I’ve found out about some island dramas. ‘Things aren’t like they used to be around here, mamita,’ people say; ‘be careful wherever you go.’ ‘I couldn’t come by because there was a shooting in my neighbourhood and things got too bad for anyone to leave,’ the plumber explained the day he showed up, long after I’d stopped waiting. It was the water guy who told me the jugs had run out; it was the driver of the water tanker who urged me to get on the waiting list, because in the summer it’s just crazy. The tourists are more and more of a hassle, I hear. The tacky neon-wearers. The budget flights full of people who sometimes end up passed out on the pedestrian walkway, sleeping on top of their luggage, or selling sandwiches or empanadas on the beach to fund their travels. The last thing I remember from when I lived here, actually, is that tourism had all but dried up; by the end of my high school years, the crisis in Colombia was so severe that not even the tacky neon-wearers would come. Soon I’ll be able to see who’s around. Soon I’ll have time.

The next item on my agenda is to go to the beach. There’s no breeze today and it’s so hot that there’s no other way to endure it. I’ll leave once the military pilots are gone, the ones I’ve seen filing out of the house across the street; I’ll take the brown road that unfurls in parallel to the runway until it opens out onto the sea.