A couple began to eat their fish at the table under the umbrella. The camera turns to their left, and there’s a young man bent over his table. One beach haggler earlier asked him if he was sick. Others asked him if he wanted to buy a host of trinkets.
Well the only thing this young man could buy then was access to use the bathroom. He felt it coming for a while, and tried to put it off, but what had to happen had to happen.
One stall was open. That was the battleground. The war zone. The escape from a painful and regretful morning meal.
As the multi-colored sludge of his insides poured out his mouth, his surroundings created quite the memorable soundtrack.
BANG. BOOM. BANG. Laughs followed all the cracks of the firecrackers, accompanied subsequently by car alarms. The young man didn’t mind a little distraction; the vibrations of the ground and stall around him were a nice reminder that the world went on, and would go on after what he experienced in that dark 4×6 corner of the world.
20 minutes later, the young man emerged from the stall. He wiped the sweat from his face, washed his hands, and proceeded back to his landing spot. There he sat at his table, slouched over in his chair, and listened to the booms of the firecrackers around him.
While he couldn’t check it then, a text from the Irish travelers he met last night had just come through. They asked how he liked the cafe they recommended he eat for breakfast.
The young man would not order scrambled eggs maybe ever again in Colombia.
A few minutes later the young man’s head peaked out from his shelter from the world.
The couple next to him sat in the shade under their umbrella. They had finished their fish.