Abuelita

(This is a monologue in response to the 5 Word Monologue Challenge posted on Upsidedownbee.blogspot.com. The words for this challenge are: translator, mercy, guile, hibernation, updating)

It felt like I had been asleep for ages. A hibernation of sorts that in reality lasted merely one scant hour. I hadn't realized how tired I was.

It may have been the hours on the road or the impending ice storm that caused me, finally to pull to the side and close my eyes. I realized that the last 50 miles were traveled by God's mercy alone. I could not recall passing through the last small town just north of the border, or crossing over into the valley.

Three days with Abuelita had worn my nerves paper thin and heightened the cause to leave that afternoon. I hadn't slept and my bowels were twisted with the delicacies that frequented their dinner plates. The translator sent by the Embassy proved to be less than adequate for my needs. Abuelita's broken, foraged, and twisted version of French, Spanish, and German served her well in the melting pot of her little village propped vicariously on the side of a cliff overlooking the sea. The communal had their own language, some sanguine mixture.

There may have been some conspiracy in determining that I would be the one to travel by car, 800 miles, into the desolation in which the village rested, to the daunting task of updating Abuelita on the death of her son. It may have been the foreknowledge of her disposition and attitude with which I would be met. Or it could have been her history of spitting at distasteful news that prevented anyone else from volunteering to go to dear Abuelita in this time of sorrow.

Whatever the reason, I knew when sour smelling spittle dotted my face and shirt that this would be the only time I would make this trip. It would be the last time I ever saw Abuelita. With guile in my heart I tossed my bag into the front seat of my car, dusted the gravel and any remnants of my visit from my feet and drove away. I didn't say goodbye, I didn't look back.