A little Uber story

Today I remembered something that happened to me while doing UBER service.

One random day a trip took me to Alajuela and well, I stayed in that pretty city waiting for a trip that hopefully would take me back to San Jose.

Just when I was resigned to return by myself, I got a trip from the airport. Excited that it would be my salvation, I accepted it.

The client was a foreigner, an American to be more precise.

He looked a bit like a young John Malkovich to give you an idea, and he was traveling only with a small backpack, which caught my attention.

While checking for the trip’s destination in the app, I was surprised to see that he was going to Caldera (about 100km towards the Pacific coast), properly to a place where you do paragliding jump from a cliff.

My surprised face had to be noticed since he immediately said: “my wife has always wanted to fly and I came to meet with her”.

It was early, it was a beautiful sunny day and I thought “what the heck!, a little trip to the beach doesn’t hurt anyone” and I imagined that cold beer that I would refresh me in a couple of hours while sitting on the sand.

Of course, for those who know me, they know that I am an avid chatter so in two seconds we found ourselves talking about everything.

So I found out that he was from a place called Grand Rapids in Michigan, very close to Canada and that he was in his mid 30s, which gave us more material to talk about.

However, the tone of the conversation changed when I asked about his wife, whom he had mentioned when we started the ride. It did not change in a bad way, but his eyes mutated and they became two lighthouses, something like that emoticon of whatsapp that has two hearts instead of eyes. He told me that he was going to meet her again when we reached our destination and that together they would fulfill their dream of flying.

He told me the way they met: he was lined up in a cute ice cream shop in the city, a craft shop that had just opened months ago and became a boom because of a flavor they made.

Coincidentally, he asked for the last ice cream of that particular flavor. She was next in line. Far from being a romantic moment, he overheard her cursing her fate and even grumble about my friend for getting the last one.

He turned, he wanted to clean up his honor, but when he saw her beauty, he decided to make a deal with her: he would give her the ice cream if she told him why she deserved it more than he did. “Friend, what he said to my ear I cannot repeat here,” he said, “but I would have given her the entire shop.”

He told me how she had transformed him from a simple boy from Michigan to an adventurer who had already traveled through 85 countries along with her; he described her gaze, which could bring down the most hardened heart, her voice, loaded with the warmth of a summer and her humor, unique as a purple diamond.

Ten minutes of that conversation was enough for me, I’m sure, to have the same “in love emoticon” look in my face.

I pictured her (since I did not ask for any physical attributes) with a wavy black hair, a pristine white face and unparalleled beauty. I was dying to arrive and meet her. His story made me, a skeptic in the realms of love, believe again in the stories of “happy ever after,” in Disney loves, in “eternal love”, in “other halves.”

“She has always wanted to fly,” he said, and I understood that this man would do anything to fulfill a dream of hers. “I’m happy to be reunited with her at last,” he said, before a smile crossed his face after telling him we were close to our destination.

We finally arrived, in record time I must say, since my desire to meet this incredible woman was transformed into speed.

We headed to the mountain where the paragliding departs from.

My friend, unable to withhold his anxiety, jumped out of the car before I could properly park. I did not move, I saw him walk towards the edge of the cliff while I stood there, completely frozen, waiting for the big moment.

I saw him remove his backpack, kneel and take out an object like an urn, the kind that is used to carry ashes from someone who has been cremated. I saw him open it and I got it: ” she had always wanted to fly”.

Just then, another vehicle came in behind me and honked, making me react, moving my car a bit to give space. When I looked back searching for my friend, I did not see him again, I got out of the car and ran to the edge just to find a small note that said “thanks for the ride” and I got it: “I came to meet with her”

This story did not happen but came to me as little inspiration and a desire to explore the writing of a short story. In addition, illuminated by the stories of my dear friend Homero Ontiveros