{"id":1509,"date":"2021-06-13T21:46:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-13T21:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/?p=1509"},"modified":"2021-06-13T21:46:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-13T21:46:20","slug":"abduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/2021\/06\/13\/abduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Abduction"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

Author’s note: As the protagonist moves into the underworld of the subconscious through injury, sleep, suffering, and cojiba, he enters the negative space of the mind where he encounters shadowy inhuman figures and chases after the golden earrings. In this encounter, he has banged his head against a concrete floor in the basement of the museum in San Juan after an argument with the curator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your eyes don\u2019t focus. A silhouette of an inhuman shape stands in front of you in the darkness of semi-consciousness waving a hand in your face. It asks, \u201cWhat do you see?\u201d
The ribbon of the golden earring chases itself around the edges of three lobes against the blackness of the void. \u201cThe golden earring. It\u2019s mine. Give it back.\u201d
A shadow speaks. \u201cWhat would you do with it?\u201d
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. It would be mine again and I could forget about the past. I could forget about her.\u201d
\u201cIt does matter. History repeats for those who don\u2019t learn its lessons or who forget. You of all people should know that. What would you do different this time once you had it back?\u201d
\u201cPut it in a safe deposit box for safekeeping. Just in case.\u201d
\u201cJust in case what?\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t know. Something bad happens. They cut my pension. I don\u2019t become a full professor or worse, I lose my job. Who knows? You can\u2019t be too careful these days. You can\u2019t rely on anyone. The only person you can rely on is yourself.\u201d
\u201cThe golden earring is not mine to give, it is yours to retrieve. It is yours if you fulfill your mission.\u201d
\u201cMission? What mission?\u201d
\u201cTo change history.\u201d
\u201cChange history? How?\u201d
\u201cBy keeping your promise to save the tribe from the brutality of the Spaniards in one year.\u201d
\u201cWhat? Oh, you mean my conversation with the curator? Come on. That was just a throwaway line in the heat of an argument. Of course, I would save them if I could.\u201d
\u201cYou would help the poor children of La Gonave if you could. You would take the time to get to know young people if you could. You would save all the Tainos if you could.\u201d
Your head hurts in the numb intermingling of pain and confusion. “What do you mean, save the Tainos if I could? It\u2019s a little too late to be saving a tribe five centuries in the past, don\u2019t you think?\u201d
\u201cIt is your promise. You have the power to change history. You can be the hero you have always wanted to be.\u201d
\u201cYes. I have already submitted an abstract to the journal and they rejected it. Maybe they will take a rewrite. Are you with them? It won\u2019t change the history of the Tainos for sure and doubtful it will do much to change ours. I just want my golden earring back. I will give you a reward if you return it to me.\u201d
\u201cYou won\u2019t be able to buy it with money.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t have to buy it, I own it.\u201d
\u201cYou don\u2019t own it. It owns you. It is the boundary between your strength and your weakness. When you prove worthy to receive it, it will return to you without asking.\u201d
\u201cIt\u2019s just an earring.\u201d
\u201cIt is so much more. It transcends the material and the spiritual. It transcends the past and the future.\u201d
\u201cWell, what does it matter? It\u2019s gone and it isn\u2019t ever coming back, but how exactly would I prove myself?\u201d
\u201cIn your mind, you believe yourself to be strong, wise, and creative. Demonstrate your strength and not your weakness.\u201d
\u201cHow?\u201d
\u201cThat is for you to choose.\u201d
\u201cWhat if I don\u2019t choose?\u201d
\u201cYou live with your irrelevance.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m perfectly happy with my irrelevance, but what happens if I don\u2019t succeed?\u201d Of course, you lie about that self-truth. Never show weakness. Your dad told you that.
\u201cYou will always be the man who never was.\u201d the voice says fading into silence.
You don\u2019t like mystical voices who speak in Zen riddles. The silhouette disappears and all you can see is the pulsating form of the golden earring. You reach for it, but it recedes. You chase after it into the black void. The faster you run the faster it moves away from you until it disappears into the far distance leaving you alone in the darkness of your mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>Author’s note: As the protagonist moves into the underworld of the subconscious through injury, sleep, suffering, and cojiba, he enters the negative space of the mind where he encounters shadowy inhuman figures and chases after the golden earrings. In this encounter, he has banged his head against a concrete floor in the basement of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[149,148],"class_list":["post-1509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-excerpt","tag-thegoldenearring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1510,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509\/revisions\/1510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetembo.com\/clip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}