Toni, Coltor, and the Comet: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Creationism: Coltor

Rating: 13+: Strong Language

Coltor Evans walks alone on the empty road behind the sugar factory, with his black camping backpack strapped firmly to his shoulders and around his waist. The dwindling sun casts orange rays across the sandy gravel and the familiar acrid smell of the ocean meets his nostrils. He tilts his head back, taking a deep breath as the stretched evening call of a macaw greets his ears. 

He mentally creates a list of photoshoot locations to send back to the engineering firm, and smiles to himself, knowing that he only has two more weeks remaining in El Puerto. 

“God, I can’t wait to get out of here,” he mutters as he makes his way around the overgrown underbrush cascading the sides of the factory leading to the open grass lot in front of the ocean. 

It’s been six months since Coltor drew the short straw, and ended up having to go on location to El Puerto for Indigo Jungle; his engineering firm specializing in converting forest and abandoned buildings into commercial factories, real estate, and resorts.

  He initially had a site partner, but as his luck warranted, Mark’s wife ended up getting pregnant and urging him not to take this trip; leaving Coltor to photograph, measure, survey locals, and scope the area himself. The lone wolf in him didn’t mind spending time alone, since he grew up without any siblings–and often felt the most at peace in his own company.

His cell phone incrementally buzzes in his black basketball shorts, reminding him to drink water for the third time today. He reaches his arm back into the water carrier pouch on the side of his backpack and pulls out his camping thermos. He quickly unscrews the cap and downs the lukewarm water in three large gulps, leaving the bottle empty, then sliding it back into its pouch. 

As he rounds the corner of the factory, he sees the sun now sitting mid-high in the sky shining its orange and red amber across the grass field, and washing the patrons in its glow. There are a lot more people this time around. He eyes two men ghost-hunting and another four vlogging as he makes his trek around the corner of the factory near the left-side pier. 

I’ll set up here first, get some photos of the factory, and then measure the distance from this pier to the main entrance. He turns and faces the dilapidated building as the warm wind carries his shaggy hair and baggy light blue tank top with the breeze. 

“God, If only this place didn’t smell like shit,” he mutters to himself, as he runs both his hands through his hair. He swivels around back to the ocean, and takes a long deep breath, bathing in the light as the warm air dances beneath his clothes and through his scalp. 

As the wind rises, memories of his father play at the edge of his consciousness. He remembers the time they spent watching Indiana Jones while curled up on the old blue couch in their double-wide. The smell of his father’s chewing tobacco and cigarette breath would mix with the scent of orange soda and the microwave popcorn the two of them would snack on. 

“Maybe we can go to one of those buildings together,” young Coltor told his father, who’d only smile and run his fingers through his hair, but never verbally agree.

Suddenly, he hears a woman’s voice yell, “Get off of me,” causing him to quickly whip his head around. He notices a dark-skinned naked old man grabbing onto the legs of a tan slender woman with short hair, while she rams her elbow into his head and shoulders. 

Without so much of a second thought, he runs over to the scene at full speed, fifteen meters ahead through the grass.

He pushes his body forward and extends his long legs in a powerful stride, heading straight for the old man. Fucking creep. The muscle memory from thirteen years of MMA practice allows him to swiftly crane his arm around the old man's neck and pull him backward off the young woman. He wrestles on the ground with the old man and tries to place him in a guillotine submission hold,  but the old man extends his arms and punches Coltor square in the stomach. 

“I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” the old man says while clawing his dirty fingernails into Coltor’s pale white arms. 

The shamelessness of the statement makes him even angrier. What the fuck does he mean he wasn’t trying to hurt her? He tightens his grip around the old man’s torso with his leg, then pushes firmly on his diaphragm. 

“Of course you weren’t,” Coltor says.

Just as he starts to feel the elderly man’s grip weaken, a sudden surge of strength comes over the old man, allowing him to lift his chest, and then slam Coltor’s back into the ground. 

