The Bus Station

The Central de Autobuses was a madhouse. Xochitl had made a reservation on a first class bus, and she was ready to start her vacation. The chaos of Mexico City’s eastern bus station at this peak hour (locally named TAPO) was the last she would have to put up with regards to life in the fast lane before she started her vacation. She was more than ready to leave the traffic, pollution and work stress.
Maybe that would solve the nightmares. That, or a therapist.
She never remembered the nightmares. Only waking up crying, scared and with a deep sense of sorrow, but with no memory of the actual nightmare. It had never been bad, except for the last year or so. As a result, insomnia had set in - a vague fear of going to sleep, a nightmare some nights, and then waking up still tired. This was the pattern of her life lately.
Xochitl had lived all her life in Mexico City. So she was more than used to the fast-paced life, but the sleeplessness had made it very difficult to concentrate lately and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had a vacation.
Her parents were both physicians, and biology came easy to her, which was why it was simple enough (and safe enough for her family life) to become a geneticist, currently doing research at the Centro Médico Nacional. It was awkward enough when she told her parents she would not fulfill their parents’ desire to be a Doctor, and she nearly got sworn off when she went off with some history students to learn about the Mayas in the Yucatan peninsula - they would have killed her had she told them she really always wanted to be a historian.
Mexican women, particularly those who are single, stay close to their home and visit their family often. This is both a blessing and a curse, as the constant family love one came to expect from one’s parents can lead to dysfunction and friction as the children become adults and create their own lives, particularly when their lives aren’t what their parents expected. This was particularly true in her rigid family. So she had decided it was time for a change, asked for a long vacation and booked herself a trip to Veracruz.
She had only visited Veracruz once as a child; her parents usually took her to Acapulco, which was much easier to get to by car and where her parents owned a timeshare (as much as one can really own those things). She didn’t even tell her parents she was going on vacation to avoid them railroading her and forcing her to go there. She had had enough of their efforts to show off to friends, buying property here and property there, getting into debt unnecessarily. Unlike them, she was perfectly ok both with her skin color and her close indigenous ancestry. So freaking what if her paternal grandparents were almost 100% Aztec? They worked hard and put dad through school, and him seeing poor people through all those accidents in the rural areas is what drove him to his present career as one of the top Trauma specialists in the country. Besides, it wasn’t their fault that Mom’s parents, proud “white Mexicans”, swore them both off when she tried to please both her own mother (Flor) and her parents-in-law by naming her Flor in Nahuatl (Xochitl)? At least she didn’t end up named Achacauhtli[^cf1] like her maternal grandparents insisted had to be done due to grandpa’s dream of her being a great leader (he was a wonderful old man, but he could get pretty weird sometimes). Now that would have been an awkward experience at her private high school. No, Xochitl was common enough and a pretty name. It suited her just fine.
So here she was, by herself in a bustling bus station, ready to go visit Veracruz. A lot of families were milling about, and also plenty of humble people ready to purchase a ticket back to their small towns, to spend the weekend with their families before heading back to work on the millions of Mexico City’s menial jobs.
It was one of these that caught her eye, an older Nahua woman with many bundles of flowers.
The flower woman looked at Xochitl intently. Native Mexicans don’t open their eyes wide a lot. But this was a stare. The old lady stood up, leaving the flowers on the ground, and walked to Xochitl directly.
- “Achacauhtli Malinali”, she said. And gave her a flower.
The orange blossom was a cempazuchitl[^cf2]. The flower of the dead.
- “Thank you”, Xochitl said. My name is Xochitl.
The old woman didn’t answer. Instead, she just said something else in Nahuatl.
- “Ayaiztiuitz[^cf3]?”
The Nahua woman turned around and left.