Tadeus Days by Miyamoto Donovan (best beach reads txt) 📕

A NEW DAWN, ONE YEAR LATER
Epilogue

It’s been a year and two months since the Rolando died, still no one knows who really killed him and Jaison it’s still on the run, although he has a MySpace and Facebook, but no one really have him in his contacts. One quality that I always found amazing of people is their capacity of reinventing themselves, just like Madonna, Jaison did the same.

I found Jaison Alvarez on his Facebook by mere accident one day; I was gossiping between my contacts and I found him, although with a different name, now I’m wondering what was his real name?, and if his background story was real?. I doubted about him many times, but I know I wasn’t the only one; now he’s going by the name Rafael Jaramillo and from what I saw in his Facebook he is living now in Valledupar, but it seems he can’t forget his past very much and there are some old photos that are linked with his previous persona.

I think about this for so long, but when I moved from the country all those thoughts started to disappear slowly, but sometimes I remembered everything except I don’t want to remember it anymore; but, I guess is impossible to forget because memory is what makes us humans, remembering the past and not trying to make the same mistakes,, but I don’t know if history is cyclical as sometimes history tend to repeat itself apart from some cases that can go in different scenarios.

Probably Laidy was right, Jaison was only a guerilla soldier in cover and he was in control of the faculty, as well in some aspects over the administration’s office; but also he was an obsessive compulsive individual who got obsessed with Rolando, at the end he wanted to become him, he wanted to become Rolando and gain the respect our late friend had from everyone in the faculty, as well in the entire campus; but I think that Jaison was in love with Rolando also, and, he never was brave enough to say what he felt about him, Jaison proffered to live in a lie but when you are never faithful to yourself, you start to create mask to avoid seeing and meeting the real you.

It’s something sad from any perspective that you look, but probably the most frustrating thing is that the police at the end they didn’t do nothing, and they demonstrated a lot of homophobia and bigotry. It’s weird to see homophobia in a country that accept same sex unions and still homosexuals and lesbians are taken as third class citizens, Rolando was a gay guy who gave a lot to the community and still he didn’t get the justice he deserved.

It’s been one year; today is April the 15th, and I was the only one at the Jardines de Paz cemetery, no one was there except me, I guess because I went only to visit the city and the others where away or were working. It’s amazing how a year pass really quickly and it’s amazing that we are only fragments of more complex webbing called history. We are born to be forgotten, it’s something that is true, except for a few privilege people who can be forever at the annals of history. A year had passed, and nobody of the new students knew you or they even knew your name, you practically never existed in La Tadeo right now, is like a television show got a retcon and some characters where written of the series, the only thing I need to say right now, is thank you.

Dominic Lazarus left a small stone above Rolando’s grave; he left Jardines de Paz smiling, because even with all the difficulties everyone who knew him were ok, but not many of the bunch where left in Cartagena, and he regretted not to have time to see them; soon after the graduation most of the people went to Bogota and Medellin; and he, he went to live in the United States, but Dominic knew he was going to have ties for the rest of his life with that city that inspired Macondo, the city that was a mirage in the Caribbean, that place called The Heroic, that city named Cartagena.

The End


GOODBYE
Fifth Chapter

One week after Rolando was murdered, Dominic knew by Laidy that his funeral was going to be held in La Funeraria Los Olivos, at the neighborhood know as Pie de La Popa, it was one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. El Pie de La Popa was the home of many of the old manors that were common at the beginning of the 20th century, when Cartagena was a young city ruled by some families, but now in the beginning of the 21st century, El Pie de la Popa is only a mirage of his previous self; most of the old manors are gone, replaced by modern buildings and small business that had taken several landmarks.

Dominic told her that he would try to go, but Laidy knew because of his thanatophobia he wasn’t going to be present; she decided to go by herself and know who else was there at the funerary. While she was in the bus, she couldn’t stop thinking about the whole situation, it was something she never thought it could happen, but it happened and the entire student staff of the Communications and Publicity faculty where moved about the incident.

She felt that the entire ride to the funerary was eternal, and everything moved slowly around here, but there wasn’t other thing except to accept the truth of what happened, because there wasn’t other thing to do.