Coltor sharply inhales the rancid smell of the ocean and lies wide-eyed on his back, with his backpack still strapped to his chest. The pressure from Heraldo’s weight temporarily forces the wind out of his stomach, leaving him gasping for air. He sees the old man with his hands over his parts like a toddler trying to escape bath time and extends a shaky arm towards him. 

Coltor opens his mouth to speak, but only a faint croak escapes his lips. 

“Fucking, creep,” Coltor wheezes between breaths, his words so faint that the ocean blots them out.

The naked old man ignores Coltor’s croaking and takes one long look at the young woman while tears roll slowly down his face. The two of them stare at each other for a moment, as if a hidden language that only Coltor couldn’t understand was being spoken between them. Coltor absorbs the bizarre sight silently from the ground, heaving every four seconds, to help catch his breath. 

The woman looks up at the old man from the ground, the coconut palm trees fluttering gently as she stares deeply into his eyes.

“Go home,” she says plainly.

Disturbingly obedient, the old man lowers his gaze to the grass and waddles toward the factory. She’s just letting him go? He flashes a harsh look in Toni’s direction, as she watches the old man’s shape grow smaller as he retreats into Acosta Azucar. 

Should I ask her if she’s okay? Coltor pushes himself up on his left arm, feeling a sharp pain sting the center of his chest. He grabs at it quickly, suppressing his gasp so as to not disturb Toni, whose eyes are now closed. She then slowly rolls her neck in a half circle clockwise, stopping halfway, then continuing in the opposite direction.

An air of calm washes over her as she extends the tendons in her neck gracefully, and relaxes the tension between her brows. Her lightly oiled eyelids glisten softly from the waning rays of sunlight, as she breathes melodically in tune with the swell of the ocean

He tries to push away the warm sensation creeping up the center of his chest, but it remains resolutely, causing his heart rate to quicken. The woman turns to Coltor, her fierce eyes now apologetic. She extends a slender hand in his direction as the evening breeze picks up and carries her dark curly wisp away from her face.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

Coltor stares at her in silence for a moment, his words catching in his throat. 

She pushes her hand closer to him without saying a word. He feels heat rising up his cheeks, and ignores the gesture, preferring to roll to his side and push himself up on his free hand. He clears his throat and dusts off his pants without looking at the woman. 

“Well, everything seems to be settled,” he says awkwardly staring at the factory while tussling his shaggy haircut. 

Toni nods once, then places her hand down and tries to prop up her broken telescope with two paperback journals and a passport. She methodically stacks each thin booklet one on top of the other, then slides the leg across the top. She attempts to lower the extender hinge of each leg, but none of the extenders are short enough to evenly distribute the weight of the telescope and fix the awkward leaning. She puffs out a breath in frustration and shoots her gaze up to the newly forming night sky speckling with stars.

A dull ache forms in Coltor’s chest as he looks down at her struggling to fix the hopeless-looking telescope, so he scans the area for something to help her. He remembers the old milling junk pile near the east side of the factory and walks toward it without a word to Toni. The crickets, cicadas, and frogs compose a concerto of chirps as the night swells with movements from the ocean and nocturnal animals. The creeping click of a king cricket flashes past his awareness and tickles the toes peeking out of his sandals. 

He spots the junk pile, now teaming with a little more rust than when he last came to the factory six months ago, and begins digging. The metal creaks and clatters as he moves a giant spoke from an old sugar cane juicer and separates it from oxidized pipes and vats. He sees at the center of the pile, a pale blue stool caked in mud, and carefully frees it from the rubble. Maybe she can use this. He eyes the stool, about ninety centimeters in height, with a flat square seat thirty centimeters in width, then carries it through the grass field toward the shore where Toni sits.

He pauses, suddenly feeling the weight of his backpack, Why am I helping her? I don’t even know her. And I have my own stuff going on.  He stops his trek through the overgrown section of the grass field and looks at her from behind as she extends her finger into an L shape and looks up at the stars. He places the stool down and looks back at the factory. Should I just leave?

