The Last Vacation

We deserve this.

I have to keep reminding myself that we deserve this. My husband and I work hard between work and the kids, and this and that we hardly get time to ourselves.

Our kids are 10 and 2 and couldn't be more exhausting. We love them; it's just... a lot. School, clubs, cleaning, cooking, homework, more cleaning, fighting, yelling, clean again, fight again, yell again, and repeat the next day.

So, yes, we deserve this. A little vacation, just the two of us. My husband, Simon, has this elaborate adventure vacation planned. Personally, I'm more of a relax-on-the-beach-sipping-something-fruity-and-napping kinda gal, but I couldn't get him to do that even if I tried, and boy have I tried. I mean, our last two vacations were more on the leisurely side, but this time I told him we could do it his way.

I guess it's my way of trying to bring back our spark. We've been together twelve years now, and we've hit that twelfth-year speed bump. It’s been so awful that I’ve started calling it the terrible twelves in my mind. I don't know if that's a thing, but with us, it is.

Us.

I miss us. We used to be adventurous together, before the kids, of course. We met in college. I couldn’t get rid of him at that time, even though I never really tried. He followed me everywhere. I loved having him around. He made me smile, he pushed my thinking, he pushed my nerves too, but I loved that about him. Life with him was never dull, and on days he wasn’t bothering me, I always felt homesick. I knew then he’d have to be the person I start a family with; he was home.

So, here we are now, me and my home in our terrible twelves. He thinks it's just a vacation, but for me, it's THE vacation. The one that brings back our spark, the one that makes him look at me with fire in his eyes, the one that makes me never want to be away from him.

His idea of adventure began with a 6-hour plane ride and hopping on busses to more isolated parts of the Central America region we are visiting. I'm hesitant just because I can't help but have a little mom guilt for leaving the kids behind. Plus, being somewhere neither of us is familiar with and where I don't speak the language when he and I aren’t on excellent terms puts my anxiety through the roof.

I've never taken a bus.

We can call it a privilege, but I've never had to take a bus. Maybe in elementary school, but that didn't last because I have always hated bus rides. Crowded, loud spaces are not suitable for introverts with social anxiety. For him, though, I'd take all the busses. I trust him. He has an incredible sense of direction, could find his way out of any place whether he's been there before or not, and speaks three different languages. He's amazing.

Note to self: tell your husband he's amazing.

As I write the note in my phone, I realize it's 1 am, and we are two hours into our 5-hour bus ride to the next city. It hasn't been terrible. The seats are large and cushiony. They recline far back enough to doze off comfortably. We don't doze off, though; we cuddle under a travel-size blanket and whisper sweet nothings to each other and hold hands. I feel giddy and toss my legs up over his legs. He slips his hand down my pants.

He’s feeling frisky too.

He’s breathing hard, and I am too. His touch feels fantastic. I giggle a little too loudly and hear a“shhh” from someone two rows up. We decide to de-escalate the situation, too many people.

As I lean back in my cushiony chair intertwined with my favorite person, I start to notice the ride is getting choppy; it makes me nervous. The swaying and breaking. I look out the window, but it’s pitch black. I thought it odd that there were no street lights, but again we have headed away from civilization. Plus, no one else seems to mind. My husband is already counting sheep, so I rest my head on his shoulder, close my eyes, and try to relax.

The early morning sun peeks through the window, and I open my eyes. My legs are stretched out, and I look over to see a man next to me. Who is this man, and why is he staring at me? I thought briefly until I realized my legs were on top of his. I quickly retract and offer up an apology.

"The space in front of you wasn't enough, lady?" He mumbles under his breath.

Ass.

I look around, and I'm confused as to where I am. None of this looks familiar. People are speaking a language I don't understand.

"Excuse me, where are we?" I ask the man sitting next to me in the sweetest tone I can muster at the moment.

"What do you mean? We're..." his voice tapers off, and a puzzled look crosses his face. He quickly turns to his phone, but I can see it's dead.

I look at mine. It’s dead, too, even though it had been charging before I closed my eyes.

I search around, looking for answers to my questions; the people around me seem just as confused. I can feel my heart pounding, something feels wrong, but I can't pin it.

A loud speaker interrupts my thoughts "Ha llegado a su destino. Salga con calma y tranquilidad. Más instrucciones a seguir. You have arrived at your destination. Please exit in a calm and quiet fasion. More instructions to follow."

What. The. Heck.

My legs are shaking so badly that I stumble several times while exiting the bus. I kept telling myself to get it together, but it was no use. My heart was pounding in my ears, and the lump in my throat prevented me from swallowing the saliva that was building up opposite of the tears swelling in my eyes. I’ve never felt so alone.

I looked back at the man I had been intertwined with. There was a familiarity about him and safety in his eyes, but his tone with me was harsh and unwavering, “what do you keep looking at” he muttered. I turned my head back around and fumbled down the final step of the bus. My feet were met by mud and leaves and a long row of ants whose living quarters had been so rudely interrupted by our sudden arrival.