Los Olivos was the biggest and oldest funerary in the entire city, it was founded in the 1880’s, and today it was known pretty well because they knew how to exploit the business of life and death in such a romantic fashion by making the grievers feel a little less their pain.

Rolando was being observed in the main room, and there were over 300 people sitting right next to him, but the only one near him was Jaison and an unidentified fellow. Is amazing that you only know how many people you moved in your life, only after you are death; basically the whole room was packed up. Laidy was amazed to see all those people there; it was astounding to see how many people where moved by Rolando.

Everyone there were talking, sharing anecdotes or simply staying in silence watching; Laidy was thinking that nobody wanted to see his body severely beaten and bruised, they wanted to remember him as the loving guy devoted to his students and friends, and not as the victim of a hate crime, but his former boyfriend was there, also he was a coworker of Rolando except from a different faculty. He was crying out loud like if they were still together.

Edgar was in shock and in denial that Rolando was gone, he was sobbing in silence next to his new partner, Laidy was wondering what was inside Edgar’s head, she never had a tragedy like that one in her own family; but she couldn’t took her eyes of Edgar during the entire ceremony; the only thing she could knew for certain it was that no one else in that room knew Rolando as the way Edgar knew him.

Near Laidy, there was the Cave Gang, a small group of students who where into the Goth and Punk movement, also they were Rolando’s closet group of friends in the student body. They were almost away from everyone, they were standing in a corner looking at everyone with some grudge, like saying “you don’t deserve to be here” but those were only look to hid their pain from the people; as deep inside they were really hurt and depressed about everything, because they lost one of their clique.

Laidy tried to approach to them, she thought of making amends with them for just one second, because she was part of the Cave Gang, but different points of view in the in-group philosophy led Laidy to take another way after they backstabbed her. Laidy was walking to them, she was going to say that life was too short to make grudges like that, but when she was approaching and saw the way they were looking at her, she changed her mind and went back to her seat, that moment she knew some people won’t accept any kind of apologies, even if you are the one who deserves it.

Jaison walked away in silence after somebody took a photo of him seated near the casket, that photo appeared in the media the next day; after the photo was taken, nobody saw him again physically; but after he left, those rumors started again in the middle of the room, different rumors about his past, but none of them were accurate at all.

A couple of hours later, Rolando’s casket was transported into the Jardines de Paz, behind the casket there was Edgar, always following the casket and crying inconsolable, he lost the love of his life and there wasn’t any way possible that Rolando could come back, probably for Edgar that was his biggest fear, he lost one of his dearest friend in an ghastly way.

About 5 pm, took place the burial, there wasn’t any religious one because Rolando was an atheist; his friends and family (who flew from Cuba) they shared stories about him and how they were blessed to had him in their lives, and now that he was gone from the Earthly plane, the wished that they will meet again the grace of God really soon.

Laidy was bursting in tears, wishing that Dominic were there with her, but she had to ease the pain herself. It was kind of traumatic but that ceremony helped many people to realize that their friend was gone, and it was going to be a rough path to recover from that happening.

Later, Laidy went back to her house, she was a mess, her mom looked at her she noticed her daughter had a rough time, she didn’t knew what to do except giving her a hug, Laidy replied with a sweet smile. Without words Laidy said goodnight to her mom, even if it was 7pm she decided to go to bed early.

Before heading to bed, Laidy called Dominic she wanted to share how the afternoon in the funeral home was. Dominic pay attention to every single word she said; he sounded somber, like he spent the afternoon crying also because he knew Rolando for several years and he was his student back in highschool.

The last phrase Laidy said to Dominic was “I think I was right Jesus was the one who murdered Rolando”, Dominic replied “Why?, why do you say that?”. Laidy stood in silence.

That day Emma was in college, she decided to not skip classes because the time of the service was held at the same time as a class called Constitutional Pedagogy. Emma was thinking about everything and especially about the police report that it was something related to a couples fight because there wasn’t investigation at all; the case was closed almost 72 hours later because it was the first known murder of a gay man in Cartagena; it was ok for a man to beat his wife but it wasn’t ok for man or a woman to say I love you to another person of the same gender, it was a