The Cult Of The Absents

Living is like plowing the sea...

For what purpose?

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It’s been a year since I arrived in the Dominican Republic.

A country where I didn’t know the language, but even without understanding some of the words its people spoke, I could feel in their voices that lively vibe I had been searching for.

Since I decided to escape my previous life five years ago, I’ve been jumping from continent to continent, looking for a place where my orphaned soul could feel at home.

In the first few weeks, I met a guy named Rubén, an Argentine who said he’d been traveling through Latin America for two years.

We connected quickly. We became brothers.

We rented an apartment together.

We had coffee every Wednesday.

Improvised Spanish lessons on Mondays and Thursdays.

Going to the beach early in the morning after intense Friday night parties.

He became my unpaid translator.

I was the one who consoled him every time one of his dates failed.

He was (and I believe still is) that soulmate who, rather than being one of those fleeting loves that wither when passion fades, became that safe place I always want to return to when I need refuge.

But everything changed six months ago.

I received a worrying call about Rubén, the one I considered (and still consider) the brother life gave me. He was at work at the time.

When I texted him to confront him about what I’d heard in that call, at that very moment, he disappeared from my life.

He came home when I wasn’t there, sometime in the afternoon. He took his things, left the keys on the kitchen table, and never returned to our house again.

No letter.

No message.

Not a single word.

That call cast an aura of mystery around Rubén that made me question everything I thought I knew about him.

And yet, even today, I feel that deep love for what I now know is a soul like mine: one that escapes.

Since then, in the past six months, I’ve only seen him three times at our favorite bar.

But before explaining my friend’s life, the content of that call, and what’s happened since then, I need to explain my own story.

Because when I learned more about Rubén, I understood that I wasn’t as alone as I thought.

And I realized that, without knowing it, Rubén, myself, and a small group of humans are almost like a secret society that has perhaps made the most rebellious decision anyone can make.

To disappear.

In search of a new life.

To have the chance to build for ourselves a character that finds a community in the right circus.

We are the cult of the absent.

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What is a 35-year-old woman doing wandering the world alone, with her life in a suitcase?

We’ve all had the fantasy of disappearing.

Escaping from a debt.

From a love we’ve grown bored of.

Or maybe from drugs and excesses.

From the sins of the past.

From everything that kills us inside, even though we have to show the world a smile to maintain this collective fantasy that we’re all fine.

For 99.8% of people, the dream of starting over as a complete stranger remains just that: a fantasy.

In my case, many would call me stupid for wanting to “escape” from Switzerland: a place known for its good chocolate, beautiful landscapes, and where you can earn in an hour what you’d make in a week in a “developing” country.

But, unlike 99.8% of the people in this world, one day I took my suitcase and left, never to return.

I don’t know what to call the feeling that drove me to make such a decision.

Perhaps it was bravery, in seeking my path in the most exotic places in the world.

Or maybe it was cowardice, in not facing the silent demons I dealt with among my mountains.

Whatever it was, I’ve been wandering the world for five years.

Most of the time, I forget my past life, seduced by the culture and pleasures of each country I live in.

However, on some nights, when I find myself alone in my room, overwhelmed by my thoughts, I wake from my lethargy and think about the lives of those I left behind in my country.

About my friends, my family.

And everything I could be doing now if I hadn’t made the decision to leave without explanation five years ago.

During the first four years, when these nights of introspection tortured my mind and heart, the feeling of loneliness and guilt suffocated me.

Everything changed when I met Rubén.

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From the moment I first saw him, sleeping next to my bed in a hostel in the streets of La Romana, I sensed a peace in his soul that I envied.

We were the only guests at the place for a few weeks.

On the third day after my arrival, I had my first interaction with Rubén.

I tried to explain to the receptionist, in my terrible Spanish, that I needed to find a laundry service. I spent 2 unsuccessful minutes attempting to convey my need to the kind woman.

Rubén, perhaps silently amused by the failed interaction, got up from his bed and offered to be my translator (in what would be the first of hundreds of times he’d do the same).

Once the receptionist gave us the necessary information, Rubén offered to help me carry my dirty clothes to the designated location.

From that moment on, my first six months in the country consisted of creating stories with my new friend, sharing our sorrows, joys, and dreams, accompanied by a bottle of wine at 3 a.m. on the terrace of the humble apartment we rented together in the city center.

I had always been searching for someone with whom I could open up those vulnerable parts of my being that manifest wild and raw in the middle of the night.

