Chapter Text
The la Chureca landfill, Nicaragua, July 21st, 2000
There are times when the scope of humanity is too wide for a lens. Times when the stark, unreal scenes before him stretch beyond the capabilities of his immediate understanding. These are the moments, he has found, that can only be comprehended later, after distance and some semblance of calm have allowed him the opportunity to reassemble the fractured pieces of his soul.
The amorphous organ has already broken for thousands of individuals, even as it has never belonged to anyone in particular. His fated, if she exists at all, would hopefully be gentler with it.
Luke feels the familiar ache of these truths as he climbs a rotting heap. Hazy lines of stench and heat rise up from the mountains of trash, compounding the burden of the new sorrows he carries. The La Chureca is not a photographer's dream shoot, but it is a story which needs telling.
He pauses to re-secure a bandana over his nose and mouth, while also adjusting the weight of the Nikon slung across his back. Sweat trickles down his spine. Several yards above him, vaulting over debris like a lean mountain goat, Cody turns.
"We're almost there, señor. Just a little higher."
It is a slow, treacherous journey that should not be rushed or underestimated. Luke has been warned about the hazards many times. He has also, when first faced with the challenge ahead, considered turning back. Because actually stepping through the shifting, putrid debris, is a visceral experience beyond description.
There are hypodermic needles, shards of glass, fly-covered animal carcasses, twisted metals, rotting foodstuffs, and clouds of toxic fumes.
But above it all – picking through the dangers with prodding, desperate motions – there are also people. Many of the scavengers appear to be children.
They, are his reason.
As they reach the soft summit of split-open garbage bags, Luke suppresses the urge to vomit. The height has, somehow, only made the stench worse. No relieving breeze greets them; only the brutal Nicaraguan sun.
"That is where most of the families live," Cody points to an area below, "And where the social workers built a school, a few years ago."
A dirt track snakes beside several ramshackle dwellings. The majority appear to have been built out of broken slabs of concrete and sheet metal, although some are more vehicular, constructed from car doors and hoods. Each of the structures looks brittle and temporary, no matter the material. Luke feels like the decayed landscape could consume them all in one great, collapsing swallow.
He draws his camera bag over a shoulder, unzipping the main compartment while asking, "How many families?"
Cody crunches closer, coming to stand on an ironing board. "Twelve, that I know of. There are a few more though, along the eastern side of La Chureca. But it is more difficult to get there, and the people are not as friendly to visitors."
Luke wonders if he'll still be breathing at all, by the time he convinces Cody to take him to the very place the young man seems hesitant to discuss. If he suggests it outright, at this moment, Luke is sure his guide will refuse.
"And the number of children who work and live here?" He asks instead, wiping sweat out of his eyes before raising his camera to shoot.
Momentarily, it feels like a grave insult, to possess such a valuable instrument in this impoverished place. But he remembers his tool is a magnifying glass, capable of extending the story of these people to populations less remote and broken.
As Cody explains the sad reality of life here, Luke captures picture after picture of men, women and children, all stooped and searching. Stories without names, they are faces he yearns to commemorate.
"They salvage what they can for income, and pick through the trash for food. Many niños have to choose between eating or an education." Cody elaborates, "Only those with parents or a guardian are able to have both. Maybe fifty live here, and at least half are orphans."
“Were you an orphan, Cody?” It sounds indelicate, when Luke speaks it aloud, but he has found these residents are proud of their endurance. More hopeful because of it.
"Yes, my papá brought us here when I was little. I don't remember my madre, but I was blessed to have an older friend who looked out for me after papá passed. Most niños aren't so lucky."
"You are a braver man than me," Luke says, meaning it with every fiber of his being. He zooms in on an old woman sweeping trash away from her dwelling. "I'm very glad to have met you, Cody."
"Me too, señor Luke." Cody chuckles beside him. "I think you are also very brave. Not many gringos come up here, after they first see what it's really like."
"After they smell it, you mean," Luke laughs along, squinting into his viewfinder as he pans the long camera lens left. The sun glints wickedly off reflective surfaces in the heaps, making the angle he desires difficult to maintain from this location.
Luke glances at his boots, taking a careful step forward to avoid a pile of something green, and then—
Pain.
The camera pounds against his chest as it falls out of his hands, taunt on its neck tether. But Luke isn’t aware of this ache. Doesn’t care.
