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Original Drabble: Coffee Bean Ghosts
May. 26th, 2009 10:49 amAuthor's Note: While taking my Central American Politics class, I wanted to write something set in a world based on Guatemala at the height of the political oppression, but I never managed to get my plot to grow into anything longer than a 250 word drabble. Guatemalan society for more than a hundred years was run by the coffee growing elite, who controlled the government and enforced a form of debt slavery on the rest of the country's population. The military was almost entirely deployed internally, as an arm of political control to keep the peasents working on the coffee plantations.
Coffee Bean Ghosts
The first time Gnat stole something, it was a soldier's coat, into the belly of her dress. She had been pregnant then, so it just looked like more bump. After that, she pilfered a soldier's trousers from the laundry and a box of ammunition from the bed closest to the barracks door. That night, a bayonet hung from a string around her leg. She heard the whispers as she walked past the guards. She's just Alvero's lover, no danger.
As soon as she made her way home, she kissed her husband and he dressed in the soldier's uniform. He hefted the soldier's pack onto his shoulders, and at the rustling inside, Gnat hushed her daughter. The jungle rose thick around them as they crept away, Javier's hand around her waist. "Just looking for a little privacy," he called to the guards at the gate and they looked down at his uniform and the brown faced woman, and waved him through with a laugh.
Out of sight, Gnat pulled a handful of Coffee beans Alvero had given her to show her what she was growing out of her pocket and she tossed them to the ground behind her. "Natalia Calderon y Ortega," she said to them, and as soon as she did, they rose up and followed where She walked. In the darkness, the beans wore the face of her grandmother and stopped them each time they grew too close to soldiers. They slipped into the pack to distract her granddaughter.
Coffee Bean Ghosts
The first time Gnat stole something, it was a soldier's coat, into the belly of her dress. She had been pregnant then, so it just looked like more bump. After that, she pilfered a soldier's trousers from the laundry and a box of ammunition from the bed closest to the barracks door. That night, a bayonet hung from a string around her leg. She heard the whispers as she walked past the guards. She's just Alvero's lover, no danger.
As soon as she made her way home, she kissed her husband and he dressed in the soldier's uniform. He hefted the soldier's pack onto his shoulders, and at the rustling inside, Gnat hushed her daughter. The jungle rose thick around them as they crept away, Javier's hand around her waist. "Just looking for a little privacy," he called to the guards at the gate and they looked down at his uniform and the brown faced woman, and waved him through with a laugh.
Out of sight, Gnat pulled a handful of Coffee beans Alvero had given her to show her what she was growing out of her pocket and she tossed them to the ground behind her. "Natalia Calderon y Ortega," she said to them, and as soon as she did, they rose up and followed where She walked. In the darkness, the beans wore the face of her grandmother and stopped them each time they grew too close to soldiers. They slipped into the pack to distract her granddaughter.
