LITMIR.BIZ

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it a few times, but not so intimately so that I would tell you my deepest secret…

      He stay quiet. I respected his silence, but as I saw that he was saying nothing and the time passed, I decided to ask him that, quietly, as if not wanting to disturb him:

      — Look! If you still think that you should not deal with that issue, we will leave it for another time.”

      — No! I think one day it had to come, and that moment seems to me to have come — he was saying very seriously, staring at me.

      — Well, if it seems to you, I’m all ears — I replied, since I wanted him to know that whatever he would tell me, he could trust me.

      — Look, once when I was a kid I was playing with some friends, I would have been around three years or so, there was no one around there, you understand me! No fathers or mothers, they were with their things, well, the older things, you know, we were entertained in the field. Well, that’s what we always did, we had no other task than to play, that’s what we were kids for!

      We were all there, I do not know how many we would be, I remember that at that age I still did not know how to count, but what I have not forgotten in all my life was how at one point we saw something that surprised us and we stopped to see it better. You know how curious children are, we get so close that some of us get to touch it. Well, the truth is that I didn´t, perhaps because of fear, or that I hadn’t gotten close enough to that. The luck was that I didn’t touch it.

      — You said luck? But what are you talking about? What was that?

      — Wait, impatient! Now I’m going to tell you, don’t interrupt me, otherwise I will forget what I was saying. It was so long ago and I still have it in mind as if it had only been a few minutes — he was saying to me with seriousness, and a recollection as if it was really happening to him in those moments.

      — Well, go on, and sorry for interruption — I said softly.

      — Look, the children who came first and touched it, because of that I am sure, I saw them how they did it, at the moment they disappeared.

      — What? But what are you saying to me?

      — Yes, don’t think it’s a joke. Do you see why it’s a topic that I should better leave inside me and not share with anyone?— And he stayed quiet.

      He was silent for a long time and I did not want to interrupt him. I respected those moments that seemed to me that he needed, to overcome those memories, but when time passed and did not continue, I grew impatient and said:

      — Go on, go on, I do believe you! But it was strange.

      — No, I’m not surprised by your reaction, but you know that I’ve not been drinking for a long time. Well, as much as since I have been by your side. Today as you know, nothing more and nothing less than nine years.

      — Well, what do you mean by that? — I asked Enrique. I didn’t understand what the time he had been with me had to do with what he was telling me.

      — What do I mean? Well, if you didn’t know me so well and also knew that at one point in my life I liked drinking, sure it would have been natural for you to think I had drunk, right? — He was talking to me looking at me very closely. I think he looked at me like that to see my reaction when listening to him.

      — Well, I don’t know, but it never occurred to me to think about it, be sure!

      — Well, since this matter has been clarified, I haven’t taken a drop of alcohol, that’s how it is.

      — Come on, you make me feel impatient, as they say in my hometown.

      — And what does that mean? It is not unusual!

      — Well, the truth is that I don’t know the meaning. It will be that if you take a little longer to tell me, I will burn, but well, what does it matter what I say? Go on with your story that is the most important one!

      — Oh! Yes? So it is important? and what do you give me to continue? — he asked suddenly.

      — What do I give you? Don’t be a joker and go on.

      — Look, as I was saying, the children who had arrived first were not there, although it seems impossible they were nowhere to be seen — blowing a big sigh, she stayed silent again.

      — Were there only children? — I asked him at that moment, to try to get him out of those thoughts that I imagined were painful.

      — Well, no, there were few girls too. I remember that my little sister was also there with us, but as she was younger, it took her longer to get to the place, and when I saw her approaching, I caught her and another boy who was running next to her, and I didn’t I let them get closer, and even though they wanted, I pulled their arms with all my might and we even ended up with the three of us lying on the ground.

      — But what was that? — I asked curiously.

      — Yes, I would also like to know that. You won’t believe how many times I thought about it. Look when I was lying there with my little sister crying next to me, because she hurt herself when she fell because the other child fell on her, I heard a strange noise and I looked at that, and that, I can’t tell you what it was, it flew off quickly and disappeared into the clouds.

      He was very quiet again, looking at the sky, as if wanting to find the answer that he had not yet found in spite of the time that had passed.

      — Like this? No more! — I asked quietly. I didn’t want to interrupt his silence, but I was curious because I wanted him to keep telling me what happened next.

      — Indeed, like this. In an instant it was all over, an instant of my life that I will never forget — was his reply, shrugging his shoulders at that moment.

      — Come on! It would seem to you, because you were small.

      — Look, little yes, I won’t argue with you, but silly, no. Something that had swallowed my friends, left and only left a hole in the ground, just that.

      He was silent again for a few seconds, surely that he was thinking about that distant moment. I looked at him, but I didn’t want to break his silence and I also waited quietly. When I already thought that he would not continue, that the memories would not leave him, he continued again.

      — The big ones started running, you know! The parents, and I saw how my mother, who was crying, took my little sister and me and hugged us and there was no way she would stop crying, holding us there, almost drowning us, and she didn’t want to let us go. Then, over the years I have understood that all that was joy, but then, I did nothing more than say “Mom, I have not touched it, I have not touched it.” She seems not to understand what I wanted to say and later I had to repeat it many times to others who asked me. It is true that my life changed. I still remember that many strangers came to town. Very ugly men, all dressed in black, who did nothing more than touch me and ask me what had happened and where the other children were. I kept repeating them what had happened, but they did not want to believe me. I lived there a few more years, but one day my father got tired and said that we would leave because he did not want to be there anymore. It seems that other men wanted to keep asking me, so one night in a car that we had in which my father went to the field to work, we got up and left the town. I do not know where we would go because I fell asleep. I would have been about ten years old, and my little sister seven, but they had never bothered her because they said, since she was so young when that happened, that she would not have realised but I know that she did because sometimes I noticed that she couldn’t sleep and asked quietly what was wrong, and she told me “I don’t want to sleep so they don’t come and take me when I don’t see them.” That ended her life — one doctor said. She became ill and there was no way to heal, the fact that she did not sleep left her with less and less force, until her body could not bear it anymore. By then my father had also died. Well, it was a silly accident. One rainy day he started running to take refuge and when he got close to a tree, it seems that a lightning bolt broke a branch of that tree and it fell on my father killing him on the spot. Of course there are things in life that are

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