Once, in Bolivia, after a climb that leaves our lungs raw and metallic, a man presses a plastic cup of beer into my hand. My tongue is thick in my mouth, sluggish. Everyone smells like salt and dust and old wool. I drink. The beer is warm and perfect. Only then do I notice the others on the mountain. Tilt, splash. Tilt, splash. Amber threads sinking into the dirt, small dark circles blooming at our feet. “Just a few vials,” the phlebotomist says. Tilt, fill. Tilt, fill. Dark red threading into glass. They jab and they take, I am purpled and aching. For Pachamama, someone says quietly. For our Earth Mother. For the ground that carries us. For the potatoes and the quinoa and coca. We are not supposed to linger here, the air tells us so, makes our brains pulse in our skulls. We are all only visitors here, just passing through. Everything is counted. White cells. Platelets. Paper bracelets. Hours slept. Every cough every nap every walk every pill every shit every grimace. I stand on the hillside holding my half-empty cup. My mouth is bitter and stale. Shame rises hot in my throat. I pour some out then, a quick, sloshing spill, but I cannot take it back, I had forgotten my offering, forgotten my place. The people I am with are not angry, they are laughing, but I am so sorry, sorrysorrysorry. Another sheet of labels with my name, my birthday, a barcode. They stick one to my wrist, one to the chart, one to the IV bag. Everything is tagged. Everything is accounted for. Everything is accounted for. Everything is remembered. The plastic water bottles, the long showers, the flights threading pale scars through the sky, the time I drank first, the time I didn’t pour one out for Pachamama, all my tiny takings, every time I lingered where I shouldn’t have. Such a small thing, a mouthful tipped to the dirt. I am only passing through. I am only passing through.
