To Áurea, who wanted to know how this story that never ends ended.
Nothing begins and nothing ends, thought. Everything is a continuum. That's what was said watching people spill out onto the terraces of the city's bars and cafes.. He had finished his shift and was returning home.. around you, still stuck to your skin, He was accompanied by that feeling of unreality that he had felt since the pandemic was declared., Although it is true that this unreality was somewhat less unreal than in the previous weeks. Or wasn't it downright strange to see everyone with a mask on their face when they boarded their bus?? No matter how much the government insisted, it was going to take them getting used to it. On the other hand, Finding the streets and squares so busy again suggested that something was beginning to change..
Everything was different and, however, it seemed the same. Just like when?, it was said. Same as before. Before everything. People began to return slowly, languid, lazily to their jobs. Although still with some discretion, traffic was also starting to grow and, with the, the emergencies, bad education, all those things that she had not missed either at work or in any other area of her daily life. The virus was still there, Of course, but it seemed like they were dusting it off. in the news, I had read about parties in apartments, queues in the fitting rooms of the first clothing stores that had opened or fights in the bars over a miserable chair on the terrace. Herself, I had also had some experience of that type. The night before, a group of people gathered at one of the tables in a bar in front of their house, They had been making a fuss until after twelve. As it was a little hot, She had been forced to open her bedroom window., which had forced her to be an involuntary witness to the revelry, fact that had ended up souring his mood when he saw that he couldn't sleep. The silence of the previous nights that had lulled her day after day, had disappeared.
In the midst of this new general disorder, She felt like she was being tossed around as she floated on a raft without oars in the middle of an ocean raging in a storm.. It wasn't a new feeling., on the contrary, But meeting her again caught her off guard and for several days she felt disoriented.. Suddenly, I had started to think about the present again., in the past and in the future, and in all those things that I had left aside during those weeks of state of emergency (He had to remember to make an appointment to see the doctor for his back problem). thinking about it, He remembered that time when, when I was a girl, She had been confined to her parents' house due to an infection that caused her to have very high fevers.. So, I hadn't done homework and I hadn't gone to school and, therefore, She had not had to face that teacher who had such an unpleasant character nor that other girl in her class who kept bothering her and who she disliked so much.. What was that girl's name?? He no longer remembered.
But in the midst of all this confusion of sensations, she felt, deep inside, a kind of emptiness whose origin was not fully specified. And if he used that word, "empty", It's because deep down I wouldn't have known how to explain it any other way.. If it had been possible, She would have said that that kind of absence that she perceived inside her, It was like what someone who has had a limb removed from their body must feel.. But she was not missing any member, so, In fact, It would have been impossible for him to know what exactly the person who has had an arm removed feels, a leg or a hand, So it wasn't that either.. He concentrated. So, He realized that this feeling was very similar to what happens to you when a friend tells you an anecdote that happened a long time ago and in which it seems that you participated., but you didn't remember anything. For the other, That situation responds to a very vivid experience, while, for you, What happened or what you did doesn't make any sense.. However, even if you deny again and again having participated in those events, something tells you that what they are telling you really happened. Over time, The lack of that memory is filled with the story of the other, without ever stopping to consider the possibility of a something that, at the same time, you keep and have lost forever, what are you missing.
That was more or less what I felt. And the fact is that, sometimes, when he stepped away from his own thoughts for a moment, a vague object that passed fleetingly before his eyes, but I couldn't identify, or a misunderstood word from a bus passenger, It brought back the memory of that thing that was strangely recognizable to him., but I didn't remember. a moment, he had her in his hands, the other had already escaped. But, one morning, He stared at the closed door of a travel agency and something woke up inside him. It was that!, he exclaimed to himself. I had taken a trip. Suddenly, he found himself driving through completely empty streets again, behind the wheel of the municipal bus that she drove every day, out of your route, turning to one side and passing the city limit, to then take a highway without a certain direction. How long were you out??, it was said. He looked at the calendar, but he was unable to establish within what period of dates that trip had taken place. And where had he gone?, he wondered. I didn't know. Far, I was sure of that. Very far. And perhaps the most important: had she gone alone? Something told him no.
The backpack was the first thing that caught his attention.. Where had I seen her before??, it was said. Then, He noticed his height and those light steps., as if he didn't step on the ground when he walked. That, and the fact that he sat in the last seat on his bus. The first two days, he didn't say anything. Simply, He noticed each of his gestures. Whenever I picked it up, I was alone at the stop. She opened the door and he got into the car., He paid his ticket and headed, without saying anything, towards the bottom. On the third day, she asked him, "Do we know each other?"?” (a question that, even to her, he was surprised, given his reserved character and little inclination to interact with strangers; but, Was he really a stranger?). He took a step back. Said: "Of course". And then, smiled. He did it like that time, at the beginning of that journey that, understood, they had undertaken together. She asked him if he remembered.. “Of course I remember”, he said. “How could I not?? And you? Have you forgotten?”, he asked her. And she told him no, but we know that, although facing outwards, tried to look confident, Deep down he doubted his answer.
He then picked up his backpack., opened the zipper, He took out a piece of paper and showed it to her.. On paper, I had written a poem that began like this:
A bus without passengers is not a bus,
like a house without furniture is not a house
or a locomotive without cars will never be a train.
Although it was a very strange poem, for some reason she recognized herself in every line, although I knew that I never wrote poems. some prose, Yeah. A story from time to time (that he didn't teach anyone), but little more. However, something started to fit: the poem, a trip, a boy his age carrying a backpack... Nothing made sense and, at once, it made all the sense in the world. He understood then that the virus had neither gone away nor, in the background, would never leave, that had always been and would be there, in the future. Y, beyond, He also understood that the virus was not the real problem. It was something that was deep in that society and that the virus had only brought to the surface., evidencing it. You know what I mean. You've seen it just like me, just like them. And nothing ever really ends, everything is the following of the same thing.
one day in that future, the two would stay at her house. From seeing each other on the bus, they had started to get intimate. that first time, and since they were in his apartment, she would prepare dinner (some pasta; She was not a good cook and the truth is that she did not want to risk looking bad with experiments.), and he would say thank you, how good everything is, when he asked. They drank some beers and, then, a little wine. after dinner, sitting face to face at the living room table, the empty plates and not yet picked up, They would talk about that trip that had never happened. And anecdotes would be invented, and they would laugh out loud remembering things that neither of them knew had taken place beyond their imagination.. The most curious, she would think, the thing is, being an imagined journey, could relate and share the same facts. Then, tired of laughing and remembering (or invent what is remembered), They sat on the couch and watched a movie.. They had a good time. when it ended, They discussed it among themselves and he went home.. So, after going to the bathroom for the last time, she lay down on the bed and, as was his custom, He tried to go over the last experiences of the day in his head.. So, he realized that, again, I didn't remember any precise details of his face.. It doesn't matter, it would be said. Maybe she was a little drunk. The important thing, and I was going to remember that, They both really liked Jim Jarmusch's movies.. Then, He thought about something else that he would also forget the next day and, finally, oblivious to the noise of the street, he fell asleep. GERARDO LEON