In those moments when my troubled and lonely heart took control of my mind and kept me from resting.

Rubén was the first person I felt comfortable sharing what I had kept silent for so many years.

My traumas and fears.

My likes and fetishes.

My dreams and hopes.

Spontaneously, without any planning, we created a routine to enjoy life together.

Discovering new cafés every Monday.

A new movie every Tuesday.

Partying on Fridays.

On Saturday mornings, we talked about our passionate successes and failures from the night before.

And on those same days, in the evening, we went dancing at our favorite bar: a small place where the fire in the dancers’ feet was as intense as the heat in the tight spaces of that little box where locals gathered to forget their sorrows while their bodies whispered the passion of the songs.

In each of these moments, I learned a little more about my friend’s life.

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Rubén is a 25-year-old guy.

Argentinian, from Neuquén.

Light-skinned with dreadlocks in his hair.

I always teased him, telling him he looked like one of those pretentious European hippies he made fun of so much.

He had studied two degrees in his country: Law and Modern Languages.

He studied law because “his family pressured him” to quickly decide what he would do with the rest of his life. Despite graduating with honors, he hated his job from the first day he entered his first law firm. He didn’t last 3 months there, even though he won every case assigned to him.

As a joke (though with some truth behind it), he told me he had decided to study languages to communicate with “exotic foreign women” like me. Rubén is an excellent friend, but in love, he’s like everything they say about Latinos: a casanova and a womanizer.

He told me he started traveling from Buenos Aires 2 years ago.

Since then, he’s funded his travels by singing and playing popular music with his small ukulele in public squares of every city he visits.

He earned enough to live and indulge in a small pleasure each day.

He loved eating salami and pepperoni pizzas.

Walking along the beach at sunset with a beer and a cigarette.

And when he was doing well at work, he sometimes used that money to go to a brothel and enjoy the show. Sometimes I went with him, and though he never hired the services of the prostitutes, we reflected together, with a bottle of wine, on how cheap, trivial, addictive, and exciting carnal pleasures could be.

I came to know Rubén better than I knew myself.

Or at least I thought I did.

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Almost exactly 6 months ago, I received that call that would change everything, not only in Rubén’s life but also in my own fate.

An Argentine number called my phone.

“Neuquén Police, good afternoon. Am I speaking with Emma?”

“Yes?”

“How are you, miss? We found your phone number thanks to an investigation we are conducting in search of a missing person. Do you know Rubén Camacho?”

With my limited Spanish, I couldn’t understand the last part of the conversation. I asked Mario, the owner of our old hostel, who was bilingual, for help translating, starting with this last question about the whereabouts of my Rubén.

When Mario translated the words of the police operator, silence fell between us.

With a look and a negative gesture, I asked Mario to answer no. At that moment, I thought it might be one of those phone scams trying to get some of the little money Rubén had in his pockets.

“Are you sure?”

The repetition of this question made me even more doubtful about the reason for this call.

“She says it might be someone she talked to one night out or in my hostel. To be honest, she knows so many people that it’s possible she doesn’t remember everyone’s name,” Mario replied on my behalf.

“I understand,” the police operator answered. “We will send you a photo of this person to your phone. If you recognize him or see him in the future, could you call us?”

The situation became even stranger.

“Of course,” Mario replied.

“Have a good afternoon!”

Before I could hang up, I asked my accidental translator to ask one last question.

“Excuse me, could we know what this is about? Should we be concerned that this Rubén might be a dangerous person?” We hid our concern for our friend’s well-being behind a fabricated sense of unease for our own safety.

“Well, it’s about an individual who disappeared off the face of the earth two years ago. He abandoned his apartment and didn’t submit a resignation letter to his office. His family and friends assumed Rubén had committed suicide. However, his passport shows activity across almost all of South America. Now it seems his last known location is the Dominican Republic, specifically your town.”

“Is he a murderer? A con artist? A criminal?”

“There are just people at home who love him very much, who miss him, and want answers about where he is and why he disappeared.”

“We understand. If we hear anything, we’ll call you.”

My mind was filled with confusion.

My heart flooded with sorrow, pain, and doubt.

I returned home around noon, the time when my friend was busiest playing his ukulele at some pretentious restaurant in the tourist area of our small town.

I thought a lot about how I would confront Rubén about this situation, but I never came up with the right way.

I ended up calling him impulsively.

He answered with his usual cheerfulness.

