Sun Night

By E.H. de la Espriella

This is a re-release edition of Sun Night that includes an extended ending and a new cover.

Sun Night is a memoir about two brothers growing up in 1976 Panama and follows the events that would transform their young lives forever. The brothers, Sebastian and Santiago are very close and highly p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Enrique de la Espriella
• Release date: Jan 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798986869261

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SUN NIGHT

E.H. DE LA ESPRIELLA

Copyright © 2023 E.H. de la Espriella

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

Printed in the United States of America.

Edited by Samantha Hubbard

Cover, dust cover, book design and collage artwork

by E.H. de la Espriella

Published by Enrique de la Espriella

Photography by Sonia Ortiz and James Peshek

2023 Re-release.

ISBN: 979-8-9868692-5-4 Hardback

ISBN: 979-8-9868692-4-7 Paperback

Learn more at SunNightBook.com.

The Clouds Above

When I was a child, I saw clouds in the bedroom ceiling. I saw them. I did. I shared that bedroom with my brother, but he never saw the clouds. I don’t know why he didn’t, and I didn’t question it because there were bigger questions about life that needed to be answered first. Questions about what it means to live and what it means to die. What it means to love another human being and what it means to see them leave. In this room with clouds above, we shared our ideas, thoughts, stories, feelings, suffering, and happiness. In this room, we supported each other when we felt lonely and helpless.

The clouds were spinning, swirling with no sign of stopping. Gray, foamy, puffy; the clouds moved in a vortex and didn’t travel anywhere else. From corner to corner, and from one end to the other of the ceiling, the smoky clouds moved violently, appearing like an approaching storm. From time to time there were sparks and flashes of light filling the swirls. The clouds churned in the ceiling of the bedroom that Sebastian shared with his brother Santiago.

Sebastian, who was in bed with his covers pulled up to his neck, moved his right arm from under the sheets and shielded his eyes from the menacing billows above him. Suddenly, very small dots of different colors began to emerge from the bedroom ceiling. Slowly, the vicious foam of clouds began to disappear as if by magic. Night had come and all went quiet in the room. Sebastian’s eyes felt heavier. He moved his arm back under the sheets and fell completely asleep.

Morning came and light began to fill the room where Sebastian and Santiago slept. It was a simple apartment room with large sliding closet doors and two single beds separated by a wood night table painted white. Sunlight began to fill the room and color appeared on the closet doors where Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy characters had been painted by their mother in a weekend project months before. The beds, the sheets, the covers, and the pillows were all the same for each brother; simple half inch stripes of white and yellow.

More of the room became visible by the light and small matching desks emerged against the wall near the door to the hallway, opposite the closet doors. The wall, ceiling, and doors were all white; bone white, as their mother called it. The only decorations on the walls, aside from the characters on the closet doors, were above the night table; two pictures depicting clowns with big sad eyes looking out toward the windows. There was also a clown lamp on the night table, and a square clock with glow-in-the-dark numbers. Under the night table, in the cabinet below, were storybooks, with the front one titled The Water Babies.

The door of their room opened at 6:20, like it did every school day morning. A woman in her mid-thirties entered the room. She was their mother, and her name was Michelle. She was beautiful, tall, and slim, with brown hair and eyes, and silky white skin. She was ready for work in a brown dress, a color very popular in the seventies. She told the boys to open their little eyes and to wake up to get ready for school. She was pleasant and loving to her kids. Michelle stopped by each of their beds. First by Santiago’s bed, the one closest to the door. Sebastian, the older and always the most somber and responsible of the two, got up first and ran to the bathroom in his pajamas. Michelle started to fix Sebastian’s bed while trying to get Santiago to rise from his sleep.

Sebastian, still sleepy, relieved himself and then took a look at his reflection in the mirror above the sink while brushing his teeth. An 11-year old boy looked back at him, alone and without any idea what the future held for him. Within the year, his life was going to change completely. Sebastian was pale with dark hair and big brown eyes that appeared almost black. He hoped he would one day grow into his teeth, as they appeared almost too big for his head. Sebastian was the introvert; very shy, sensitive, and quiet, preferring to be neither seen nor heard. Sebastian was scared of everything; the whole world around him; and a total contrast to his brother Santiago who was loud, outgoing, and friendly to even the strangest of strangers.

Santiago was full of life; always running, jumping, and meddling in others’ business. Sebastian was two years older than Santiago, and recognized the responsibility of being an older brother. He always took the role of teacher, which happened to be their mother’s profession. Santiago was shorter with dirty blonde hair and green eyes that changed color depending on his mood or how strongly the sun was shining that day.

Sebastian and Santiago came from a middle-class family where both parents worked. Their father Esteban, a hospital laundry manager, was a heavier man always perspiring from the constant Panamanian heat and humidity. Stockier in shape, he was much taller than his wife, and even though he was also white, his skin tone was darker than hers. With an army haircut and strong Italian features, Esteban could have been mistaken for European in those days.

Like a recorded message, the trip to school was the same every day; Michelle packed her two kids into the back of her 1974 bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle, picked up a neighborhood kid who was much older than her own children and that went to the same school. This gave Michelle an additional means of income. She drove through the streets to get to the school where she taught English as a second language.

Once at the school, she would park the VW in the same parking spot reserved for teachers. The neighbor girl who always sat in the front seat would get out first, then Michelle, and finally the boys, who would emerge from the back seat. Santiago jumped on his mother and gave her a big kiss while pulling her down to his height. Sebastian followed his brother. Everyone said goodbye to each other and were all on the way to their individual classrooms.

