The water washes all.

My pasty skin leaves ghostly impressions in the moonlight. Naked, I stand next to a basin of murky water. I know there is a bucket, though I cannot see it. I grope for it and dunk it into the water. Quick, Lamaze breaths prepare me for the cold rush I know will come next. It hits me fast, the water, and at that moment not even the sixteen hours I have been on my feet could make me tired. But the second rush is pleasant and I remember holding a man’s head still and watching his life leak onto my skin, his friend’s face mangled and chewed by glass and steel, still clutching the Salva Vida beer can. Salva Vida, life saver. Gallows humor, I suppose. I’m conditioned. The third rush flushes it away again and I hear children of the village giggle as they watch me bathe; they want to know if I am white everywhere—if perhaps my skin was bleached by the sun. Two women approach and shoo them away. They, too, have come to wash and we silently pass the bucket back and forth. All I see is the illusory glaze of eyes. All I hear are our shared gasps as the water hits us again, and again.