Keep me in your ocean

Chapter 6

I made my way to my room in fast, hasty steps, trying my best not to actually break into a run. Past hallways and common rooms from my building, I walked, praying to everything out there that I didn't get lost right that instant. Mom's free right now, she had said, right that moment. Who knew what my mom's availability was going to be in the next few days, or weeks, or months, but I did know she was free now.

If it was not urgency what was propelling me forward, then curiosity as to what could possibly be so important. What could possibly have made her fear for our safety to the extent of hiring more security? Had something already happened and I didn't know? From 1 to 10 how much danger was I in, should I start drafting goodbye messages? If my driving licence had expired, was it still taken into account that it said I was an organ donor? Was my driving licence expired?

Question after question spiralled in my head, and I made a vague attempt at sorting through the most critical ones that I'll ask first. Either this was going to get real interesting or terrifying, and it all really depended on what my mom was going to say.

I could feel Camila and Tom's steps from behind me, and their ominous and vaguely comforting presence watching me. It still made me vaguely upset that I wasn't informed about this earlier, but to be fair, I was moving into university. And to be also fair, I didn't deal with stress that well sometimes.

I pushed my key into my room and almost slammed my door open with my hurry. Wincing, I gave a small, "Thank you, good night." to Camila and Tom, and then closed the door.

I grabbed my phone and called her, wishing with all my might that she'll answer.

"Alo mami?" I said, the second the call connected.

"Noches Vale."

"Pero qué paso entonces ma?"

She sighed, tired. "What do you remember of the Chibcha people?"

I blinked, letting the question set for a second, as I seemed to open a file in my brain. A perfectly preserved file on indigenous people. "That they are usually known as the Muiscas, were based in Colombia mostly. The Chibcha language though... was used all the way from Nicaragua down to Ecuador and Colombia."

"Yes. What else?"

"Uh..." Why the fuck was she making me dig around in my brain for information instead of telling me what the hell was going on? Was this some teachable moment she was trying to do? God-damn it. "The Muiscas had a lot of gold, and that's where we got La Leyenda del Dorado."

"Equivocally, the word was spread around that they were made out of gold, attracting people with ill intentions and greed." She added. My frustration went up a notch at both myself and her. Myself for not knowing... For putting me in this situation. "But yes, they had a lot of gold."

"So?" I said, impatient. "Mami, the point, please."

I was pacing up and down the room, the more this conversation lasted, the longer my steps. I found myself going from one extreme of the room to another. The hand that wasn't holding my phone to my ear was running through my hair and trying to ease the frown between my eyebrows. Whatever composure I had held an hour before, was broken, shattered by my worry and settled by the privacy within this room.

"It's important to know the context, both historically and culturally, to know why this has had the impact it does." My mother said, unmoving in her stance and her pace. Still in dangerous situations, trying to do a teaching moment. I had the vague, almost hysterical visual of her having a gun to her temple and still going, 'So, Valeria, as you see here, this is a gun. A glock with a 0.40 mm caliber'

"What's one of the most meaningful ways indigenous people show their reverence towards their gods?" She continued, unaware of my vague hysterics and crumbling patience.

"With sacrifices, mostly materials that held a lot of worth." I said. "The Muiscas presented their chiefs with golden powder, and then submerged them in a river."

I should know this better. I thought. These shouldn't be some vague facts in my memory.

My memory was muddy, but something was clicking into place. A memory was shifting slowly but surely. Some sort of foreshadowing I had lived through long before about the Muiscas and their gold. I had read about this before, I had known about this before.

"Yes." She said, happy for my shit memory. I felt like it wasn't enough. "Good job. They did that."

"Go on."

With a big fat sigh of some heavy emotion I couldn't place outside wariness. She continued, her previously proud tone erased by something else. "It's about the Muisca Raft. A small art work made with pure gold that depicted that ritual."

Oh.

"The fu— um... the super priceless little statue? The one that probably took the single Chipcha artist a thousand hours of work?" I stopped my pacing and stared into a wall.

"Exactly that."

That little statue... well the little artwork of pure gold was exquisitely carved and made. It was unimaginably hard to make, and the unknown artist had probably spent a lifetime learning how to carve and mold gold. It was small and dainty and so so important. I couldn't even properly vocalize how meaningful it was in its culture. Its rarity, what it depicted, the handiwork, how it was found, and how much time it took to make it, made it crucial for the current Muisca people.

And us. It made it monumental in our history. Us, who tried so hard to piece together the shredded history of our ancestors. Us, who watched how horribly erased everything seemed when it came to Latin America's cultures.

"What— what... happened to it." I put her on speaker, and hastily opened Wikipedia on my phone, and opened an article. I skimmed over the facts and tucked them away in my brain.

"Well, there were two of them. It's about the one that was lost in a burning building a long time ago, well... supposedly." She added.

"The Siechan one, sold to a museum in Germany and then, yeah— lost in a fire." I narrowed my eyes at the article, finding it extremely suspicious for something to go missing, consequently lost.

"No... Actually. It wasn't lost—"

"— gathered that—"

"It was stolen and someone burned the entire building it was on, to the ground to cover it up." She explained. "Didn't know that till recently, when we got contacted to help recover it. We don't know who we are facing, but we know they don't care about destroying an entire building to get their hands on it. There were two dead and one severely injured. A couple of million dollars worth of damages."

It almost felt like she was listing off a description in her head of the events, and not like a mother telling me evenly the story. This conversation felt practised, and I vaguely wondered how many times she's had it.

"But you don't need to worry about it. I'm working with the lawyers, they are the ones that advised the extra security measures. We haven't got past some baseless threats."

Ah, yes, threats. The average D'Angelo experience. Good old threats. Back to the basics.

"Okay. If that's all, just keep me in the loop for any... major changes." I said, already staring dizzily at the wall.

That was easier than anything, slipping into a professional mask that steadily covered all my stress away. It was easy to just say good night to my mother and pretend I wasn't tired. Pretend I wasn't always tired of something.

I got ready to bed with numb thoughts, all seemingly echoing fruitlessly around my skull, never going further. There was no hunger for me. Not when my stomach was going around in knots for the future.

☆ ๋࣭⭑★₊‧.°.☆⋆.˚

AUTHORS NOTE:

It's a short one, but one nonetheless! I apologize, I accidentally advanced wayy ahead and forgot to continue what I was already uploading. To my readers: thanks!! leave a comment if you like it, it'll cheer up my life.