The Lamp Post

For the most part Argentina’s dark history has been swept into a dustbin. Most choose to forget their collective grievances. But there times when 30,000 names cannot just be placed into a bag, tied to a brick and sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic like their bodies. Everyone is aware of what happened during Argentina’s dictatorship, the countless loss of loved ones, the oppression, and the torture. And for the most part I forget too. Only when I see an old green Ford Falcon the same used during the dictatorship am I reminded. I wonder who might have been blindfolded and thrown into the back seat. The other day I passed a lamp post; the disappeared person sign wouldn’t have aroused any suspicion if it wasn’t for the fact of how old the picture was. At first glance I didn’t cross my mind. Not until I saw the date reading 1976 printed on the bottom. These were no ordinary disappeared people these were those of Argentina’s dirty war. Crinkled and yellow they stood as a reminder to all, on the lonely street corner on a warm summer night.