I wondered where the ants were going and where they were coming from. So busy and so full of purpose. My thoughts were interrupted with the shove of something sharp in my back.

“Move it along,” a deep voice commanded from a hefty man in a mudded green uniform and rifle in tow.

I tripped forward. My feet were heavy and moved as if they were separate from my body. What seemed like an eternity of walking later, we came across a chain-link fence. A sign was hammered into the ground next to the fence. It was written in many languages, and my eyes quickly scanned for words in English.

I KNOW YOU ARE SCARED. THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF A NEW DAY. THE FEELINGS OF ANXIETY AND FEAR WILL BE A DISTANT MEMORY SOON ENOUGH.

My thoughts were scattered in my brain like roadkill on a highway. Upon reading the sign, I instantly fell to my knees. My shaky legs couldn’t carry the weight of my devastation any longer.

The man from the bus stepped over me and shot me a glance of annoyance as another uniformed man helped me to my feet. Crippled with fear and nerves, I began to collapse again, but a woman who had been on the same bus grabbed my hand. I suddenly felt grounded and mustered enough strength to keep trudging along. When the embarrassment from my weak nerves subsided, I worked up the courage to look at this stranger who had grabbed my hand. Her eyes were filled with tears that would not fall, and I wondered if she held my hand to ease my nerves or her own.

Either way, we walked hand and hand into the fenced-off area.

We were immediately herded into a cold, dark building, where the only noise I could hear was the sound of the generators pumping the only cold air in the entire country into this one space. I searched the room for any clues as to what was happening or where I was.

Nothing.

A little round man with a mean mustache and wild eyebrows suddenly burst into the room. He may have been small, but his voice was robust. He immediately had us all at attention.

He belted out in English and Spanish, “ Welcome, welcome my people. It is good to see all of you here today. I am Captain Brian Shaw.”

The name sounded familiar.

“You are in a safe place, and we are here to take care of you. We will be moving you from this cold room to a more comfortable space where you will have all of your questions answered. Please continue to be calm; I will see you all again shortly”. He was charismatic and quite charming, and I felt at ease even though I suspected I shouldn’t.

As quickly as he busted into the room, he was gone. We were all ushered into a new space, as promised, except this time we were not alone. There were rows and rows of people lined up wearing the same drab uniform. They didn’t look at us when we entered; they didn’t even flinch. I tried to start counting… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 32, 35, 38, 40, shit, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51. I hadn’t even made a dent. I lost count after the 51st head. They all looked too similar. Different sizes of people, ethnicities, and genders, but all the same.

The feelings of ease I had felt quickly vanished, my legs were shaking again, and I felt warm liquid running down both my cheeks and the right side of my leg.

This time I wasn’t the only one who was nervous. I could see for the first time that all of the others on our bus were visibly shaken up as well. I could hear talking behind me and noticed the bus driver speaking to one of the uniformed men that had ushered us along all of this way. My body became red hot as I saw an exchange of money between the two men and the bus driver being silently slipped out a side door.

He sold us.

I knew then that I had to get out. My eyes darted all over the place, and I wanted to make a run for it but could not figure out where to go. I wanted to shake all of the people just standing there. Why were they just standing there? In a fit of rage, I wanted to punch someone in the face; the short man, the guy next to me on the bus, the bus driver! I would have, I know I would have if I could remember who I was. Maybe I was meant to be here. Perhaps I had gotten myself into some sort of trouble. I don’t remember getting into trouble, but again, I don’t remember anything.

As our line of passengers slowly started to move, I realized we were being hooked up to some sort of machine up ahead. I could see some passenger members already connected by some medieval-looking contraption atop their heads and restraints around their arms and legs.

My eyes kept darting, but I was frozen.

“Bzzzzzz,” a sudden alert from my phone shocked me back to reality. I forgot about my phone! I thought it was dead, but the signal must have just been blocked. It seems I stood in the one spot in this entire room where cell service existed. I snuck it out of my pocket and looked at the image on my lock screen. It was an image of two children. A boy and a girl.

Hmm, I snuffed.

Then all at once, my memories came flooding back. My babies! I thought to myself as I began to cry. Then I remembered my husband was the guy from the bus. I searched frantically for him and saw him strapped to the machine up ahead. “Siiiimmmmon!” I yelled his name, but he didn’t flinch. Of course not; he still had no memory of who he was. I was crying uncontrollably and kicking and screaming as a uniformed man grabbed me.

As the phone slipped from my hand and the attachment was placed on my head, the headline “Captain Brian Shaw obtains the last of the prisoners needed for his army” flashed across my screen.

***

“We are ready to attack. We move at dawn. Understand?” yelled Captain Shaw.

“Sir, yes, sir!” The prisoners all shouted back in unison.