At last. After spending days looking askance at parents with children and dog owners (especially these), he had also been touched by the hand of fortune. It's about time, it was said. And so, happy for the good news, took a shower, he dressed (understanding this how to do it for something, not just for covering the naked body) and came out, proud and happy, to the street.
It was a phenomenal afternoon. Too hot, even, for that time of year. The thermometer read more than twenty-five degrees and the air was hot. West air, they call it. What a summer that awaits us, thought. If we are already like this at the beginning of the month of May, What will it be like when July or August arrive?? But, What was that compared to celebrating the first day of his new freedom?? At last, although it was in a very restricted way, The government had lifted the ban and you could leave the house for a walk around the area.. As soon as you leave the portal of your building, he already perceived it. There was something new in the air. An aroma, a I don't know what or I don't know how, at first, I wouldn't have known how to describe. It was the excitement of finally breaking the almost prison-like routine to which he had been subjected for the last month and a half.. That feeling, united with the same impression of liberation that all the pedestrians and cyclists around him undoubtedly felt, filled the air of the city and you could almost breathe it. It had its own new scent.. Aroma of a living city.
With this new air, he started walking. The street was unusually crowded with people, from what he understood almost after taking the first steps, I hadn't exactly gone out for a walk or playing sports., as the government had suggested. They had come out only to make use of that right, as a new form of vindication of themselves. “Because we can do it”, they seemed to say to each other, maintaining the established distance, when crossing each other and looking into each other's eyes, even if they didn't know each other at all. They did it only so as not to stop consuming something that belonged to them and that they were not willing to leave as a pledge to anyone.. Just in case someone else came later, who was, and seeing that they did not make use of this mercy that had been granted to them, would try to snatch it away. And that is not. They were not willing to go there. Well it would be good.
Path, well, with light step, among his peers. here and there, picked up bits of conversations. They were conversations between people who, although they had seen each other many times throughout the days and weeks of total confinement, even casually, They talked to each other as if they hadn't talked to each other in months or, even, dwarves. How are you. Well then, and you? Very good, also. Within what fits, we can't complain. I'm very happy to hear it. And what a heavy day it has been, but daughter, Let's see who stayed home. He walked among others as what he was, exactly that, one more among many, one unit among a lot, a part of the group, a shadow among the crowd, a laborer of the gang and, however, He was also an absolutely singular being in his particular and non-transferable way of living his inconsequentiality..
Then he heard that phrase. “Bueno, little by little, little by little. Let's see if there's any luck and we'll get back to normal.", someone said to someone else someone they knew. Trying to locate the source of that assertion, he turned quickly, but it was no longer possible for him to distinguish that individual voice from among the others that harassed him.. The normality, it was said. And what was normal really?? “Normal”, he thought for a few seconds, Isn't that the same as always?? And what is “business as usual?”? He thought about it for several minutes.. And so, tying up the dots, He associated the usual with “the usual” and a spasm ran through him., like an electric current, the whole body. He stood paralyzed in the middle of the street. People overtook him on both sides.. Some, even, They looked at him when they left him behind. The words were piling up in his head., pressing his brain like a group of medieval soldiers hitting the enemy castle gate with a battering ram. And what did “the usual” mean??, continued reasoning. The usual looks like “the ordinary”, or not? The idea shook him. Little by little, without wanting it, but without being able to avoid it, He was heading towards the logical consequence of all that. And what was “ordinary?”?, thought, feeling the last question as if someone, a mind that came from outside of himself, was controlling his thoughts. The ordinary, in this case, It would be said that it is “the old thing”.
By the time it got to this point, I was already curled up in the middle of the sidewalk.. Legs bent over the chest, hands clasped around his knees, He felt less human than ever.. How could I escape such torment??, it was said. The before, he repeated. Was that all that could be expected now? What from before? around you, even though night had not yet fallen, the most unspeakable darkness became and, for a moment, he felt like he was falling down and, then, even lower. But, just when he was about to get lost inside himself, an idea came to indicate a possible escape. It was said that, if I wanted to escape from the normal, I had to return immediately to “the extraordinary”.
Slowly, trying to restore your sanity, stood up. Then, He began to run through the streets he had already traveled. while I was running, he kept thinking. What if it were still possible to seclude yourself in the strange? Was there a better antidote to the ordinary than the unusual?? Against the normal, the anomalous, it was said. Against the usual, the exceptional. Faced with the horror that returning to the same thing as always caused him, the unusual, the extravagant, the strange. Yeah, it was said. From now on, I would swim between the inconceivable. Without stopping running, He arrived again at the portal of his building. He opened the door and went up the steps three at a time until he reached the floor where he lived.. He closed the door with a loud slam and locked it.. Then, He turned on the computer and began to read all the news and catastrophic comments that, apart from the reality that was lived on the street, found out about the future that awaited us. Suddenly, began to feel safer and more protected. He got into social networks and found many others like him, unbelievers, scared, eager to combat the new threat that was already looming over them. At last, after the scare, felt at home again, with yours. He had returned to his absolute abnormality. that night, had fish for dinner. He didn't sleep very well. had a nightmare, but we will tell this in another story. GERARDO LEON
