Somewhere in Mexico

Blinding sunlight charges into the sky, claiming the night. I reach for my phone, but my hand touches an empty tequila bottle instead. The bottle falls to the floor, and the sound of the shattering glass jolts me from the haze of last night. My passport lay open on the nightstand. The room starts to spin as I force myself out of the King-sized bed. I look at the last stamped page of the passport—“ACAPULCO, 05 MAY 19.”

“How in the hell?” The words stick in my dry mouth.

Screams and laughter penetrate the thin hotel walls. I stumble hesitantly towards the window, grip the flowered patterned curtain, and slide it aside. The sun pierces through my partially closed eyelids, so I hold up my hand in a salute, creating just enough shade to make the bright beams bearable.

My heart sinks as I noticed a figure in the distance who contently leaped from a cliff.

“No….” Before I could scream out, a small ocean cove that sat 40m below a cliff swallowed the jumper’s stiff body. My heart starting beating uncontrollably. I had to do something. I had to save him. To tell someone. Just as panic started to set in, a head emerged from the stale ocean water, and the jumper swam to shore.

“What an idiot.” I wander through room like a puppy looking for a tennis ball in high grass to try and find anything that can help me piece together last night. A pamphlet lay on the table: ’Best Acapulco City Tour Cliff Divers Chapel of Peace & Diego Rivera Mural’.

“What in the holy hell?” shock enveloped me. When I was in college, I loosely recall traveling to Mexico with a few close friends for Spring Break. I don’t even remember most of the trip because we kept cold drinks in our hands most of the time we were here. It was always 5 o’clock in Mexico. We hiked the Sierra Madre del Sur. Memories begin to flood in like the control gate of a dam had been opened. I, too, had jumped from the LaQuebrada cliff. The sweet memories brought a slanted smile to my warm, sun-kissed cheeks.

The ring of my cell phone shocks me back to reality. How in the hell did I get here?... I look over at the screen to find the name of my best friend from college.

“Joe, where in the hell are you?” Charlie’s voice pierced my eardrums, “We’re supposed to take the Glass-Bottom Boat Ride to Isla La Roqueta in like 20 minutes!”

“I have no clue. Did I come here with you? What’s going on?”

“Dude… You can’t be serious? We’ve been here like three days. Get your ass up and come on.”

“I think I am going to sit this one out,” but Charlie had already ended the call. I hate these new phones. You never know when a call is over. Now, I’m sitting here talking to a blank screen like a dumbass.

I draw the curtains over the harsh rays of sun, climb back into bed, close my eyes and try to sleep off Cinco de Mayo somewhere in Mexico...