock scratching up his legs. Warm blood drips slowly from his knees as he crawls closer to her. He studies her angular jaw, large brown eyes, and slender nose intently as the wind carries her curly bangs away from her face. Her eyes carefully track his as he stares at her in silence, in awe of the similarities between this strange young woman and his mother. 

It was as if his mother had stepped out of his memory and landed on the beach in El Puerto. He takes a deep, ragged breath and continues to stare at her in silence.

Toni furrows her full brow and leans back onto her hand.

“So you really aren’t leaving?” she scoffs, “Fine.” 

She resumes packing up her items and zips her camping backpack, “I’ll just move somewhere else,”

“No!” the old man screams, he scurries toward her like an ant, and grabs her leg. Toni screams and tries to shake Heraldo off, but he tightens his grip on her leg. 

“Mama! Mama!” he screams. She starts to claw at the old man with her nails and swings her legs to aim for his bare penis. The man slides down to his stomach and wraps both his arms around the girl's toned and skinny legs. 

“Get off you psycho!” she shouts.

“I’m not a psycho, I’m your son! It’s me, Heraldo”

“Dude you’re sixty! How the hell could you be my son?” she pushes his moist shoulders with both hands while clawing into his back, “Get off of me!”

The old man tightens his grip on her smooth legs and closes his eyes. The image of six-year-old Heraldo clinging to his mother’s skirt every morning before she left for work plays across his mind as he clasps Toni’s legs. 

Toni bends her elbow and rams it into the old man’s forehead with all the force she can muster, yet he still doesn’t budge.

“Don’t leave me, mama,” he says while warm tears cascade down his cheeks.

Suddenly, a stray arm reaches around Heraldo’s neck and forcefully pulls him backward onto the grass. The man’s long and skinny legs wrap around the old man’s large stomach and press down on his diaphragm. 

 “What the hell are you doing,” the man asks will pressing deeper into Heraldo’s stomach with his pale white legs. The evening stars flicker in time with Heraldo’s fading consciousness, as the man tightens his chokehold. The young man feels physically smaller than him, but the power in his legs and arms rivals that of someone double his size.

“Ahck!” Heraldo screams, as the air slowly escapes his lungs. Heraldo taps on the man’s legs and tries to push out words from his windpipe.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” Heraldo croaks

“Of course, you weren’t,” the deep voice says, tightening his grip around the old man’s neck.

 Is he enjoying this? Heraldo claws at the man’s pale white arms, as the sky darkens. He’s going to kill me. Drawing on his primal desire to survive, Heraldo summons all his remaining strength to lift his shoulders and torso into a crunch and smash the man’s back into the ground. This move causes the man to immediately release Heraldo, and start coughing from the force of one hundred kilograms slamming back into his chest. The old man pushes himself up, still dizzy from the choking, and stumbles towards the abandoned factory. 

“It’s not what you think,” Heraldo says wheezing. 

The young man is wearing a light blue baggy tank top, that exposes his wiry arm muscles, and broad yet bony shoulders. His curly hair covers his pale forehead and cascades down his neck in a shaggy haircut. His penetrating blue eyes stare fiercely into Heraldo’s, while he clenches his gaunt jaw and holds his stomach.

Heraldo looks out on the abandoned field and sees two men with cameras recording him with looks of awe thinly lined with disgust. One of them twists the lens of his camera and points it directly at Heraldo’s face. He covers it quickly, then looks back at Toni and the thin young man staring at him intensely. A pang of grief washes over him as he looks into Toni’s glaring eyes. 

“I’m sorry, mama,” Heraldo says.

Chapter 3 coming soon :)