On the last evening of that empty summer, I wandered down to the old beach in Southern Riohacha with a case of lukewarm beers. For the first time in three weeks, the smoke in the skies had cleared, revealing a clear vermilion sunset. I was able to see the sky and the ocean reunite on the horizon, which casted a clear reflection of the sun on the calm waters. Up in the heavens, the thrushes were leaving the palm trees to return to their nests in Sincelejo, where they would rest until the next morning.

Ever since the incident that we are never supposed to talk about, there is nothing down here in Riohacha anymore. Apart from my father’s old church, no building in this town is over two stories tall. The only people who live here are the ones who desperately cling on to the image of what Riohacha used to be a long time ago, an image that will forever remain a figment of the past. Once one person realized that this town was long dead and left for the ciudad, everyone was quick to follow him with their own families to pursue new lives. Since then, evenings here are quiet and uneventful, except for public holidays. On those days, the sounds of the neighboring ciudads sail across the waters down to this beach, but I make sure to scream and shout back at the sea if I ever hear them.

It’s not as if I wanted to stay here. I remember packing my own suitcase for the new life ahead, anticipating the day my father would come home in his old Nissan pickup, bearing news that we would move. In my mind, there had been no doubt that we too would go to the ciudads, just like all the other kids at school had. But that day never came. The day before my 16th birthday, he unpacked my dreams and sold the suitcase to a vagabond for just a few pesos.

Much to my regret, my old man was a pastor; much of my childhood was spent devising ways to avoid the pointless early worship services that I was dragged to every morning before school started, the endless hours dedicated to studying the memoirs of a mortal but albeit sage man who preached love for god and other humans, and the long sermons about obedience and compassion and love and obedience and compassion and love and god. To be frank, I never realized how much I hated him until my birthday, when he left alone for the city, leaving me only his old bible for a birthday present. Seeing that there were no believers left in Riohacha, he wanted to move to the cities to preach the word of his god. That evening, I ran down to my family’s grave with a shovel and buried this cruel joke that he had the indecency to call a birthday present, right next to my mother’s coffin.  

But that blessed summery day was different from all the other days that I have lived out here in Riohacha; as I settled into a dilapidated beach chair, I realized that there was someone other than myself on my beach.

Pacing along the coastlines was a tall slender man, dressed from head to toe in a formal suit. While he immediately drew my attention, he didn’t look anything like the empresarios that appeared in the magazines; the suit he was wearing was old and torn along the seams. Moreover, his face was browner than a city person’s, more like the farmers who used to live in Riohacha. With every step he took, his shoes dabbled in and out of the cascading waves, teasing the water.

With the mellow rays of the twilight sun shining into my eyes, I shuffled forward on my seat to get a closer look. The man strolled the length of the beach with his eyes staring into the horizon, before he finally stopped and sat down on the edge of the water. I thought to myself, maybe the man was born here in Riohacha. Maybe he just came back down here to see a family relative. Or perhaps it was just a man who had come down here to think, a man who wanted to forget everything and escape it all. 

I slid off my chair to approach the man who sat frozen on the beach, staring into the horizon. Step by step, I walked down to the waters, until I found myself only a few meters away from him. It was at this point the man reached into his bag with his right hand and fumbled around, until his hand finally found what it was looking for - a small black revolver.

Once he drew it out, the man proceeded to play an interesting game. He pulled out the fully loaded cartridge and picked one bullet out. I expected him to pull more out but after a minute of contemplation, he spun the cartridge, reloaded the gun, and raised the revolver until the barrel was right next to his head. I had seen many people do this on TV programs, but never with five bullets. People would gamble against fate with only one bullet. Occasionally two or three if they were feeling brave. Maybe the man felt god on his side that night.

But for a few minutes or so, it seemed like he had lost all interest in what he was doing; he sat there, eyes fixated on the horizon, with the loaded gun trembling right next to his head. All he had to do was move a muscle and let the gun do the work. One small movement of his index finger would shatter the silence of the beach. One small piece of metal. As the sun sunk inch by inch, I felt my heart beat accelerate in unison with his heartbeat.

Soon after, the man stood up and started saying the lord’s prayer. I thought to myself how naïve the man must be to have so much faith in his god. But as I watched the man’s face outlined against the red horizon, I realized that something about this man was changing. Perhaps it was the way he seemed to find comfort as he went on with his prayer, the way his hands stop frantically shaking and the way the creases on his forehead relaxed with each word. But slowly and surely, the prayer came to an end and the man pulled back the hammer of the revolver.

For a second, everything in the world stood still. The sun, the wind, and the sea froze, waiting for the bullet to leave the gun. But after he pulled the trigger, there was no sound. There was no death. There was no bullet.

The man dropped the gun from his hand. I fell onto my knees and in complete disbelief, stared at him standing against the sun. I could feel the blood rush through my body, pulsating faster than it ever had in my entire life. Maybe the gun had jammed. Maybe the bullet was a dud. Maybe the bullet loaded in the chamber just didn’t want to leave. But none of it mattered anymore to me. There was no death. I watched the man pick up his bag and begin strolling along the coast with his feet dabbling in and out of the water, as if the past ten minutes of his life had not just occurred.

I ran down to the water to pick up the gun.