GG Choque

Juan Choque has couriered documents and small mercies across La Paz for fifteen years, from El Alto at four thousand metres down to the valley offices and back up, on lungs the altitude built and a bike whose brakes are barely used. Officials know him by name; the traffic police have simply given up. He will not play a match before a shift, only after, insisting the exhaustion clears his head rather than clouding it, and the cash tables know to expect him worn out and dangerous most evenings around nine. Backgammon is played at the couriers' rank between runs. He throws the cube the way he drops into a descent, fully committed, because halfway down a hill there is no stopping.