Jeronimo Mocandez

The silence in our bedroom feels almost foreign. Here in Medellín, Colombia, silence usually means something’s about to happen. But tonight, with my wife sleeping beside me and the city humming quietly outside, I hold my breath, as if any noise could shatter this fragile peace.

I’m 37 now. Thirty-seven years old, and I’ve been carrying a gun for twenty-five of them. It’s the only life I know, or maybe the only life they’ve let me know. Medellín raised me in its streets, in the shadows of men who taught me to pull the trigger before asking questions. The first time I killed a man, I was just a kid—12 years old. That shot brought respect, or so I thought. Turns out, respect is just fear in a different uniform, and fear is always temporary.

Some people call me cold-blooded. They see how I work—one shot to the head, another to the chest, no hesitation. They don’t see what I see later, in the dead of night, when sleep slips away. It’s a strange kind of torture to feel hollow yet be so full of ghosts. Every face, every shot, they’re all there when I close my eyes.

Sometimes I look at my daughters and wonder if they’ll ever know who I really am. I’d do anything to shield them, to keep this life away from them, but I know what leaving would mean. They’d come for me, come for them. Here, loyalty isn’t an option—it’s survival.

So I pray, though I’m not sure what for. Peace, maybe. Forgiveness, though I’m not sure I believe in it. Most of all, I pray for the strength to do what I have to, just to see another day with them.