Imagen de una historia corta

Musings from a park bench

Los gigantes, inmóviles, vigilan. Tienen múltiples ojos, pero no todos están abiertos; mientras unos están alertas, otros descansan. Están allí para asegurarse que no veas el horizonte. Estás en un espacio abierto, pero no es muy grande; ellos son el borde. Vigilan desde la distancia, siempre allí. Tus compañeros de desgracia gritan, roncan, se pelean, se aman, despreocupados de los gigantes; el lugar que tienen les alcanza.

Hay luces que se alinean, indicando grietas entre ellos, fallas en su sistema, imperfecciones en el cristal. Los móviles te protegen, remarcando también las grietas; ellos son verdes, marrones o esqueléticos. Puedes escapar por cualquiera de las grietas; elige una.

Yo te lo tengo

- Dale, dale, yo te lo tengo.

El patovica levantó el brazo, cerró el puño y lo bajó con fuerza contra la cara del pibe que colgaba, desmayado, de los brazos del policía. Chac!

- Pendejo de mierda...

Rodillazo al cuerpo. Tud! Más golpes, más golpes. El pibe ni siquiera podía intentar cubrirse con los brazos. La cara le comenzó a sangrar por varios lados, y al policía le entró algo, remordimiento creo que le dicen, y no se aguantó. Un par de golpes más le convencieron que tenía que hacer la pregunta.

- Disculpame, no? Pero... ¿qué hizo?

- Le tocó el culo a una mina, y el novio es amigo del dueño.

- Ah. ¿No es suficiente, ya?

El patovica dudó un instante y le pegó una última patada. Dio media media vuelta y entró al boliche. El policía seguía teniendo al pibe por los sobacos.

- ¡Pará, pará! ¿Qué hago con él?

El patovica se dio vuelta y desde dentro del boliche le gritó:

- No sé, ahora hacete cargo.

El policía miró con asombro cómo se perdía entre la gente; ese asombro propio del incrédulo que ni siquiera imaginaba que las cosas podrían llegar a un extremo como ese. Miró al pibe, todo golpeado, deformado, ensangrentado y lo soltó. La cabeza dió un golpe seco contra la vereda, pero el tórax seguía subiendo y bajando irregularmente con la respiración.

Alejándose por un callejón oscuro, el policía sacó un celular y marcó el número de emergencias. Dejaría un mensaje anónimo para que lo vengan a buscar e iría a hacer presencia lo más lejos posible.

Running

I was barely awake this morning when I already was outside my house running behind a cab. When I finally got one, I jumped in and yelled the driver to follow some random red car I pointed with my hand, leanead back in the seat, and closed my eyes. The cab jolted into motion, slalomming, thanks to the driver's hability, very close behind the car I choose. Not that I saw the manouvers, I just felt them in my body's slindings in the plastic-coated back seat.

When the red car finally parked in the parking lot of a huge condo in the skirts of the city, I jumped out of the cab, leaving the driver with a high-numbered bill in his hand and asurprised and happy look in his face, and the cab's door open. I don't think the driver minded at all.

So I started running behind the other car's driver, who were already getting in one of the tallest buildings of the group; a very grey and people-stuffed block, more incrusted than built in the surroundings, stained with dark spots, and all kind of things hanging from the millions of windows.

When I reached the outer door, I cought a glimpse of the driver's feet dissapearing around a corner at the left, but I kept going forward. Then I reached another glass door and entered into the yard, where lots of children were already playing at this early hour of the morning. One of them, a skinny child in his early teens, started to run away from me. I could guess the fear in his face and his pace, which was getting faster as I got closer and closer.

The child tripped and fell to the ground, scratching his knees and elbows against the gravel. I was pretty near, so I jumped above him and kept runnning, now (more) aimlessly (than before). My lungs started to hurt, but then I fastened the pace. The landscape started to blur; I got scared and slowed to a halt.

Panting, I tried to make up my mind on what to do next. Nothing came up, so I just sit down wherever I was, which was the middle of a low traffic street. The semaphore turned to green, and the cars started approaching, their horns blowing wails to me, asking me please please please get out their way! I just turned slowly my face towards the cars, looking at them like they were mere peasants and I were the king of the world. The drivers got angry, very angry, but they only kept horning, each blow longer that the one before. I was waiting to one of them to step out.

Ah, finnaly! One of them came out and started walking towards me. I got up, and slowly started moving away from him, doing a surrounding movement. The arc I was following ended in his car's door. I got inside, started the engine, pushed the throttle to the end, and started to run again. No pain in the lungs this time, only in the eyes, beacuse I was taking in all the information needed to keep a car moving without hitting anything; speacially moving things, big ones (trucks and such), medium ones (other cars) and small ones (people, kids, animals).

I kept getting outside the city, an run into the small hills, following a road that went besides a river. The sun, high in the sky now, lashed my eyes with its reflection in the water. I put some sunglasses I found in the glove compartment. The car was running out of gas, and I let it. When it finally run out, I let the almost silent car slow down and stop, without breaking and without encouraging it to go fruther.

I got out the car, sunglasses still on, and walked to a small beach. When I reached it, took some food from my backpack and sat down to eat it. The sound of the watter running between the rocks was comforting, a sound I haven't heard in some time now. The sun was getting hotter now. I took off my clothes and dipped into the river from a high rock. The water was cold, colder than I was used to, but kept swimming for a while. When I got tired of it, I just let the current take me to wherever it went.

Even if I traveled that road millions of times before, and made thousands of picknicks in this river's beaches, it was like I was seeing its course for the first time. I barely recognized places I was before, and that was great. I think I'll never feel that sensation of rediscovering something I already knew almost down to the inch. It was a marvelous trip, but a worry started to grow on me.

Why had I did all this? Did I need a reason? Why my brain needed to encase all this activities in tiny little boxes labeled with some phrase that tried to be a reason? I just set those boxes on fire and started to mentally dance arround it, yelling gibberish to the air. I fell asleep in the current while trying to intone a song I heard when I was a child, when I was in a camping and we were aroung a fire in the last night.

I had just wake up in my bed. It is monday. It is early in the morning. I'm already late to work. I jumped out of my bed, but stopped just there. This time I will do everything at a slow pace.