Then, as the day fast-forwarded, everything repeated in reverse. Everyone reconvened in the same spot, jumped into the Volkswagen and returned home.

After dinner that evening, the kids did their homework on the dining room table while their father tried to fix the light switch in the kitchen. He was sweating as usual, only wearing an undershirt and the only black slacks he appeared to own. The children could hear the click of the light switch repeatedly but nothing changed. There were still no lights. Their dad hovered over the light switch as if trying to decipher a hieroglyph, and wondered what was so unusual that the switch wouldn’t work properly.

A transformer. Screamed Michelle. Could it be that a transformer burned?

Esteban hadn’t even thought of it, and looked at her with a smirk. He disappeared to the back room behind the kitchen where the fuse box was located. They heard some rattling noises, and a minute later he reappeared with his hands grabbing the kitchen towel and wiping the sweat off his neck and face. He flipped the switch once more and the kitchen light turned on. He was elated for someone that seldom showed much emotion.

That night, they sat in front of the television set on the dark blue rug in front of their parents’ bed, watching The Topo Gigio Show. Sebastian gazed at the mouse on the screen while trying to figure out how he could move so lifelike. Both watched while trying not to blink, in order to avoid missing a moment of it. The show ended as it always did, where Topo Gigio was ready for bed. And as he always did at the end of every show, he yawned dramatically and said to the bed, to the bed. in a race to see if he or the presenter would say it first. Then he proceeded, I said it first, I said it first, singing in an adorable innocent manner. Sebastian and Santiago, with big smiles on their faces, recited the words at the same time with Topo Gigio. Both boys, who were lying on the floor on their stomachs, got up and stretched mimicking the movements Gigio acted out on the screen. They continued to watch for the presenter to say good night to Gigio and the program ended. Their father wished them a good night as the children reluctantly shuffled to their bedroom.

At eight o’clock, Sebastian and Santiago were in their beds, already in their pajamas. It was Thursday night, one more day of school before the weekend. The night was warm and humid, but that was normal in Panama City. The oscillating fan was already working hard on the middle speed setting. Michelle checked on them minutes later, before turning the light out in their bedroom.

Have a good night my sweets and dream with angels. She told them, as she always did.

Santiago seemed chatty that evening, telling Sebastian about his schoolmate Roger that got into trouble in school earlier that day.

Can you believe Roger cursed in Spanish class today? Mrs. Sanchez was furious. And he didn’t show any remorse; he was just staring at her with a smile as if it was the funniest thing in the world. He couldn’t even hold back the thrill of doing something so funny.

Santiago actually felt bad for Mrs. Sanchez because she had recently divorced and didn’t smile much after that. Not like he knew what the word divorce meant, but he was sure it wasn’t a good thing. Santiago and Sebastian didn’t ask for details because they really didn’t want to know the horrible truth of it all. All they knew was that it was something bad; something people didn’t talk about around the children, based on the expressions, shifts in conversation, and rolling of eyes from their parents every time the subject would come up.

Sebastian laughed as Santiago blurted out the four-letter word mimicking how Roger would have sounded when he said it in class. Sebastian then changed the subject and told Santiago about his day and how physical education class was tedious because he disliked sports and was obligated to play soccer with the other kids in order to get a passing grade. Once the boys were on the soccer field, they had to play until they made their physical education uniforms dirty. Sebastian would always pick to play goal defense so that he didn’t have to run around and get tired like the other kids did. When the ball would come in his direction, he would fall on the dry reddish-brown earth and roll around until his green shorts faded to the same color of the dirt.

By this time, Santiago was half way between here and there and wasn’t responding much to Sebastian’s story. All you could hear in the room was Sebastian talking quietly in Santiago’s direction on the bed next to him.

After a while, Sebastian turned his head and looked up into the ceiling of their room. The clouds were swirling around up in the ceiling again. They were grayish blue this time, and grayish purple in some places. Dots of different colors appeared on the ceiling and suddenly disappeared. Sebastian rubbed his eyes with his fingers and wondered if Santiago could also see them. He also wondered why they only came out during the night. This phenomenon was there, it was vivid and alive. The boy closed his eyes and continued to see disappearing dots inside of his eyelids. He opened them again to see what else would show on the ceiling of his room.

A car with loud music drove by the building, loud enough to be heard on their third-floor apartment room. The music playing was a loud boom sound, maybe a Donna Summer tune with very low bass, hard to define from the distance. The lights from the passing car reflected, duplicated, and multiplied into the room bringing some of the light that was now a field of colorful rainbow effects casting on to the ceiling. The clouds were still there, circling in a never-ending maelstrom. Sebastian then heard Santiago turn in his bed to look away; perhaps the music and the lights coming into the room bothered him. Sebastian covered himself tightly to keep himself protected from anything coming down from the ceiling that may want to grab him or do harm because in the end, he still didn’t fully trust it. He knew that Santiago was safe when he was asleep, so he didn’t worry about him being in danger.

Santiago, I need to go pee. Sebastian called to his brother without a response. Santiago was deeply asleep. Sebastian called on his brother once more, this time loudly. Santiago, wake up, I really need to go pee! He glanced at the time on their bedside table. It was 2:15 in the morning. Santiago moved in his bed, bothered by his brother’s roaring call. Sebastian got up slowly, making sure