The Blue Gecko
Change can happen in unexpected ways.
The flight would be landing in less than an hour. It had been a long flight. Mark Beauman stretched, thankful that he was flying first class. On his previous trip, he had been cramped and crowded. Things were quite different for him now. He could afford small luxuries. This trip had been a long time coming.
As she lay on the bed waiting, she tried to strike a seductive pose but she was too hungry, too tired and frightened. Her young son Carlos had been successful in bringing men to her but increasingly fewer of them had stayed. She was too old for her profession. She would soon be thirty and younger women were readily available. Her daughter Rosa, was eleven almost twelve. She would soon have to become the primary breadwinner of the family.
Ten years ago she had a happy life. Pablo, her husband, like most of the men on the island was a fisherman. There was not a lot of money but they never went hungry. Life was good.
But that has all changed. Most of the men had adjusted or left the island but Pablo was not one of them. The only things left from her former life were an ugly gecko and few dozen figurines that Pablo had fashioned out of clay before the boredom and inability to support his wife and family had caused him to take his own life.
