Olaya López
Muñoz
Winter’s frozen wind came early that year: it wasn´t
November yet and windows were already covered with ice. Days soon became shorter
and nights terribly long. I still remember the snowflakes falling on my lightly
blushed cheeks, melting with the little heat I had left inside my skin. Although
both mum and dad had died a couple of years before, visiting my hometown felt
as if it were one of those first old photographs in which you had to stay still
for a ridiculous amount of time so that the result was decent. It was also a
loss of time considering the mountains of papers I had on my desk, but since I
was the only child in the family and grandma needed some cares, I didn´t have
much of a choice. Therefore, one Friday a month I would get in my car and drive
for two hours (luckily) to the village I was raised in and spend the weekend
flattering the food and behaving as a psychologist for almost everyone in the house.
Few things annoyed me about urban life, but jams were one of them. You had the
afternoon perfectly scheduled until the very last second, and suddenly you
found yourself stuck on the road in the middle of traffic tapping random percussion
patterns on the steering wheel, craning your neck as if you were drowning and
you desperately need some oxygen, as if knowing what had happened further up
the road would make any difference. Or any faster. To calm your crispy nerves,
you start thinking about all the accumulated work you have planned for today
and how it will stack for tomorrow. Oh yes, one of those days.
The clock stroked 5pm when I finally started the car
after almost twelve hours of hard work, and an hour later I hadn´t passed
Oxford level yet. I only wanted to lay down in bed for the eternity and I felt that
even that wouldn´t be enough. I had a pretty busy and repetitive routine, every
day on my way to the office I stopped by the coffee shop just the right amount
of time to grab a take-away coffee and I checked my e-mail while queuing. As
soon as I restarted the march I began making the first calls of the day: to the
director, to my connections on the competition, to clients… At 9am I arrived at
the office. Moving goods and services from concept to the customer and then you
still had to convince all the potential customers that the investment was worth
it: like an illusionist, I diverted the customers’ attention from the
weaknesses of the product and I empowered their strengths, even when they didn´t
exist. The klaxon of the white vehicle next to mine got me back from my
thoughts. It had been his nose on my lane so I honked back. We advanced another
couple of meters and then we stopped. Again. It was pouring with rain, I
couldn´t see further than my own car and my patience seemed to be missing that
day. I managed to wriggle out of congestion and take the national highway. It
took me almost three hours to get there but at least both my car and my mind
advanced non-stop.
I left the car perfectly placed in the same spot I had
always parked in and I headed to the main door. The sunlight had already hidden
behind the horizon and the sky was cloudy: it was going to be a starless night.
The wooden stairs creaked one by one while I stepped on them, and they seemed
to talk for the entire house. Knocked once. Knocked twice. Did she fall asleep?
Knocked for the third time. I moved back to get a general sight of the façade.
All the windows were closed, so I decided to go to her neighbor´s and ask for
the emergency key. Grandma´s neighbor was an old woman that lived with her cats
and never had visits. They used to go for a walk or knit together on the porch
when the weather allowed them. The moment she opened the door, her facial expression
darkened. “Oh, hello dear, I didn´t expect you today”, she said. “Good evening,
I apologize for the inconvenience but my grandmother is not answering the door
so I thought I could borrow your emergency key.” “Honey, I´m so sorry… but Horatia
passed away a couple of weeks ago.” Those words hit my head like a hammer and I
did not know why. I felt something moving inside my chest and a black circle
appeared around my vision. “I had no idea”, I answered. “Yes, well, we tried to
call you and your uncle, but neither of you would answer the phone. A girl said
that the number didn´t exist.” She made a great pause while I attempted to put
all the pieces together. “Do you want to come in, sweetheart?”, she asked. “No,
no thank you. But I still want the key, if it is possible.”
