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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/AnteMeridiem24 on 2026-08-02 20:29:08+00:00.

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I'll start by saying that I like my job.

I don't love it. It doesn't excite me. I just like it as much as a person can like what they do for a living. That kind of fondness that exists in the line between what's strictly necessary and barely inconvenient.

Since I was fifteen years old — when my father figured it was appropriate to teach me how to drive — my afternoons have consisted of traversing the coast from end to end, delivering bags of fishhooks, meters worth of transparent ropes, fishing boats parts and up to four digits bills for those poor devils whose grace periods died along the end of the month.

Even though our economy wasn't the best, our family business made fees and sparse luxuries something sustainable. An honest job that subsisted thanks to the men and women who reduced their world to the sea. Fishing towns far from God's hand which functioned by their own rules, parties and disgraces.

Dad taught me that in those people's indifference laid our home. Having been raised at the limit of both worlds, his father's father had come up with the brilliant idea of bringing the best of the city to the doors of those who couldn't afford to travel for four hours through barren hills and ghost towns.

And although many cunning ones tried to cut our business short, the truth was that the people of the sea were also people of customs. People who trusted faces over brands, and who valued the warmth of another human being more than the frigidness of a store crammed with aesthetics and publicity. For this reason, our politics tended to go far and beyond, transforming clientele into friends and good clients into comrades and family.

“Today I need you to go down to Paraíso to deliver some gallons, son,” was my father's greeting when I entered the garage to tell him breakfast was ready. “Your uncle is going out to sea on Sunday and wants to solve this before his daughter's birthday.”

“What? My uncle José Luis?” I asked, disguising my indifference with plastic curiosity. “I saw on Whatsapp that the birthday was today. They’re gonna gift her gas?”

Dad gave me one of those smiles that made you see just how tired he was of cleaning those same two plugs.

“He asked me to hand it over before six.” He made an illustrative gesture towards the air, replacing his wrench for a little napkin brimming with grease. “I said no; that it was too early. So we decided that you'd get going by half past seven.”

“Oh, really?” I puffed. At nineteen years old, late hours and dark highways didn’t bother me as long as the deal was good… And if it wasn’t during one of my free nights I just wanted to waste playing Truco or drinking booze with those friends from the block that he never got to like.

“Why? You got something to do?”

“I thought that last scare would be enough to dissuade you from doing more trips like this,” I pointed out, feigning disinterest. My father sighed and looked me in my eyes. “At… at least for this month, I mean.”

“This is different,” he spoke severely. “We’re not doing this out of courtesy. Your uncle told me he'd looked everywhere because he knows how dangerous this is for us.” He spat the earthy floor, cleaning his hands. I followed him closely as he crossed the garage's threshold. “However, time is running thin. This is less of a job and more like a favor I’m asking you, son. A big one.”

“And a very convenient one too,” I mumbled. He raised an eyebrow at me. “´Cause… Ugh. I told the guys I was going to the basketball finals. Remember?”

Dad shook his head. “Those friends of yours… Hm, well, let's see,” he told me. “If you take the old airport line, you may have a chance to catch the second half… Or whatever it is you have in basketball.” He made a disdainful gesture with his hand.

My eyes opened wide. “The… The old airport line?” I said, taking a subtle glance at the truck. Dad nodded, and by the severity of his expression, I knew we were thinking the same thing.

To avoid raising suspicions, these kinds of deliveries were made in a ninety's Ford gnawed by the sun and saltpeter. The extraofficial sale of gasoline was no business for the weak. Not even for fools like me, with a bunch of spare time and inherited contacts. Dad knew why, and even though we'd gone through what happened together, I didn't dare to question his version as if it was the word of a final survivor.

“It might not be the safest route,” he shrugged, breaking the silence, “but it is the fastest. Besides, no feds there. That's a plus to you, ain't it?”

I sighed. Of course it was. And, damn… If I didn't know that man and his big heart any better, I would have thought that whole spectacle had been millimetrically planned to keep me at bay, asking the least amount of questions.

