Sister Sun

This is the kind of evening I live for. The window presses patterns into my elbows and the metal of the car edge burns. In the wind my hair feels sharp.

We ascend a slight incline and the low sun snipes my eyes in a flash of intense orange.

Leaning back I enter the grey pleather world of a minibus, occupants occupied with books and white earphones. I lever my head and shoulders back out of the window. Insert myself back into the land flying past.

The difference is stark. The lid comes off the sky and I morph from the observer to the observed. My heart feels like it is expanding. Somehow this evening shows everything as it truly is.

I think of my sister, waving from the side of the road where I left her an hour ago, and have to resist the urge to jump out into this golden world.

It is hard to believe I have just spent two weeks with Emily - they seem to have passed me by in a whirl of activity, pierced through with the clear light of the new dry season.

Just a week ago she ripped up her ticket back home. For whatever reason, she felt the same pull taking her away from our homeland. Now, like me, she is dislocated. Thanks to destiny's fine work, Central America now houses two wandering Randalls.

Separated for years by winding lives, once more brought back together under this metalled sun. For the first time we find ourselves together in our abandon, and the focus shifts to our similarities instead of our differences.

If I hadn't needed to return for work I would have skipped down the Pacific with her. But instead I am on a bus back to the lake.

The coast of El Salvador marches along the sea in dramatic cliffs and endless lines of surf. Fields of sugar cane and coconut palms flaunt highlights in sprays of green.

Everything is on fire.

Ahead of me lie eight weeks of hard work. Beyond that… only this sun knows. The swelling inside reminds me not to stay away too long.

The wind teases tears from my eyes. I miss her already.