“What’s up, my love? How are you? Want me to bring you something to eat when I get back?”

“Hey…”

There was silence between us. I still didn’t know how to explain the strange call I had just received about Rubén’s mysterious past.

“Are you still there? Or did you get distracted by that Instagram photo of the guy you met last week?” Rubén joked.

“Sorry! Yeah, could you bring me a veggie burger with onion rings?”

“Of course, my love! But I notice your voice sounds a bit sad. Are you okay?”

Finally, again impulsively, I asked the question that had formed a knot in my throat.

“Rubén, I got a call about you that worried me. Do you have time to talk when you get home?”

As if he immediately understood everything, he replied in a somber tone:

“We’ll talk later.”

“Can you come before 5? I have a night shift at the bar.”

“I’ll try.”

“Thanks,” I answered, with a slight tone of relief, thinking that the answers I would get that day would quiet the doubts my heart had harbored since that call, which had almost immediately disturbed the peace of the world Rubén and I had created together.

It was 4:30. Rubén didn’t come home. I was afraid to call him again, as the hours passed, I felt more and more uncertainty about the answers I would get that day.

4:40 p.m. It was time to walk to the bar for work.

During my shift, I tried to keep myself as busy as possible to avoid thinking about the conversation we would have later.

To add to my desperation, it was Tuesday: the slowest day at work. On other occasions, I welcomed days like this, as I could take the time to practice my Spanish with the other workers and gossip about their lives.

But today, the slowness of the hours seemed to increase tenfold, and my anxiety became an unbearable pain in my chest.

However, I resisted the symptoms of my body and emotions and returned home at 1 a.m., hoping to finally have the conversation with Rubén that might calm my anxiety, or perhaps allow me to know the person who had become my soulmate in the most remote place in the world.

When I finally got home, I found Rubén’s room with the door open and without his most prized possessions. He had only taken his clothes, his ukulele, his old computer, and the stuffed animal his first ex had given him. Some basic possessions and others that only his heart understood.

Anyone else would have thought it was a robbery or something similar. But when I saw the keys on the kitchen table, I understood the message.

Rubén wasn’t ready to face his demons.

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"Hey, Rubén. Are you okay?" I wrote to his phone.

"All good, working as usual."

"I see. When you're ready to talk, you can message me."

That last message never received a reply.

In the next six months, I’ve only seen my soulmate three times.

The first time I saw him, I was dancing at our favorite bar. When he walked through the club's door, the first thing he saw was my face, ecstatic from dancing.

His expression was that of someone who had seen a ghost.

Throughout the night, he seemed to try to avoid me, probably thinking I still wanted to confront him about that phone call that had pulled us apart.

In reality, I was dying to hug him and feel the calmness of his heartbeat.

Rubén always gave the most comforting hugs.

At one point during that first reunion, I found Rubén outside the club smoking a cigarette.

When he saw me step outside, his body froze.

As if he had come face to face with that past he had been running from.

This same paralysis stopped him from fleeing, even though I'm sure my Rubén wished the earth would swallow him up.

To ease the awkwardness of the silence, I was the first to speak.

"Hey, Rubén. How are you?"

"All good. The usual, you know. It’s high season, so I’ve got lots of chances to play my music in the fanciest restaurants."

Rubén spoke faster than usual, as if he wanted the conversation to end as quickly as possible.

"I see."

Out of courtesy, but also with a noticeable curiosity about me, Rubén asked:

"And you... how’s everything? Still seeing José?" The question seemed trivial, far from personal considering the emptiness my soul had felt since his departure.

"Yeah, we’ve got our problems, but we’re still trying to make things work." I said, though my heart truly longed to tell him I needed my Rubén more than ever, since he was the one who consoled me every time I fought with José over some stupid reason.

"I understand."

Silence settled between us again. I could see in his eyes the tears of a child who had yet to be adopted.

I wanted a hug to not only close the gap between us but to offer each other the peace that only we had been able to achieve together in the past.

But he, almost resigned to the circumstances that marked our separation, limited himself to a quick handshake and took the first taxi he saw passing by on the street.

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The next two times I saw him were perhaps the happiest moments I’ve had in the past few months.

Both times, the beginning of our encounters was the same as the first: I saw Rubén walk through the door while I was dancing.

I must admit, since our first reunion, I paid more attention to that door, hoping to see my Rubén again. Every night I kept my spirits expectant, even though I felt the chances of seeing him again grew smaller with each passing week.

