Mercy

Every night, Tristessa howls at the moon.

"Oooooo, Oooooo, Oooo..."

Trailing off like the curling ends of her long black hair.

Her mother is mortified.

The neighbors, annoyed.

Finally, Enrique, the night watchman, takes a walk up the side of the little hill that she has reclaimed from the night and considers her own.

"Senorita, why do you howl?" he asks.

With her back still to him, she lifts her head and replies,

"Oooo, Enrique, it is because no one touches me.

It is because to no one am I the woman without whom there is no light."

Enrique looks down, absently digging the heel of his scuffed brown shoe into the blank dirt.

"You could marry.

Raise a child.

Go shopping.

Sleep each night beside your husband instead of out here in the cold."

She turns and raises her chocolate-brown eyes with their crescent moons to him and replies,

"I would go mad from the confinement.

They would have to call the constabulary to come and put me down."

The night watchman looks up at the sky, rubs the back of his neck with his good honest fingers and admits,

"I've already called them."

He gestures at the little dark houses nearby.

"The waking of dreamers is a serious thing."

Tristessa gives her head an unconscious shake.

Her hair is like a great dark bird folding its wings.

"Ooo, Enrique," she says in her hoarse, mournful, wounded voice.

"Do not be afraid, Senorita."

His voice is kind.

"They are fine men in handsome uniforms,

And the bullets they carry on their belts

Are filled with mercy."

"Oooooooooo,Ooooooooo,Ooooooooooooooooo," comes the heartbroken howling.

With her face turned up to the indifferent sky and her black hair reflecting every star,

She whispers,

"La muerte es la unica misericordia."

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Last line: "Death is the only mercy."