A story

I went to the library that afternoon, and the first book I took from the shelf caused me a vivid experience where I saw myself into the character, a really weird one, that

tossed his cigarette butt into a pool of water that had formed right at his feet - in that moment, I started to see his feet as mine.

 Yes, I said, the rain has already passed and I'd better go to that cave behind those two trees.

 And so, I set out to lift the laziness of two days of crabapples and naps with one eye open. I looked at the sky turning blue and at the few drops of rain that slipped between the leaves and the iridescent sap of the tree.

 That intensity did not last long, because at that very moment I heard the branches of the trees sway. "It must be the wind," I thought without realizing that only the trees were moving.

 I came out from under that tree.

 Look up at the sky: it was clean, light blue and serene.

 I turned my gaze to the other trees: some flowery, others curdled with apples, oranges, loquats, and many others that I did not know.

 I looked up and realized that only a few trees were moving.

 -Was it a mountain cat or maybe .., and raised his head to look at the surroundings.

 - I see nothing. I better go upstairs to see exactly what it is.

 And it went up about twenty or thirty centimeters more, but there was only one chaicita flying, there was no wind either - I observed with more attention, and this time opening my eyes better, looking to all sides.

 At first I could not see anything, the branches blocked my vision. I climbed more than twenty centimeters and between the branches of that leafy tree, I realized that it was still moving.

 - Could a cat make such a fuss?

 My curiosity made me stop smoking, and I even put my glasses on to see better. Sharpen my hearing.

 And I put to see a backpack walking.

 And hear voices that came from afar.

 My soul froze.

 Is it them? I asked myself, looking for a last cigarette in my pocket, the one I never found.

 I climbed onto a trunk of the tree that sheltered me.

 I couldn't see anyone.

 It's them, and my heart started to shoot.

 They would be close, moving the branches, as I continued to feel the warmth of the afternoon.

 It was a group of people dressed in green clothing with military spots going into the jungle, walking in the mud, jumping over fallen logs, covering their heads with their hands.

 It was them.

 - What are you doing here armed? Will they want to hunt me? he thought, his breathing ragged.

 My stomach twisted inside of me.

 I was sweating cold, just thinking that they could catch me.

 Staying in the tree was like hunting birds, with one shot it kills him. And I am the bird- so I immediately came down from the tree. And I went into the thicket.

 Between two trees I saw the entrance to the grotto.

 I immediately lowered the forty-centimeter climbed and on the tip of my bare feet I went to the grotto, stepping on stones and muddy up to my knee.

 I dodged the branches, and covered the entrance again with branches and more branches.

 It was not a very large grotto but you could see through a hole in the techno that would allow the passage of it, that there were some bats, a wild mouse and many spiders.

 He did not want to be found and through ESA I began to explore the grotto, finding then at the entrance some large and high fences behind a stone that covered it. Squatting to hi, I began to hear some voices approaching, which made me hi, or pentair that I was cornered:

 -How much will they pay us?, Asked the peasant with a wet hat, looking away from a drop of rain that dripped in front of him to the corner of his eye, blocking his vision.

 -When we catch him, replied the chief, better accommodating the blue plastic backpack that he had on his back, stepping with his face to continue among the molles that was ahead.

 Each of them cut the strained lianas from the trees with machetes, opening the way and stirring each fallen tree leaf with their eyes, sniffing like dogs and silently to find my footprints in the mud.

 The men looked at each other.

 I saw him fix his hat, step if-step no. He ends the sweat with the brown sleeve of his shirt that I imagine one day was white that fell off, the boss's eyes passed over a stone that concealed an entrance tilted by two trees.

 The chief looked at the entrance: there were traces of fallen tree leaves, and the many branches that I put in the entrance

 --There are many branches, he said, observing their arrangement: attacked.

 He threw a stone at the rest of the group, who immediately turned back.

 They looked at the chief who was pointing to the entrance.

 They surrounded the trees and the stone.

 The entrance to the grotto was dark and with water covering their sandals.

 The leader took a flashlight out of his backpack, covering it so as not to make a noise.

 He turned it on.

 At first, his flashlight only illuminated the cracked walls, covered by cobwebs and some bats hidden in the ceiling woke up, taking flight.

 My hands did not want to detach from the walls.

 He was getting closer and closer. He was petrified and my wish in this instant was to turn to stone.

 Until the flashlight hit a shadow.

 The soles of my feet would sting, and if I scratched I made noise - and they would surely find me.

 Or rather, I was shaking as a whole.

 The leader, who carried the lantern in his right embrace and leaned against the wall of the grotto, shook his head in the direction of the shadow.

 . The others, nodding affirmatively, dispersed inside the grotto, one going to the left and the other two to the right, while the leader silently drew a pistol from his backpack, putting the flashlight in his mouth.

 We are armed and there are four of us. Do you give up or do you prefer to be hunted? asked the leader.

