Paper is supposed to be the heart of memory. Even though we may feel like there’s more truth in omitted remarks than in formal records, my leases and property deeds and insurance policies, even my bank obligations, everything that belongs to me, would legally disappear if it had no material format, if there weren’t something physical to determine its existence. Here is something of mine, something from 1836, signed in the hand of someone who has always lived among my shadows, who has probably spoken to me without identifying himself, in the mannerisms of my grandmother, of her mother and her mother and her mother before her.

Less than half an hour after I parted ways with Rudy, I received an email with the scanned version of the old document, parts of which are illegible. It has a national three-peso stamp in the upper left corner.

In the Name of the Lord Our God, Amen.

I, Torquato Bowie, Resident and Landowner of the Island of San Andrés finding myself sound of judgment and memory Thanks Be to God, I make and declare this my last Will and Testament as follows: First I Commend my soul to the All-Powerful who created it. Second That my body shall be duly interred at the discretion of my Executors, and that all my legal debts shall be honoured.

I read and reread in bed, almost in the dark. I study even the transcription errors. Meanwhile, I chew the last bit of the sweet green cookie, coconut and cinnamon. A cicada and the lazy fan are all I can hear for now, and an engine humming far in the distance.