Maybe it’s his fault for just being nosy in the first place, but in his mind, he would have done the same thing for any other woman. He looks at the sad plastic stool sitting on the grass and kicks it softly. But this, this is going too far for a stranger. She can just figure it out herself. 

As he finishes his thought, Toni’s shoulders slump at the sight of her telescope falling over, and a deep audible sigh escapes her lips. He feels a lump gather in his throat at the sight, then shakes his head. What’s wrong with you, you don’t even know her.  He audibly clears his throat, causing her to turn around on her lone section of the grass, and look directly at him. She smiles softly, then raises her thin right arm and waves at him. 

His pulse quickens at the sight, but he holds himself stiffly like a soldier during a routine room check. She shoots Coltor a questioning glance from her seat, then looks back at the growing tides rolling in front of her. Fuck it. He grabs the stool, then speed walks through the grass towards where she sits.

“Here,” he says, thrusting the stool in her direction. She eyes the stool while tilting her head, then grabs it with her free hand. 

“This might work,” she says with a bright smile, “Thank you–” she pauses, the outline of moonlight framing her body.

“Wait, what’s your name?” she asks.

He  swallows to calm his heart rate, “Coltor,” 

“Hmm, Coltor,” her light pink lips curve into a smile, “Toni,”

He wipes his sweaty palm on his black gym shorts and extends his right hand toward her. She smiles as the gentle night breeze carries the wispy parts of her jet-black pixie cut away from her face. She extends her slender hand towards Coltor and grasps his hand. 

Her hand is smooth, dry, and firm, but for some reason, a visceral chill travels down Coltor’s spine and settles in his groin at her touch. He quickly pulls his hand away, then sits a meter away from Toni to collect his thoughts. 

It’s because its been a long time since I’ve been with a woman. He watches the pull of the tides towards the grass shoreline and holds his breath to help slow his heart rate. 

Toni looks at Coltor, stool in hand, then focuses her attention back on placing her telescope at the center of the seat. She notices a large crack split down the middle of the seat, but ignores it by positioning the legs around it.

“There’s a crack in the seat,” she says while looking through the optical lens. 

“Come take a look,” she gestures for him with her free hand, as she kneels on the grass and steadies the seat of the stool. Two flimsy metal light fixtures above the pier flicker and illuminate the soft oval outline of her face as she clenches her jaw in concentration.

Coltor, watches the soft rise and fall of her small chest, as her ribs expand and push out the corners of her tank top. Slowly, he pushes himself off the ground and walks towards her hunched over the telescope.

“Come see,” she says fanning her hand up at him.

He timidly kneels his six foot three frame next to hers and cranes his neck to see the crack.

“See,” she says hovering her finger over the crack, “But, luckily I brought my refractor telescope, so it’s not too heavy.” She leans back on her knees, tilts her head to the right, and watches Coltor eye the telescope.

“Do you mind if I look,” he asks while fixing his gaze on the striated gray body of the scope.

“Of course,” she says gesturing to it, “But, we’re a little too low to see Ursa Major,”

He closes his left eye and looks through the lens. A spray of little white stars shimmering in a semi-straight line greets his gaze. He smiles inwardly and continues looking at the little gaseous flares, as the moon pulls the waves closer to the shore, The soft roar of the ocean, the pitch black sky teeming with a flurry of stars, and Toni's presence pulls at emotions long suppressed in him.

He feels his whole being begin to rumble, like an ancient shrine tumbling to the ground after Indiana Jones makes away with its prized treasure. He feels something leaving his body, causing him to crumble internally in a way he’d never experienced in his twenty-nine years of life. He pulls away from the telescope and crawls back on his hands. 

“Is there anywhere else with a higher altitude around here,” she says large brown eyes staring deeply into his.

His unearthed emotions still swirling cause a brief agitation, he turns his face away from her and faces the grass.

“I don’t know,” he says while pushing himself up on the grass.