“ Mierda!” Rico Fuentes shouted . As he sat behind a tour bus, he watched a squadron of low flying birds defecate all over his car. He looked at the window shield and groaned as he watched the excrement slide down the glass.
“ Dios Mio! What the hell? Is this the first time he shit in a month?” Rico complained as the bus finally went on its way.
Shaking his head from disgust as to what his so called flying friends had dropped on his car, he pulled into the construction site. His mind was temporarily distracted by the huge sign that seemed to have been put up overnight. Rico squinted as he tried to read.
“ J.W. Marriot Roatan,” it read in large red and white letters. A medley of other bright colors were embedded into the design seamlessly. “ Very nice,’ Rico said out loud. Putting his truck in gear, he cursed at himself for forgetting his sunglasses again. Shaking his head in frustration, he maneuvered his vehicle to the appropriate parking lot assigned to his crew.
Rico grabbed his tools and his other belongings as he rushed to catch up with the foreman, Mitch Mullins. “ Mitch!” He cried as he arrived at his side, his large toolbelt swinging wildly.
“ Careful! You almost whacked me with that thing!” Mitch hollered as he swung his oversized clipboard in the general direction of Rico’s swinging toolbelt. Noticing the need to buckle his toolbelt now more than ever in front of his boss, he fastened it around his waist.
“ Sorry, boss,” Rico nervously apologized.
“ You don’t have to call me boss, Jose,’ Mitch barked over his shoulder.
“ Rico!” Rico shouted. “ My name is Rico, Mitch,” Rico said clearly.
“ Sure, sorry Rico! You’ll be working with Allen and Javier. Allen will be representing management so do what he says,” Mitch instructed. Before Rico could comment, Mitch had already walked away. Rico checked his toolbelt one more time. He wiped the sweat from the back of his neck and squinted into the sun forgetting that he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses.
“ Damn!” He cursed under his breath at his forgetfulness. Taking a deep breath, Rico headed over to the area where Javier and Allen were waiting for him. He felt his anxiety try to emerge as he quickened his pace. “ I can’t lose this job, too!” he mumbled as he arrived at the site.
“ Hey amigo!” Javier waved.
“ Como estas?” Rico shouted as he made his way over to his buddy.
Allen just stood by his shovel and watched Rico and Javier hug each other. “ I’m glad we are working together! These gringos are really starting to get to me,” Javier muttered.
“ Rico, is it?” Allen asked as he walked over.
“ Si,” Rico replied.
“ Okay, let me get something straight. I don’t speak Espanol. So while we are out here working together, handling dangerous machinery, lets try and all be on the same page, that means we all habla englidsh. Comprende?” Allen asked as he alternated his gaze between the two Honduran men.
“ We understand,” Javier announced. Rico nodded as well. Allen flashed a forced smile and grabbed his shovel.
The three men in conjunction with other groups, began the arduous process of excavating. Whether it was the fact that the sun was virtually unbearable without the necessary eyewear, or slight dehydration, Rico caught a glimpse of something strange. He leaned over to get a closer view and was utterly speechless at what he found.
Partially poking out of the dirt, a good twenty meters deep, was the edge of what looked like a pink Iphone. Rico blinked again and held his hand up to shield the sunlight. Javier noticed his friend squinting as he started into the hole.
“ Hey man! What the hell are you doing?” Javier asked as he frantically looked over both shoulders.
“ Thought I saw something,” Rico replied.
“ What the hell is going on here gentleman?” Allen asked as he stormed over to where they were standing.
“ Rico thought he saw something weird,” Javier quickly volunteered this information in hopes of not having his friend risk engaging in open conflict with this angry gringo.
“ Oh yeah?” Allen asked as he turned around to signal the backhoe operator.
“ Hey Mel! Kill it!” Allen cried as he slowly slid his hand along his throat.
Javier was nervous. Now it is real. Javier bit his tongue as he prayed to god that they find something interesting enough to justify having to shut off the equipment and stop digging.
“ Where!” Allen demanded as he stared at both Javier and Rico.
“ Right there!” Rico shouted as he pointed at the object. They quickly noticed what he was referring to when a rogue ray of sunlight collided with the shiny metal edge.
“ I saw it!” Allen confirmed. He pointed to a group of workers who were on their way to the area in question. Many people were focused on what was currently unfolding in the large pit that they had been working on all morning up to this point.
Javier let out a sigh of relief that there was something. He looked over at Rico, looking equally nervous. They both watched as two men who went down to determine the identity of the object.
“ It looks like a pink iphone!” One of the men shouted as he held it in the air.
“ It is a pink iphone!” The other men shouted even louder.
“ Yeah, sure! Enough bullshit! Let’s get back to work! Time is money!” Mitch shouted. “ Should have never shut it down in the first place, dumbass,” Mitch said to himself.
Rico bit his lip in anticipation of getting a chance to inspect this phone a little closer. For some reason, he felt as if all this had something to do with him. Javier watched him as he almost fell down the hill in an effort to get his hands on the iphone.