 I started to break out in a cold sweat.

 I had forty dives, something overweight and a shiny bald head, my eyes coming out of the orbit from so much fear that I felt about being killed for speaking to me, you will see it.

 His jaws were tightly closed.

 The stiff legs did not allow me to move my step to get out from behind the fence where my body was compressed and sweating until my tongue seemed stuck in my teeth.

 My glasses are slipping from my nose, "I'm going to lose them," he thought.

 They kept talking, this time closer:

 How much did you say it was?

 One hundred thousand pesos .

 ?For each ?

 Yes.

 "Surely it must be the value of what they are going to gain if they catch me," he thought, trying to balance me in that gap.

 Until my cap fell off, among the dried feces of the bats.

 It is my end, I sentenced, trembling.

 The leader, upon hearing the noise of the fall, the leader realized that he was right at his feet. She picked it up, reaching out with his hairy arm to lift it up.

 -? Is this cap yours?

 The leader approached them to me, as if to give them back.

 And instinctively, I reached out to receive the cap.

 Well. So come pick it up, he told me with a sarcastic smile on his face.

 And he brought her down, trampling and destroying the cap, now buried in the mud and shit.

 Not even shitting he was going to put it on me like that

 I left it.

 The leader whistled.

 It was the signal to catch me.

 The other members came out of the shadows and without much work, they grabbed me.

 At that very moment, I felt a blow to my head.

 Instinctively, I put my foot between the man's feet.

 And I made it fall.

 The leader came ahead of me, a pistol in his hand.

 He couldn't throw me at the gun.

 He would kill me like that.

 So I looked at the floor.

 There were vipers

 With my foot, I threw it at his face.

 The leader, for an instant put his hand to avoid the vipers.

 And I took the opportunity to take the gun from him, falling on him.

 The gun fell to the floor, too.

 Overpowered, and I was punching him in the face, his stomach.

 I managed to grab the dropped gun.

 I put it on his forehead.

 The he had a knife hidden in his stocking.

 And he pulled it out.

 He was going to nail it to my back.

 And I pulled the trigger.

 The vipers were scared.

 And they ran towards the entrance of the cavern.

 Just as the other two were approaching the cavern.

 What is that? They asked.

 "Vipers! Many vipers!"

 And the other two fired, with the typical shaking hands of cowards

 I don't know where I woke up, after what happened.

 However, the green walls of that room looked slippery.

 where am I ? - It was the first thing I asked, when I realized that he was imprisoned by tubes, ropes , and that book 8n my hand, wide opened, read and my fingerprints in it.

- did I really had lived that story ?

I think so.

As  I could not breathe, how much more to stretch my immobile arm for a needle that entered it, connected to a plastic bottle of serum that the nurse had put me.

 I would like to open the window - I just said, not wanting to know if there was someone in the room to listen to me - it's dark - complete, with the firm hope that the light would come on.

 There was no noise, not a noise to indicate the presence of someone on the other side of the door.

 what could I do?

 Waiting was the only solution.

 I don't remember if I waited a long time, or if I waited with my eyes closed, because the shadows that covered my reddened, inert body made me hear the singing of the doves outside.

 And for the first time in my life, I felt such an intense vibration to dominate every cell of my body, caressing my senses that began to transcend over the shadows, lighting the room, spilling the softness of the song in all its dimensions, breaking down the imposed barriers. by matter.

 I had no notion of time, no space.

 I did not have the understanding to define the situation or the moment.

 Would I have a fever? Would I be in another world?

 would be dead?

 I did not understand how the starless ceiling of that room was so insipid, so cruelly indifferent, even when I was bedridden, ill, disabled.

 But that did not prevent flying on the wings of imagination.

 And I got out of my mind.

 Of the room.

 And even my body

 I crossed rivers and mountains, I crossed oceans, I touched the snow with my useless hands.

 I wanted to feel it.

 I wanted to live more

 moment, make it eternal, infinite like my very essence, still sick.

 Kissing stars and bathing with the smile of the moon.

 Wander alongside the sound.

 Plunge into the void.

 Sublimate in each one of those experiences, forgetting the past and denying that licit present.

 And thus fragile, I began to move my fingers first, slowly, feeling the fabric under my nails, and the heat of the movement, insecure by definition.

 After enjoying that moment, I began to move my hand, which was withdrawing itself, doing cartwheels.

 And the arms, which were free, showed me the immensity of space and the distance between me "the patient" and me "the person with identity" - lost in my past.

 I was in a coma, lying on a book.

 And I was for over two weeks.

 Leaving it was confusing, because nothing seemed to be what it really was, which was not different from the dominant emptiness in essence, and insipid to the memory.

 A year later, after many medications and exercises, he returned to the cave.

 I had to do it, facing the pain - not physical, but that pain in the soul that shrinks my soul until I almost lost it.