ESCAPE

This story takes place in a Hacienda, on the outskirts of Cartagena in the year 1437. A man is sitting in an old leather armchair with a boy at his feet. The fire is roaring on this cold December night.

“Can you tell me a story, Papi,” said the young boy to his father. “Of course Junior,” the father replied. “Don’t call me Junior!” said the child. “For I am 5 years old!” The father smiled to himself and settled further into his armchair by the fire and started: “I will tell you a story of when I was fifteen years of age. It was the year 1417, in a small village near the Chillon Castle in Switzerland. I had just escaped from Sion Castle and I was looking for someone who could help me. It was hard to know whom to ask as I had been misled before. “Aha! There’s an old woman here I think I can trust. Or man. Or maybe not.” I thought to myself. “I think maybe this man, because he is not a both man and woman, like the last fifteen of them. So here I go”, I told myself, I went up to the man in question and said “Hahem! Can you keep a secret?” “Of course, of course”, he responded. “NOW WHAT IS IT?” he shouted. “SHHHHH!” I admonished him. “I escaped from Sion Castle. My name is Senor Antonio Joaquin De La Caranta el Terrez de Cartagena. What is the way out from here? I need to get back to Spain urgently. The man responded “Well there are rumours of a tunnel that runs from the Lord’s chamber to the island owned by King Edward I, Regina Island, in the middle of Lake Leman. Then you must barter a boat to sail across the lake and down the River Rhone”.

“Papi,” Alejandro asked. “Why did you go to prison anyway?” I was just about to tell you,” replied Antonio.

“I was walking in the forest when I stepped on the markings of a dragon etched in the dirt. It started to glow so I ran to the closest villager I could find and told him what I had seen. He took me by the shoulder and led me to his village, where he told them what I had said. They blindfolded me and led me away. When finally they took the blind-fold off, I seemed to be in the court of Sion Castle. I was tried, and sentenced to prison for life”.

Papi”, asked the young boy. “How did you escape?”. “Well son, don’t try this at home, okay?”, replied the father. “It was down the toilet.” “Papi, isn’t that disgusting?” said Alejandro, horrified. “Yes, Alejandro.” replied Antonio.

“Now let me get back to that old man. He gave me twenty yards of rope, two blunt swords, and the dragon marking I saw earlier, engraved on a medallion, of which half was missing. I studied it for a while. The clocks in the Castle tower rang twelve times. It was midday. For no apparent reason, I looked up at the tallest peak in the mountain range across the lake and it started to glow. I looked down at the medallion, and it too was glowing. Then…”

“Did you explode?”, interrupted Alejandro. “And the little purple and green polka-dotted goblins …”. But he couldn’t continue as his father interjected, “No, it just stopped. Now let me get on with my story. The old man just told me to go, so I bent one of my swords and tied the rope to it. I then threw it up over the wall like a grappling hook, but I missed, and it scratched the wall. The noise this made brought a castle guard running. I quickly threw the sword back up again, and the edge of the sword caught the guard’s shirt and I pulled him off the wall. On the third attempt, as I was about to throw my make-shift grappling hook back up again, the guard’s helmet fell on me and almost knocked me unconscious. The fourth time, it worked. I scaled the wall and came face to face with more people. I knocked aside seven guards, one noble man, and three yodelers. I found myself helped by a stranger who fought side by side with me. As the battle was raging, this stranger told me he was a smuggler and so I explained to him my dilemma. He said he would think about providing me with a safe passage out of Switzerland. We shook hands and I made my way to the Lord’s chamber.

I was greeted by a parrot that screeched “Intruder! Intruder!” I dashed from one corner to another, while the parrot narrated my every move. Alerted, one guard came into the chamber. Then another, and then two more. The second guard broke my sword. In desperation, I picked up that ‘about to be Kentucky fried’ parrot and used him as a sword. The parrot, which had been quiet for a while, shouted, “I surrender. I surrender! Tunnel that way! Tunnel that way!” so I pushed aside the bookshelf to find a lantern on my left which I took out of its holder. After an hour the parrot and I came to a fork in the path. There was a sign that said ‘YE WHO KNOWS GOD’S TRUE MEANIN SHALL PASS’. On my right, it said ‘JEHOVAH’ and on my left, it said ‘I am that I am’. I chose the left, of course. I managed to get through the tunnel without any further incidents, the parrot clutching firmly at my shoulder. When I got out of the tunnel through a tangle of branches in a low-lying bush, the stranger was waiting for me. “Follow me, he said, leading the way to the shore, where I could see a small vessel waiting. Before embarking, I saw him looking at the medallion, which I had placed around my neck. “I would leave this behind, if I were you”, he said. “Because the dragon will follow you to the ends of the earth and never leave you in peace”. I looked into his eyes, and could see only truth. I handed the medallion over to him. As I sailed away across Lac Leman to Cartagena and freedom, I saw him bury the medallion close to the tunnel entry.

“Papi, why are we moving further and further away from the fire?” asked Alejandro as he looked down at his feet. They were being carried away by green and purple polka-dotted goblins.


THE END