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…
