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A Bleeding Nose
They arrived in Bariloche to a rainy, windy late-spring afternoon. As any Californian traveling to Patagonia, they hurried to wear their winter jackets, caps, scarves and gloves. To find all the locals in the airport were in short sleeves.
The wind pushed them a couple of steps to the side when they walked out to take a taxi.
“You couldn’t fall for somebody living in fucking Riviere, could you, bastard?” Sean snarled, holding the door for Jo to get into the car.
The taxi took them down a road flanked by pine trees in the early nightfall, up to the freeway that led straight to the city. It ran parallel to the lake that opened on their right, huge, dark, choppy with foamy waves. The city lights spread ahead along the coast for many miles.
They checked in at their hotel about seven. Jo stopped Jim before he got into his room.
“Don’t take a nap. We only have time for a shower and a quick bite,” she said.
Just
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No Return Smoke in the Rain
Silvia and Claudia got off of the bus outside Jim’s hotel and leaned forward to fight the push of the wind as they walked up the narrow cobblestone street. According to the city’s most conservative traditions, the bus they had to catch hadn’t come, forcing them to wait another twenty minutes in that cruel Patagonian combo of cold-wind-rain until the next bus came, obviously crowded and in no hurry, so they were almost an hour late.Claudia stopped short halfway to the bar, the cake in precarious balance on her gloved hands.“The candle!” she cried. “We forgot the candle again! Why do we always forget it?”Silvia pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll get it. You go ahead, before the rain spoils the cake.”Claudia hurried on toward the bar while Silvia walked back the way they’d come, to the minimarket across the street from the hotel.A few minutes later, she was p
No Return Two Steps
“There she is!”“Finally!”“Man, you’re soaking wet!”“Here, have a drink to warm up.”Silvia spotted him right away. All the way across the bar with Miyen, hands in his pockets, his black cap down to his eyes, keeping his face in the shadows. She paused to say hi to those closer to her, giving her heart a chance to stop hammering her chest. As if. He was watching her, completely still, like a ghost of himself.Sean and Jo were sitting at a table with her cousin Leandro, Karim and some more. Jo jumped to her feet and threw her arms around Silvia’s neck with one of her bright grins. They hugged tightly. When Jo stepped back, Silvia nodded hi at Sean. He nodded back without the slightest trace of a smile, for a change.“Silvia! Listen!”It was AC/DC’s Back in Black. Some of her friends pushed her to the middle of the bar and she headbanged with them f
No Return Rockstar on the Loose
“Shall we?”Jim looked up and found Silvia wearing her jacket. Half a dozen of her friends were also gearing up to go out. He didn’t even think of asking anything. He just grabbed his stuff and went back to Jo and his brother, who faced him with a questioning nod.“Guess it’s good night, bro. I’ll keep you up.”“Don’t worry, we’re having dinner all together tomorrow,” said Jo with her bright smile.Sean bit his tongue. His brother had just met his woman again and his girlfriend was having a great time. What he thought didn’t matter at all. So he just nodded with a quick shrug and watched his brother leave all alone with that bunch of strangers.Jim didn’t have the slightest idea where he was going, but he’d rather chop his tongue off than say a word about it. If that still mattered, he would’ve better stayed home in LA.All of them where bundled up in t
No Return Welcome Home
The bus left them to a light snowfall that promised to get thicker, and Silvia tugged at Jim’s sleeve to make him cross the empty road with her and Claudia. He was about to ask why the hell all the streets on that place seemed to go uphill, but he got distracted, watching the snow swirl down in the subsiding wind. He just took Silvia’s hand and let her guide him, not paying attention to what she and her friend whispered in Spanish.“Are you making him pay, bringing him on the bus and making him walk all the way to the Black Rock?” Claudia asked, amused.“What? No! Look, the wind’s stopped and it’s so beautiful to walk. The park must already be all white.”“Are you hearing yourself? Is that what you’re really thinking about right now?”Silvia grinned and Claudia shook her head, chuckling.They walked her up to Beltane, waved goodnight at her as her dog barked as to wake the whole neig
No Return Drop the Poster
“Hurry up, you’re late!”“I can’t find one of my sneakers!”“What’re you doing? Jim’s sleeping!”“But I think it’s in your room!”“And what the hell are your sneakers doing in my room? Never mind, just don’t wake him up!”The curtains of the window by the bed were wide open to a dull gray sky and trees sprayed with snow. It didn’t look like the day had just broken, so it couldn’t be that early. However, Jim felt like he’d only slept a couple of hours. He rubbed his face, hearing the muffled voices from the dining room. Silvia’s side of the bed was already cold. She’d been gone for a while.A twenty-year-old boy, taller than him, stuck his head into Silvia’s bedroom. He saw Jim was awake and flashed an apologetic smile.“Hi, Jim, sorry,” the boy said in English. He looked down and grinned, crou
No Return The Ultimate Fear
It was hard to remember to keep breathing as she watched him. Jim wasn’t sleeping, just resting, eyes closed, one hand on his chest. And she was doing her best to keep the balance on that tightrope between fascination and dread of this so-real naked man lying by her side, relaxed and helpless out of his own will.Now she knew Jim was right. It was no whim, no challenge, and worst of all, it was no mirage. He’d stated it so crystal clear she was still shaken, and facing it had emptied her inside.There was nothing left. Everything had been ruthlessly wiped away by this understanding that laughed in the face of any other idea, sensation, emotion, hope. Now she could only acknowledge that he loved her, and he’d just left her out of excuses. Goodbye denial. He’d just given her so much that he’d left her with nothing.She had to be at her job in a couple of hours, and she didn’t feel like moving at all. Their phones were still off.
No Return Guilty as Charged
“Hurry up, Jay! I gotta catch a bus in thirty minutes!”“What? Fuck off and call a cab.”“If you don’t get outta the shower, not even the Concorde will get me to work in time.”“Okay, okay!”He finished washing his hair while she was on the phone. A moment later, she walked into the bathroom.“I feel sorry for your brother, y’know?” she said in a casual tone, combing her wet hair.Jim opened the shower curtain only enough to shoot a questioning look at her. Sean could stir many feelings in people, but sorry was certainly not among them.Silvia nodded, smiling. “He must be hating my guts, being dragged along with you guys all the way here.”He dropped the curtain with an ironic smile. “I didn’t drag’im along.”“Maybe. But he wouldn’t let Jo come alone.”“You got it wrong, woma
No Return One Cigarette
That was just great. The flash flood had reached the Interstate, forcing the incoming buses to turn around, so the service had been cancelled until further notice.She felt a sudden urge to smoke. Considering it was pouring, the bus station staff overlooked those nicotine addicts with a little survival instinct left, and allowed them to smoke at the entrance hall, indoors and safe from the wind and the rain. She gave her luggage a concerned glance: rucksack, duffel bag, guitar. Why the hell had she kept the guitar? Only a few people remained at the bus station, but hard statistics dictated that a single person was enough to snatch all of her things away. She realized that was a third-world thought. Was she not in “The Shiny City Upon The Hill”? Just in case there was another third-worlder around, she asked the man at the nearest ticket booth if he could look after her stuff for a while. “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes, ma’am,” he warned. More than enough. She lit a cigarette as s
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