Impunity

Some people are above the law simply because they have the means to get to you before the law can get to them, and so they carry on their lives with adulterated impunity.

With that thought in mind, Laura no longer had the luxury of asking herself, if zero trace of an existence was less painful, less meaningful, than a trace left in something tangible like ashes, a gravestone, a photo, notes on a little black book?

As smoke from a large pot permeated her little kitchen, Laura watched the pages of her sister’s little black book blaze in flames and at that moment her life flashed through her mind like a movie on fast-forward.

Growing up in the poor city hills of Caracas in a neighbourhood comprised of houses made of brick walls and tin roofs, without a father and a working mother is a whole other world in itself. However, Laura found she surpassed her daily challenges as well as expected, even what she thought would be the biggest challenge of all which was when she lost her mother at the age of seventeen.

Laura felt unvexed and held the conviction that she could face whatever would be thrown her way. She always remembered what her mother used to say, “The outcomes of your life can be interpreted as you wish!”

Laura’s senses were as sharp and keen as they were numb, but she was not the kind of person who carried a sob story around. Her strength was founded in her gratitude and that was enough to live day by day. She had learned that there were things that could be endured and things that could be enjoyed in her shack of a world.

When Laura’s only sister Erica had gotten an offer to work at a mansion for a powerful family, the sisters celebrated in innocent bliss. Laura chuckled when she remembered how her sister Erica danced around the room holding a brand-new smartphone, celebrating the small amount of money she had gotten paid after a month of work.

“It’s our smartphone, Laura!” Erica had said, knowing it was quite special since neither of them had ever had a smartphone before. Sure, it wasn’t the latest smartphone, but it had the basic functions and best of all a camera. Laura saw the simple joy of taking pictures and enjoyed her first-ever selfie with Erica through giggles and laughs.

A few months had passed when Laura started noticing that the enthusiasm of her sister towards her job was weaning and had been replaced with dread. Laura would only see Erica every two weeks and for the span of two days, but this was enough for Laura to notice that something wasn’t right and little things kept adding up.

On occasions, Laura had seen Erica come home muddy and sweaty and when she asked about it, all Erica had told her was that she had visited the farm of their uncle, which was about an hour away from where they lived. Neither Laura nor Erica had visited their uncle’s farm after their mother died, so the fact that Erica had been going there without her didn’t make a lot of sense.

There were more incidences that added fuel to Laura’s unease, not to mention the comments and gossip that she had begun to hear about Erica’s employer. Things that had to do with, abuse, ominous events, and even disappearance.

Laura had tried to bring up the subject with Erica, but it was to no avail. The last time Laura recalled bringing up the subject was a time when she walked in on Erica adjusting a brick on the wall of their room back into place. Laura remembered how jumpy and edgy Erica seemed to be.

Now resonating in Laura’s mind were her past cautioning words and Erica’s response to them,

“What is happening to you, Erica? You don’t seem to care about everything that I have told you about your employer! You are not yourself anymore and you are scaring me! Please tell me what is wrong? Maybe I can help you never know!”

“Pay no attention to me, I’m fine honestly I am!”

“I don’t think that you are! Whatever secret you are hiding it’s consuming you! Why don’t you leave that house; I have a bad feeling about it!”

“Laura I can’t, I just can’t!”

“Of course you can, you can find something better, and I can help out while you do! You have some of your savings and we have made it in the past with far less!”

“I’m sorry Laura, you’ll have to trust me on this! Right now, I just can’t leave, please don’t interfere! It’s true that you haven’t seen me doing well on my past few visits and yes, I haven’t been myself, but I have a plan and, in a few months, when that plan comes to fruition, I will leave that house. If everything works out as planned, you and I will be able to go somewhere new and start a new life. But please not a word of this to anyone, do you understand? You know that the people I work for move in high circles and have a lot of power, I’m not stupid, I know my place and I keep out of trouble. Come to think of it as crazy as this may sound, you may think their world is completely different than ours however, it’s quite similar! It’s just as cruel but way more evil, still, I will make this work to our advantage.”

Laura recalled how her heart sank with her sister’s unstoppable determination and how she felt a sense of disappointment learning that the notion she had had about the world of riches and power were not what she had imagined.