Because he’s gasping and swearing and pulling his right arm close. Cradling and protecting the limb against the blinding agony – against the crackling, white-hot division of bones, as they splinter beneath skin.
His flesh has yielded violently, rending and collapsing in one sharp moment.
Something has sliced into me, he panics.
His eyes aren’t working though, because he is rolling back his long shirtsleeve with a shaking hand, gritting his teeth at the thought of some horrible wound beneath the fabric...
To only find freckled skin.
Tanned and without blemish, his forearm is straight and whole and fine. On fire, but fine.
Luke doesn't realize he has sunk to his knees, into the green mess he was avoiding, until Cody is next to him, gripping his shoulder in panicked concern.
"What's wrong?! Where are you hurt?"
"I don't..." Luke gasps, trying to understand the illogical situation. Failing to comprehend, as he examines his arm from every angle. "I feel like I've broken it."
Cody reaches for the limb and Luke winces, tilting his torso away. Just the thought of it being touched sends a new wave of pain through him.
"Señor, please let me see! The social workers taught us some emergency care."
He takes a long shuddering breath, aware of every pulsing throb coming from the invisible injury... How it is beginning to pull something taunt inside him, like the strands of a cord are weaving together to replace bone.
Luke sees the strings of an instrument, as Cody gently prods his appendage. Sees the strings vibrating in tune with each other. He visualizes the blurring thrum of it...
But it cannot be any instrument he actually knows, because there are only two strings – harmonizing as one, on the same shrieking, broken note.
I'm in shock, he thinks.
"I don't believe you have broken it." Cody assures him, still crouching close. "I have seen breaks before, and this is not the same."
Somewhere, a distant scrap of knowledge whispers against Luke's conscious.
The remnants of a tucked away hope resurfaces, like a lost, precious relic being drawn from the ocean's depths – it is the literature he has poured over; the stories he has read; the feelings he has craved and cried over.
Unfelt. Unknown. Unanswered.
It makes him wonder as he hasn't wondered in years...
When Luke rolls back the sleeve on his other arm the mark is a blistering thing. Normally a glistening, silver script, it now appears sunburned and tender.
Rey Andor
"Gloriosísimo Señor Santiago," Cody breathes beside him, taking hold of his marked arm before Luke can replace his sleeve, tracing the scrawl with shaking fingers. "You are feeling her pain – your querida del alma. She is close, and in great pain!"
Luke can hardly process, can barely keep up with brisk pace Cody is setting. Because they are descending the garbage mountain like joggers now, heading towards the sad little line of homes.
He somehow stays upright, while Cody babbles and laughs at his elbow. Most of his words are in Spanish, but sometimes he slaps Luke's back and declares in English,
"There is a Rey here... Yes, I have heard her name... We will ask the Churequeros... They will help her... It is a blessed day, to find your querida del alma!"
The sweeping old lady does not understand at first, her suspicious gaze darting between the rapidly speaking Nicaraguan and the grimacing gringo. But when Cody says the phrase that Luke is beginning to understand as soul bond, her hard demeanor falls away. It seems like a younger woman is helping them, as she cries and raises her hands to the sky, yelling "querida del alma!", drawing other wary residents out of their own homes.
Mothers with babies on hips, toddlers in diapers, squinting elderly too infirmed for scavenging – the growing, raucous procession builds and builds, and suddenly Luke realizes he is a sight to see.
The old woman leads them along the dirt roadway, calling and gesturing for other scavengers to join them. Strangers crowd close, touching and hugging him. They pray and sing and smile like they are the ones who have been offered this impossible happiness, jostling to witness a man marked to another soul.
He can't help smiling himself, despite the flaring pain and the certainty which is now beginning to settle.
She's badly hurt and she lives here, in this horrible poverty.
He feels the cracked, fragile remains of his soul vibrating against the wrongness of it. So unlike any humanitarian torment he has felt before, this must be the true breaking of his being. Anything else, everything else, in his thirty-seven years of living suddenly seems meaningless.
It is impossible, he realizes – to exist this way. To feel an incomprehensible sadness, and at the same time a pounding, persistent thrum of bliss so acute it actually has a taste.
Suddenly, the trash is gone. The oppressive heat has lifted. The desperate, celebrating people guiding him toward his destiny fade away.
And all that is left is the good.
I've found her. Finally, I've found her.