Rico finally got his chance to examine it and he was absolutely flabbergasted. Javier walked over and looked at the phone as well. He watched Rico punch in a five digit code and immediately access all the content in the phone.
“ How the hell did you know the code?” Javier asked in utter disbelief.
“ I don’t know. It looks exactly like my phone,” Rico explained.
“ You have a pink iphone?” Javier asked.
“ My daughter bought it for me for my birthday,’”he said with a big smile.
“ Oh I see,” Javier said.
“ I’ll show you. It’s right here,” Rico explained as he reached into his pocket. Javier stared at him as his face seemed to turn three shades of white in the matter of less than five seconds.
“ Where is it?” Javier asked.
“ It’s not in my pocket,” Rico muttered nervously as he stared at the pink iphone that he had been holding.
“ This is too much for me right now,” Javier said. He picked up his shovel and resumed his duties very quickly. He shot Rico a nasty look with hopes that he would put the phone away and get back to work.
The day finally came to a close and not one person said a word to him about the phone. Javier was waiting by his truck after work. He walked right up to Rico with an extremely inquisitive look.
“ Let me see that phone again,” Javier asked.
“ Yeah, I want to take another look at it too. Now that the gringo gestapo is not around,” Rico said. Javier laughed at this reference.
Rico took out the phone and looked over both his shoulders. Satisfied that it was just the two of them, he punched in the code again. Just like before, it granted him access immediately.
“ I don’t understand how you know the code to a phone we found underground,” Javier said sounding profoundly confused.
“ Your guess is as good as me. But I can’t seem to find my phone all day,” Rico said. While Javier looked over his shoulder he decided to go through the pictures on the phone. Both of them gasped after what they had seen.
Rico browsed through the photos and saw several pictures of the site that they just evacuated. The more they looked at the more they couldn’t believe their eyes. The site that they were working on was shown through the photos to have a large crane stuck in the hole in which they found Rico’s phone or one very similar. As they continued to swipe through, they noticed more pictures showing some construction workers being attended to by paramedics. Rico immediately put the phone in his pocket. He looked at his friend in horror
“I just remembered I have to pick up my daughter,” Rico said hastily.
“ Ok, see you tomorrow,” Javier replied as he turned to head for his car.
Both men didn’t want to talk about what they had just seen. They were hoping that it was their minds playing tricks on them after a long day. Rico picked up his daughter and brought her straight home with minimal conversation. When he got home, he barely acknowledged his wife, Eva, as he immediately dashed upstairs to take his evening shower.
Making sure his wife and daughter were still downstairs, he grabbed the phone. Rico punched in the code and found himself staring at the pictures again. This time in addition to the previous photos of the crane lying on its side in the hole and pictures of wounded workers being attended to by paramedics, there were more that weren’t there earlier. He gasped as he checked to see if his family was on their way upstairs. The last photo he looked at before he put the phone away was a picture of one of his bosses, Allen, hanging out of his open car door covered with blood, appearing to be dead. He gasped and immediately put the phone away.
He pretended to be asleep when his wife came up to bed. She liked to stay up late and Skype with the multitude of family members she had strewn across Central America. She tried to check and see if her husband was awake but he was pretty convincing in his efforts to fool her into thinking that he was definitively entrenched in dreamland.
The next morning ,he rose from his evening slumber much earlier and quicker than he had done basically every single day of their marriage before this one. His wife, Eva, slowly turned her head towards her husband and opened one eye before drifting back off to sleep. Before she closed her eyes for good, she couldn’t help wonder why her husband was leaving for work this early. Her curiosity succumbed to her tiredness from spending almost all night on Skype with her seven sisters.
Rico hopped in his car and pulled his pink iphone from his pocket and deposited on to the seat next to him. Before he turned the ignition, he wondered quietly to himself for a second. With a sense of doom, he checked the phone and looked at the pictures again. This time in addition to the other photos, he saw a picture of an ambulance taking Allen to the morgue. Once again he gasped and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.
He rushed to work and couldn’t believe what he saw. A large crane was in the process of being removed from the hole that they had been excavating. He saw Javier talking to a few of his coworkers. As soon as he saw Rico, he headed over towards him.
“ Did you tell anyone?” Javier asked.
“ Not a soul,” Rico replied.
“ You better look at the phone again. Allen was killed in a car accident yesterday by the way,” Javier added.
“ I know,” he answered.
“ How?” Javier asked in a confused tone.
“Look!” Rico showed his friend the pictures of their boss’s lifeless corpse hanging out of his car door. The car was completely smashed to pieces.
“ Dios Mio! I heard he had been drinking but it hasn’t been confirmed. What’s wrong?” Javier asked. Rico had a look of horror on his face.
“ This!” Rico showed his friend the next picture. It was a picture of his wife and daughter’s car intertwined with a school bus. Javier turned away in horror. The minute he turned around, his friend had gone.