Lights - The story of El Mago, chapter 1

The sky and waters were lit by thousands of lights when I first met him. The shore of Nai Harn Lake was packed with people hoping to clean their souls and eat grilled chicken on sticks; or maybe fried chicken and sticky rice. It was the night of Loy Krathong, a celebration in which people send floating candle-lit offers into the bodies of water and release paper lanterns into the sky to purify their spirits. I had spent the whole afternoon helping my students to make their offers by pinning flowers and giant green peas to bases of banana trunks wrapped in banana leaves. Everyone had arrived to the lake with their nearly biodegradable offers. Transient street vendors were selling paper lamps and I bought one from one of them.

I read months later that the festival had meaning beyond the forgiveness of sinners. Apparently, for the romantic ones, Loy Krathong is the time to make a wish for success in love. By the time I leaned this, the only thing I wished was to end the spell that was born on that November 28^th of 2012 in front of the fiery lake.

It was easy to spot him in the crowd. He was wearing a red t-shirt, as he had told me over the phone. That was unnecessary information, however, since I recognized him from the pictures of him I had seen online. He was tall and thin, his face framed by curly locks of brown hair. He had a deep look, as if he could see through what was in front of him. He was a man born in the same land as me, and as far removed from those big planes perfumed of mate and leather. I waved at him and we walked towards each other. We kissed on the cheeks.

“You recognized me right away”, he said, but he did not look surprised.

I was in the company of the maestritos. Many of them had sent offers into the lake and we were all walking towards the beach to light our lanterns. I introduced them to him promptly. I felt a little uncomfortable trying to mix these two parties. The maestritos were lively and carefree, as always, and he looked so solemn, as if he was contemplating the ceremonies and all of us from afar. We all left the crowds and walked down to the beach, which was almost deserted. We released a couple of fire lanterns, which floated in the black sky, became smaller and smaller, and disappeared from our sight.

I talked to my new acquaintance in the language of our land. Already in those first minutes with him I started noticing the complexity of his personality. He was from the capital, in the flat Pampas, but his heart was in the northern mountains. He had left his love, a beautiful black dog, back at home, which made him doubt of being there. He was only twenty-six, but he acted as a wise old man. 

We sat a little farther from the group, on the sand. Nobody knew what we were talking about and so we talked from our hearts about our dreams and our solitude in the island. The uncomfortable feeling kept crawling, with me being in between the lightly spirited maestritos and this being that barely belonged to reality. Without being rude, he ignored everyone, as if the two of us were the only people at the beach, or in his world, even.

There was a silence in the conversation, a signal that the meeting was over, and he excused himself and walked into the crowd that surrounded the lake, disappearing like the lanterns in the sky. It was the first time that he would disappear before my eyes. The first time he would perform one of his magic tricks.