“Yeah…” I scratched my head apprehensively. Over the back door, my mom and aunt stared at us with weird faces. Maybe they already knew and I was the last one to find out, like always. “I just wish you trusted me more with… Everything, I guess.”

Dad let out a scathing laugh, patting my shoulder. “Show me you're responsible and I'll consider it,” he said. “Now, time to eat.”

Breakfast and lunch carried on with no hurdles. Besides my aunt's slightly burnt rice, home buzzed with normalcy: chatters over the news, coffee and bread for merienda, hanging clothes to pick up and fold at six forty in the afternoon…

“Know what to do if it overheats?” A few minutes before I left, dad made me flinch by suddenly approaching me from behind. “Ah! Excited to see your uncle, I see. That's very good, son. Send my regards to the family.”

“Tell them to catch me outside town,” I suggested. Dad frowned doubtfully. “What? This way I don't have to make so many turns. We can't afford to waste too much gas in a single trip.”

Dad shrugged. I rolled my eyes, closing the truck's hood.

“Are you going to the game later?” he asked.

I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Not anymore. Seeing how much this is going to take me, I’m better off checking the scores through Whatsapp stories.”

“In that case, be very careful, son. And if you're not here before nine…”

“You call, I know,” I said, opening the door to the driver's seat. A glance at the backseat revealed to me a covered lump that my dad and uncle had placed earlier: five well sealed gallons of gas. “Or… I call you. But it won't be necessary. Tell mom to go to bed after her novela.”

“I'll try, but you know how she is.” He shook his head. “Be here on time and I assure you she will.”

I said goodbye to dad, sneaking into the town’s withered roads with the truck’s lights off. Just in case, I told myself, recognizing that earlier on I'd thought I saw three cops on motorcycles, patrolling around the ranches that bordered the coast in search of God knows what.

“The farther away, the better,” I said, making the last turn that would carry me to the desolate old airport line.

Despite what its name could suggest, Paraíso wasn’t even close to that piece of Eden that was projected to investors. Drowned by taxes and the state government's bad practices, what many envisioned as five star hotels soon transformed into half-constructed carcasses where homeless people and reckless teens surrendered to their vices.

I remember that my grandpa first took me to the lake so he could explain to me how everything I saw, from the stranded ships to the gray buildings stuck in construction, were tacit proof of the hatred Man harboured towards its neighbors.

“If they didn’t detest us so much, then why spoil our work with their filth? I don’t get it, my son. I do not. And neither do you, right?”

I had shaken my head, not truly understanding what he meant. The only things I knew about that place were the abandoned ships and the ghosts which supposedly lived in those rustic buildings consumed by saltpeter.

Now, each time I crossed that lonely road that separated the beach from the lake, I thought I saw the silhouettes of an old man and his grandchild amongst the shadows of the mangals. These ghosts, instead of haunting the corpses of metal and concrete, induced me with the same respect I wanted to inspire during my childhood. Wisdom, security, and courage.

“Ah, Boy! Look at you! You got here so fast!”

When I arrived at my uncle’s home (dad never texted them, what a surprise!), the family welcomed me with a cold beer, a cackle at the princess rag that covered the gas and an invitation to sit down for a chat while they waited for cake. Since I had nothing better to do, I checked my watch and calculated I had at least twenty spare minutes no one would lose sleep over. So, with a shy smile, I integrated myself into the group. The reunion, more than a proper birthday party, was a celebration of the birth.

“We're having the real party on Saturday," commented my uncle, opening my beer with a solid crack from his bar key. “You're invited, of course. And tell your dad. It's been a while since we had some!”

After blowing out the candles, the birthday girl's mom offered me another beer and a small plastic plate with enough cake for me and my parents, dismissing my refusal with “because you came from so far away, child. Eat it, and if you want more, ask us.” I only declined to be polite, as delicious as it was; traditional vanilla with pineapple pieces. Nothing too exclusive, but with that homemade taste that grandmas' cakes had.

“Be careful over there, sweetheart.” As I gave her back the empty bottle, my aunt surpris...

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