It took me ten turns to open the door, and when I did,
the interior of the house was completely strange to me. It was empty. The
wooden shelves from the kitchen had no trace of the hustle and bustle that was
usual when she prepared Christmas feast; the teapot was gone, so were the
whispers of the rumors during tea time; and a deafening silence awaited. There was
just one thing on the table. It looked familiar to me: a beautiful snow globe I
had made for her when I was a child. The clear glass dome protected what was meant
to be a miniature of a green Christmas present. When you shook it, tiny white
particles seemed to froze the image, but when it had been still for quite a
long time, light bathed it. I went over the whole place, accompanied by the
snow globe, as one who wonders but doesn´t know what to ask. At some point, I
stopped in front of one of the bare windows. Now, the marks of my different
heights through my childhood years were visible on the frame. I looked outside.
What time was it? I realized the sky had already darkened completely so it was
impossible to tell for sure, but over the small hours, I would have said. I lied
down on the mattress, covered myself with my coat and slowly fell asleep with
the snow globe still in my arms.
And I dreamt.
When I was a child my room was painted yellow, the
walls decorated with a frieze of bears that worn bow ties. Sunlight invaded all
the space, from dawn to dusk, with an orange-colored tone that warmed up even
the north’s frozen atmosphere. And it was full of laugh, and love. There were
books, hundreds of books; and toys, a lot of them, too. Nevertheless, when
night arrived and a little me got
into bed, everything changed: the bears became beasts, there wasn´t any light
at all and the toys would star in terror movies inside my head. I was in that
room. I was closing my eyes with force and pulling up the blanket to my ears.
Even then, when I listened carefully, a metallic, distant and regular sound wouldn´t
let me get to sleep:
Tic Tac, Tic Tac…
Every night, the sound became a different shape in the interior screen of
my eyelids: someone climbing the infinite stairs until finding me; the long and
messy nails of a witch tapping on my wardrobe, watching me; or something that
chase me, slowly but surely. One night, during a moment of bravery and being
very tired I decided to investigate and go through the long corridor in search of
the source of the sound. I arrived at the kitchen, where I could feel the heat
of the oven and the smell of coffee. I looked at the wall clock: 6 pm. I guided
myself towards the entrance, but when I crossed the door I entered the kitchen
again. Disoriented, I realized there was no smell of coffee anymore, but the
clock still showed 6 pm. I tried to get out of the house, but once more the
door led me to the room I was before. Wall clock: 6 pm. I ran towards the exit,
pushed the door with all my strength and landed noisily on the same floor
tiles. 6 pm. Every time I crossed the door the place was darker and colder. I ran
and pushed until my feet stumbled and I began to fall endlessly. And with it, I
woke up suddenly with breathing difficulties and a cold sweat.
On my way back, I stopped to have breakfast at some cafeteria I found along the
road. I chose the table by the window and ordered an orange juice and a coffee
with bacon and eggs. I couldn´t remember when was the last time I had had a
breakfast like that, but it seemed too long ago. I took a book from the shelves
and began to read it while I ate the first bite. I must have realized that they
were playing my favorite song on the radio, because by the last bite I was also
humming its melody. I resumed the trip tapping to the rhythm, and with the sun
dancing to the music inside my car while I took the curves and bumps, and even
while I changed direction.
I soon arrived in the outskirts of the city. Surprisingly, the streets were
completely unknown for me. They felt as an old memory, though I couldn’t quite
tell when from exactly. I kept on advancing through the pavement, as if I were
isolated inside my car and nobody could see me. But I observed. I tried so hard to make sense of everything that
surrounded me. Was this the present? Was it a reminiscence of the past? I could
only perceive uncomfortable silences filled with small chats and empty hearts
full of great expectations, regret and fear. I arrived home and looked at the
snow globe: the present inside had little of the bright green left. Everything
started to collapse around me and light filtered through the fissures. Wall
clock: 6 pm. I held the snow globe with such strength against my chest that the
crystal dome broke in a thousand pieces at the same time that my legs decided
not to bear me anymore, leaving shards all over my knees. Blood painted the
fake snow red and its warmth dissolved it into a liquid that ran inevitably in
between my fingers.
And I stood right there, still on the floor, losing
track of the time.
December 2017
