A Border Crossing

There I was, my first overland border crossing in Latin America. I’ve gone through my fair share of customs over the years, between the US and Canada, the US and Mexico, and at a few international airports. Somehow I’ve never warmed up to the process of being herded through long lines and questioned by stern-faced security officials about my lodging, intentions, and profession, just to cross an imaginary political border with (generally) arbitrary legal differences.

When I got to the front of the customs line this time, traveling by bus from Costa Rica to Nicaragua, I tried to refuse to have my picture taken. “Do I have to?” I asked the Spanish-speaking official. He assured me that yes, I did, if only to train the facial recognition AIs that aspire to track people’s every movement for the suspect purposes of “national security.” Not one to make too much of a fuss, I frowned at the camera.

Then, when asked my profession, I made the mistake of saying escritorio — writer. Apparently with this I’d gone too far, for the official took mine and my travel partner’s passports away for a solid ten minutes to do or to check God knows what. Maybe just to make us sweat. I couldn’t help but think of how much totalitarian governments have targeted writers and poets in the past, proving the fragility of their power-over regimes and the old adage that “the pen is mightier than the sword.”

I know, I know. I’m probably flattering myself here that my little-read poetry and essays would pose any serious threat to the imperial security forces that…