don’t you remember?

A sleepy morning. Slow movements for daily things; drinking water included. Some thoughts come around and wondering begins… 

We used to speak of human behavior, we used to amuse ourselves with the argument of self-multiplicity: the one that implies there are several us we carry within, and those us: any day; anyhow, can do some kind of reckoning and establish positions. So one day we may wake up feeling peaceful even in our worst moment, and we may feel right by feeling wrong at it. We may not accept it, there could be a new reckoning, or not, or yes and it will happen again and again until we lose our minds (and ourselves) and become crazier… or wiser. The thing is, I long for those talks. We became busy and not because of our jobs, we still do the same we started about ten years ago; boring, yes, and it never got better, but we had time, time for talking, imagining, wondering ourselves (like I said) and each other (like you used to) 

It was about five years ago. I stored some articles for a later reading. We chatted about them a while. I remember it was about five years ago because I was just, let’s say, cleaning the drawer I’m now selling (and hoping to sell it soon) when I’ve found the articles. I remember I was going to buy Harina PAN that day; it was something new, lots of opinions facing each other: people in the city could buy only two packs per week and depending on the last number of your cédula, Thursdays in my case. Some people saw it as the entrance of communism here, but it’s always a debate. There are those who think this began with Chávez, others claim it began even before him and many others point Maduro as the big responsible, but the thing is either who it was it to blame, the situation became worse for almost everyone. 

I waited on a line for almost four hours. I saw two women fighting because (let’s see if I can make myself understood) one of them tried unsuccessfully to usurp the other one’s place in the line by doing one of the many tricks there are for, which was in this case: I was already here, don’t you remember? [I think it’s important to understand that when I write usurp I don’t mean that the woman already in the line were removed, not. When I say usurp it means that the other woman deceived the rest of the people already there by lying about her presence in it]And of course that made the other woman angry, but not always a person is willing to fight a usurper for that, some people just get numb at the fact there can be someone getting inside the line by doing such a thing (we have a verb for expressing this an action and it is called colearse, but colearse might be confusing if the Spanish interpreter is not a Venezuelan one, this is the problem with our beautiful language, so I just hope you get the picture of what I’m telling here) I for example get very angry but I won’t start a fight for it, and it always happens. It gets more maddening with the waiting and if this waiting is outdoors, people get heat… which means angrier. It could also rain, but at last I got my two packs of our classical corn flour. 

Lines have spread throughout the city, the country. There were few things one could buy without waiting hours on them. It got worse when the riots started and everything we´ve said to each other was about that. I remember we started arguing because we kind of liked to foresee what it could happen next and we both wanted our argument to prevail. 

We both got wrong, short, next never stopped being now and, as now, it’s been cruel. There came a time in which we couldn’t buy us a drink like we used to. We changed it for coffee and sooner than we thought it got unaffordable too. We’ve been texting ever since. You´ve always sent me drugstores where I can find some pills and I’ve tried always sending you supermarkets where some products could be found. Now we just take one another for insulting, to then ask for an apology, to then laugh, to then remember… like I am doing now. I’m getting rid of all these papers, these articles, they’re making me sneeze too much and I still have to clean the drawer…