By Pedro Mieles

I remember it very well. It happened late at night. In the early morning.

The clock might’ve read 1:47AM.

Yes, I’m more than certain it was at that time. The street seemed empty. The fog tried to cover everything. Room 909, Central Avenue, Washington Street, in front of the Contemporary Art Museum, Newark, New Jersey. She had the cigarette between her lips and was smoking slowly, leaning against the window frame of the room on the third floor. Distant music could be heard: salsa, jazz, both. It was their shadows that alerted her. She waved her hand to call me, her other hand still holding the cigarette, smoke drifting in with the wind. As I got closer, I saw them all together. There were about thirteen to fifteen people, all wearing long dark trench coats, shiny black shoes, and bowler hats. They seemed to be a single grotesque and invincible machine. They saw a young man staggering along, having left the adjacent club on Burnett Street and James. Her voice uttered the words, “He’s going to disappear.” Her hands were shaking. Her eyes were fixed on the scene. 

They surrounded him without warning. The shape of a circle, identical to a ritual, and then kaput. No more dizzy boy. His body had disappeared into the black mass that represented the shadow of that unknown group. The park lights flickered. Alicia watched me and then turned back to them to confirm that they were real – that the scene we had witnessed was serious. I signaled for silence. “Shhhh . . . .” I said in a very low voice.

The silhouettes separated for a moment. They moved like a hive organism.

Her eyes were wide open. Her hand was passing me a Marlboro Red and she was bringing another to her mouth. They seemed to be searching for something specific. They were looking everywhere, everywhere. “They’re looking for us,” Alicia said in a whisper. But the buildings didn’t seem that old, and what we earned gave us enough to eat and live well. “Shhhh . . . .” I said very slowly, lighting the lighter for both of us and picking up the bottle of Daniel’s from the floor to take a sip, which Alicia repeated. Outside, the men continued to disperse. Some of them disappeared into the dim darkness of the park. “The fire escape,” Alicia said. Others moved onto the sidewalk below us. A police car sped by on the main avenue. Distant music played in the distance, between the luxury buildings and abandoned apartments, like a warm gesture on a freezing night. Cigarette smoke drifted through the window, disappearing into infinity. 

Then there was silence with a feeling of emptiness, as if the entire room had turned black and white. A noir scene. Then the feeling of foreboding. The sight of those mysterious creatures advancing. Alicia putting her boots on and me putting on my pants. She and I taking our coats off the bed. The bottle in her hand. The pack of Marlboros in the pocket of her trench coat. The documents and money in her wallet. Alicia tiptoed to the bathroom. The room was dim, with only the moonlight coming in through the large window and the white reflection of the flashlights in the hallway. She urinated quickly, and a few shadows passed outside in the unfamiliar hallway. Then came the lights of several patrol cars. Then the sound of knocking on doors.

“Open the door. Special service,” the voices shouted. 

I remember it very well. The open window. Alicia leaving first. Me, placing the bed frame like a barricade in front of the door. The sound of banging. The screams of strangers. The fury of their impatience. Both of us at the emergency exit, climbing to the roof and thus surrounding the building. The distant city lit up. Frightened. Absent. A few planes circling over our existence. The stars static. A few screams were heard later, very close. And in the distance, we could see the doors of unknown houses being savagely opened by soldiers from the future, ready to burst into our reality.

Pedro Mieles Cantos is an Ecuadorian poet, painter, and storyteller. He is 29 years old and has currently lived in Newark for the past five years. His work has been published in countries such as Spain, Mexico, and the United States. He has been featured in galleries in New Jersey, New York, and Ecuador. He participated in the FILNYC Anthology in 2022 and was a finalist in the Emerging Writer Fellowships. His first novel, Artificios, was published this year by After the Storm, a publishing house in El Paso, Texas.

Featured image: Lawrence Krayn, Instagram: Xquisite_Grit