It was a sunny morning when Laura had last opened the door for Erica. Erica had briefly but enthusiastically hugged her when she entered their humble little house. She had suggested they have coffee together.

Laura reminisced on every detail that happened and every thought she had had that day when she ran to the kitchen to make coffee. She remembered the noise of moving bricks, Ha, my clumsy sister, she must have bumped into that loose brick again I wonder why bricks don’t move out of place when I’m at home.

She remembered them being out of sugar, and the exact words exchanged between Erica and her, “We are out of sugar, I am going to the grocery store and I’ll be back before you know it, will you keep an eye on the coffee?”

“Of course, but be quick! I have some great news, Laura our lives are about to change.”

Erica’s face had glimmered with hope, a hope that was contagious.

Laura had told herself to run to the grocery store because it would be faster than her usual fifteen-minute walk. At the grocery store, Laura had prided herself on how fast she had managed to not only get a bag of sugar but some cookies as well. However, as she made her way to the cashier, a loud yell that still rung in Laura’s head was heard throughout the grocery store.

The yell of an old man had begun a chain of unchangeable events. It had all been so fast yet so slow. Laura had found herself helping an old man who had fallen and had been injured. She had not been able to lift him up from the ground but had instead made him a bit more comfortable while she found a way to get him to the hospital. Ambulances rarely responded in that area but after about half an hour, Laura had succeeded in finding a way for the old man to go to a hospital.

Outcomes of life can be interpreted as you wish Laura! Because of this old man, I’m still alive, or because of him I never got to see Erica again!

The memory of how her tiny house was turned upside down, vandalized, and empty when Laura got back from the grocery store numbed Laura’s senses. Fear in the air had been tangible no one said much, no one wanted trouble. Only one stranger ventured to tell Laura that he had seen two men taking Erica by the arm, but he had not been able to describe their faces.

Laura never found a single sign of her sister anywhere. The police had not been helpful instead they had even put her down as a suspect. Erica’s smartphone was also never found. During Laura’s search for Erica, she had felt that she was putting herself in danger as she was being followed. Laura had gone to see her uncle on his little banana farm to find out if she could get any more clues about what her sister had been up to. Instead, she had discovered that her uncle was as intrigued about Erica’s visits as she was. He told her that Erica would go and lose herself in his small plantain fields and that later she would tell him she did this to calm her nerves.

Interestingly it was a much-fought back mourning meltdown that had given Laura her biggest break regarding the mystery of her sister’s disappearance. Through bitter tears and overwhelming emotions and the banging of her fist against the wall, Laura had caused a brick from the wall of her room to move out of place. In frustration, Laura had taken the brick and had smashed it against the floor only to notice that there was a thin little black booklet hidden inside the brick below the brick she had just smashed.

Through the pages of the little black book, Laura had discovered everything Erica had been up to. Erica had kept a diary and had written about the atrocities of her employers, secrets she had heard, and ways that she had suffered physical abuse from the master of the house. She had also written that she had discovered several places in the house where her employers kept uncountable loads of cash. In detail she described how she had started taking stacks of two-thousand dollars every time she would get her days off and that she felt confident that these small stacks of cash would not be missed or noticed. Over the course of ten months, Erica had managed to accumulate an amount of twenty thousand dollars all of which she had hidden in different locations of her uncle’s farm and which she felt would be enough to get away with Laura to start a new life.

The flames from the large pot in Laura’s kitchen now dwindled but Laura's thoughts still lingered and in them she spoke to her sister, Your diary had to be destroyed Erica, prying eyes lurk upon me from the shadows wondering if I know anything, checking my every move. I don’t care about the secret locations on my uncle’s farm, I will not bring him harm and I will not go there to look for the money. My life is worth more than twenty thousand dollars. Your innocence was violated, Erica. You saw and learned the many things that run deep within the high circles of extreme wealth, government, and politics. You should have never taken their dirty money!

Laura sat on a bus with just a few belongings tucked in a backpack heading to another country, hoping for new opportunities telling herself, While there is breath in me, life must go on! Everything that happened will be interpreted as I want. Solace will be mine with the lives of my sister and mother buried within me because in this world there was no place for any remnant of them other than my heart!