Keep Silence
The wind was shaking the trees and offering their branches to the sky in a raging dance, but the distance kept swallowing the rustle, transforming the movement into a noiseless ritual.
The office was silent too. I got up, walked to the window and lit a cigarette. Right in front of me, behind the glass, the roof of a four-story house was flying almost like a kite over houses and buildings. Suddenly, a door often forgotten because of it’s heights, but never the less, a door, was open. What I saw froze my heart. Surrounded as I was, by building, tall houses and all sort of offices with corridors, huge windows and balconies, I heard nothing, not a cry or a word of astonishment, nothing.
I approached the corridor and asked Marta: “Did you see it!?” Her window was so large that it was impossible for her not to see it, the zinc sheet was literally gliding in front of her between the buildings. Instead of an answer her eyes widened.
Humans are not wired for disruption. The blow is withering. An endless void takes control over the blood fluid. Muscles that support the jaw are weakened and the brain, in a last attempt to defend its integrity, force the eyes to receive as much light as possible. Light as understanding. Light to see. Light to be a part of reality. But Marta is blind and dead. Like most, reality slips to her senses. She does not hear or see, but prides herself on bestowing to everyone an empty smile of complacency. I smiled at her, turned around and went back to the desk just as I got up, alone and without answers.
Nature certainly shares my affliction. From the moment that door was opened, the atmosphere changed. Something is cooking in the thick air. It has not rained for months and the groups of pigeons that used to share the roofs, now argue from neighboring terraces, raging and killing each either in the most violent fights. Meanwhile, in the office, everything goes as usual. It is four-fifty in the afternoon and we are about to leave, but in silence.
Jonathan Lerma H.
2021