The Red Mirror And Secrets It Hides
They say the Rio Tinto River turned red from factory operations gone disastrously wrong. I say the river bled its heart open weeping for man and his sins.
On a hot summer afternoon, at the rocky edges of the Rio Tinto River far east of the town of Niebla, sits a man. His graying hair is greased, his face is wrinkled and his fingertips are stained brown as he sits cross-legged atop a particularly big rock.
The sun continues to shine down on the motionless man and the roaring river for a few more minutes, until finally the man steps down from his comfortable sitting place and stretches. He climbs over the rocky terrain, crouches down in front of the river and lets his fingers dangle just above the water. The water slips close past his fingers but he never touches it.
He tries catching his reflection in the water but the bright orange water isn’t a good substitute for a mirror anymore. The man does remember the time when it was. Back when he and a few other brave companions would escape the grumpy Old Master at the factory in town and come down to the river for a breath of fresh air.
Young and energetic, they would chase each other over the rocks, tripping and clambering over one another and laughing the afternoon away. The fear of the Old Master hearing them and dragging them back to the factory by their collars was enough to keep their howls of laughter restrained to giggles, but never enough to keep them from rolling their trousers up and dipping their feet in the cool, clear water.
Sometimes when it was a busy day at the factory, the boys would stay inside choosing to accompany the rest of the staff with extra work, heaving trolleys around, monitoring gigantic bubbling containers of scalding hot liquid or repairing and maintaining mining machinery. On lazy days however, when the factory was empty and half the staff was busy at the mining sites, when the old factory master would take his coffee and snooze in the corner of the room, the boys wouldn’t feel guilty for abandoning work. They would sneak past the factory guard and arrive at the river in no time, scrambling into the middle of it, sitting side by side, sharing a stolen peach or an apple and staring off into the sunset. They had not a worry in the world and they knew everything would always be alright, that life would sail just as smooth as the river itself did, easing past even the sharpest of rocks, effortlessly gliding its way to wherever the path took it.
The memory of those hopeful, carefree days spent frolicking in the sun strikes a sharp bolt of pain into his heart and the man has to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths to calm down. When he opens his eyes again, his vision is blurry and his cheeks are wet. He curses at himself and wipes his face with his sleeves. Breathing in and out slowly and blinking his tears away he forces himself to face the memory again but every time he tries, he feels his head start to spin, his eyes start to well up and he panics. He focuses on the red of the river again and it reminds him of the Old Master’s bright red hair. The factory men would sometimes joke around and say that God made him red-haired to warn others of his fiery-red temper before they had to experience it. This memory makes the man smile.
He thinks of the Old Master and of the day his hair had shone the brightest, the day his temper had scared the kids the most. The boys had all been playing in the river as per usual; blissfully unaware of what had gone wrong in the factory until they heard a familiar voice yell at them from atop the rocks. The Old Master panting and shaking with anger was screaming at the boys to get their useless, lanky selves out of the water.
The man still remembers how he had thought it unusual of the Old Master to be making such a scene, especially on one of their free days. He remembers how when he had finally climbed out of the river, he had seen something other than the usual anger in the Old Master’s eyes, an almost unnoticeable hint of fear and worry. And if he had looked closely, he would have seen that the Old Master’s right cheek blushed an uncanny pink. The man remembers being scared.
The rest of the day had gone by in a blur. The Old Master had hurried the kids back to the factory and snuck them inside through a window at the back (an action that would have earned the kids a smack on their heads had this been any other day). He recalls his young self walking through the factory floors and seeing workers huddled together whispering in hushed tones. He remembers hearing bits and snippets of what they were saying, someone muttered something about the company directors making a surprise visit, others murmured about the directors being livid at the factory operations and some gossiped about one of the directors landing a stinging smack right across the Old Master’s face.
Each of the kids had been personally escorted back home that night (another unusual event) and the man would never forget the look on his mother’s face when his escort had taken her aside and spoken to her in an urgent tone. His mother had stayed up all night, packing bags and preparing boxes of food. Her eyes remained wet throughout and her hands remained shaking. They had both fled the village before the sun rose and he never saw his friends again.
Now, the old man sits, staring at the river that is as stained and dirty as the course of his own life had been. A life spent perpetually on the run from the company authorities, a life spent paying for the sins of the Old Master and a life spent scavenging money to fight the lawsuit the company was threatening to file against the Old Master and his workers. The man looks up and straight across from him stands a tall signboard. Even though he cannot read, he knows what is written on it. He has come here often enough to know that the signboard warns passers-by of the fatal acidic water and advises them to be aware of illegal factory operations that may pollute the river in the future. It is a project of a non-profit organization that fights against water pollution.
Finally the man stands back up. He remembers his mother and her youthful face, his friends and their easy smiles. He remembers the days he spent here with them, laughing and screaming the days away with not a care in the world. Though he has spent a difficult life, crawling and hiding around like a pest, in his last moments he wants to remember the best parts of it.
He closes his eyes and thinks of his mother’s soft palms and how she had tightly gripped his hand when they had last walked away from here together. He clenches his fists and can almost feel her beside him again. He lets out a sigh. And then he steps into the water.