Three months passed between our first and second reunion.

He seemed to continue avoiding me that second time.

Each of us danced with different people throughout the night.

At 1 a.m., the club started to empty out.

When there were no more people blocking my way to him, I stood by his side, keeping a certain distance so as not to make that distrustful cat, my Rubén had become, feel vulnerable or threatened.

When he finished dancing to a song, I let him sit down. When he noticed my presence out of the corner of his eye, I smiled. Not only because of the joy of seeing my friend so close but also to show him that everything was okay between us.

I saw Rubén hesitate for a second. Suddenly, my friend jumped from his seat and extended his hand to me, as if I were just another one of the strangers he danced with every night.

I took his hand, and then, driven by the emotion of this reunion, I hugged him as I always had before.

And I could feel how he tightly and lovingly pressed my body against his.

A hug that lasted far longer than socially acceptable.

There we were, the two of us, in the middle of the dance floor, ignoring the music and the groups of friends and couples around us.

It was as if we had both found once again that addictive peace that only our connection could provide.

Minutes without a single word.

But minutes where everything was right for us, even in a world immersed in chaos and violence.

After those five minutes of peace, I saw my Rubén timidly extend his hand. It was time to dance, just like the old times.

And we danced.

Rubén was a good dancer, though not the most technical in the bar. Maybe I could do different moves with other people that Rubén didn’t know how to execute. However, my favorite dances were always with him.

Because more than a display of skill, with our dancing, we laughed, bumped into each other, and could be ourselves.

And my favorite part was always the hug at the end of the song, something I was happy to get again after so long.

The third reunion happened about two months later under the same circumstances.

During both the second and third occasions, my Rubén said absolutely nothing.

And I didn’t want to force words from his mouth.

Somewhat selfishly, I wanted to make my friend feel comfortable so we could enjoy our hugs and dances.

Since that last time, a month ago, I’ve always waited for the day I’ll see him again.

I barely pay attention to the dancing. While I twirl on the floor, my gaze is always fixed on the door, waiting with the same excitement of a child on Christmas for my soulmate to walk through that door once more.

I just want a hug.

Now I understand that soul hugs are the silent code of those who, unknowingly, belong to a secret society with chapters all over the world.

A group of people who don’t even realize they’re part of the same club.

But who share the same anxieties.

Who fear the past.

Whose only escape is the future and lands far from their homeland.

We are part of the cult of the absent.

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European progress.

Caribbean joy. 

The discipline and clarity of purpose of the Asians.

In every culture.

Even in those where the economy is booming.

Or in those where music fills the streets with festivities and silences the agonies of the heart.

Or in those where work and capitalism seem to be remedies for existential doubts.

In every corner of the world, spiritual pain, loneliness, and nostalgia exist. Even for those who seem to have (on the surface) the perfect life, every human has, at some point, felt a near-wild urge to escape.

For most, this is nothing more than a "fleeting" feeling caused by the exhaustion of routine. A psychologist can treat this sensation and prepare their patients to continue being part of the system: at least now they’ll face their routine with a temporary smile as they waste time on the mundanity of life.

However, others like Rubén and me are perhaps incurably sick.

We escape from our world into other lives, searching for our place, with an indelible feeling of absence,

Absence of purpose.

Lack of direction.

We live in a swing of emotions that would drive anyone mad, between the intense joy of special moments and the deep depression of life’s pathways.

The only requirement to be part of this cult is to be a wanderer without a clear story, without a reason to exist, and without a defined path.

We are the club of the absent.

Absent from the lives of our past.

Destined to wander aimlessly.

After meeting my Rubén, I may have discovered that the only cure for our doubts is finding other members of the club. Other souls who roam like stray dogs in the streets of the world.

With the few details I learned about my Rubén, I felt a sense of relief in my heart.

Because I understood that I was lucky to know another person with the same doubts in their mind and the same emptiness in their heart.

Who knows? Maybe at some point during the week, fate has made me dance with other members of the cult.

But they, just like my Rubén and I, keep their membership hidden. Because we still fear that our past lives will catch up with us.

But they won’t find us, Rubén.

I promise you.

Now everything is okay.

Wherever you are, I assure you that now you can fly and continue being that beautiful soul that brings me so much peace.

And if God or the universe can hear me, I want you to know that I’ll keep waiting for you every Saturday starting at 10 p.m. at our favorite bar.

You don’t have to talk.

I just want a hug.