Road Remedies

HOW TO SAVE YOUR OWN LIFE
COPAN, Honduras –  I nap through the afternoon rain, then venture out to buy a crucifix – a return for a favor: my anti-malaria pills, in fact.

I'm told I'll be cursed if I forget again. Can't have that.

Gustavo's lounging on the sidewalk when I return. "Want a beer?" he asks, flipping me a Salva Vida.

We sit on the still-warm cobbles with the lady from the tobacco shop. Much of the conversation flows in Spanish. I catch enough and smile, sated, through the rest. Her relatives stop by, the local gendarmes, townsfolk climbing towards home. Even the three-wheeled Indian taxis – the motos – pause here.

This cocktail hour is strange and precious. We are odd companions, not likely to converge again. But the moment isn't strained: just full of the frog croak of beer cans and the thickening stillness of dusk in the Americas.