Quarter To Ten

• Christopher Silva, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2018

1978, it was labelled, a decrepit and fading sub-label hung beneath, not dissimilar to its’ brothers and sisters sitting alongside the walls of this file room. As if that meant something to myself, still. The morning sun was decidedly absent from this morning’s proceedings, perhaps hidden among the foliage of gloom above. I opened the box hastily, cutting a spare finger on the surprisingly knife-like edge of the lid. Sucking as a child would, I opened the first file of many and began to read…

At 9:22 p.m. on November 19, 1978, Lieutenant Commander Conway Horrall of the 77th Division was instructed to pursue a received call. In the call, an unidentified child stated, ‘there’s men here with guns trying to steal from us again, I don’t know if we can kill them all,’ before leaving the phone connection open for the next two minutes. Carol Marks, who received the call reported hearing the presence of an unintelligible argument held between two groups of men. These two minutes proved crucial to allow the use of a StingRay device to determine the location of the call. Lieutenant Commander Horrall reached the location at 9:38 p.m. and witnessed the first of many deaths that night.

Don Samuel, I remembered fondly. It should have been harder to kill him. A white-knuckle grip and a tight grit of teeth later, I continue to read…

At 9:41 p.m. the seventh victim was identified as Victor Cubrero and was found impaled by
a broken
leg of a toy
rocking
horse through
the right
sternum…
9:43 p.m…
…throat s l a s h e d…
9:45 p.m…
found behind the counter with her spinal cord
removed…
9:45 p.m…
17th victim… found lying on the upper banisters…
9:45 p.m…
a young girl later identified as
Valeria Hidalgo Corredor
found breathing underneath a pallet holding barrels containing victims eighteen through twenty-four…

injuries sustained included severe head trauma and lacerations to her
right shoulder
left forearm,



and left upper thigh…
9:46 p.m…
Pozole… y tu también Papa.
The hazy sky persists through the clarity of my own thought,
though, was it time… yet?


Dark is the dawn that does not come, the taste of remembrance lingers in my blood and time itself seems to betray its boundaries for it too has trouble seeing straight.

It’s been so long since I have felt it now hasn’t it…

I dismiss the thought as little more than a primal hunger long abandoned, suppressed underneath the mundanity of everyday life and that which that awaits me. It was not quite yet noon when I finally completed the preparations for the move. And with less than a momentary hesitation I unpinned my badge and un-holstered my belt, laying them on the cold metal of my worn-out station. My eyes skim my faded tag. A name I am much too familiar with in a time that I am not even familiar with myself. Valeria Horrall.