Southerly. Jorge Consiglio

emboldened him: he tinkered with the precarious electric wiring. He stopped for an hour and a half at midday. He ate some bread and ham for lunch while he Skyped with his wife. Then, he went out for a walk around the town. It horrified him that everything was just as he remembered it, and that this enduring character of things suggested not persistence, but rather apathy.

      He walked for three streets under the sun. A flock of sparrows flew from branch to branch. He walked calmly, at a slow pace. He was wearing old trainers and a sweatshirt spattered with paint. Before he reached San Martin Avenue he stopped at a corner shop. The guy behind the counter, the thinnest man in the world, recognised him at once. ‘Is that you, Canito?’ he asked. They hugged. He hurriedly improvised a summary of his life story, barely distorting the facts. He bought biscuits, fruit, cheese, a 1.5-litre bottle of Coke.

      It is seven in the evening and the bottle is almost empty. He’s watching a comedy show on the old television set. He’s really enjoying it. He roars with laughter and talks at the telly, letting out a stream of insults praising the actor’s satirical talent. In one scene, he can’t handle it any more: he grabs his stomach and doubles over in laughter. He’s laughing so hard he starts crying. For no apparent reason he is overcome by a sense of wellbeing; a joy that moves through his body like a murmur until, at some point, it is transformed into exhaustion. ‘I’m exhausted,’ he says. He’s drained. He grabs hold of a glass and can feel the blood flowing in his hand. Manual labour makes him real. Today he is more like his true self than ever before. Without a doubt, he inhabits the house that was his childhood. On the oilcloth-covered table are two apples. Beneath the kitchen sink, a puddle of water – which can be glimpsed through some flowery curtains – grows larger and larger.

      5

      For a week he’s been trying to scrub up the house. Every day he feels better, stronger. He observes himself in the mirror and tries to note, even down to the tiniest detail, how the physical activity is changing his body. Yesterday he started work on the pitch pine in the dining room. He removed three strips. He spent a moment tracing the grain of the wood with the tips of his fingers. He wanted to understand its logic in order to succumb to the natural order. He is obliging with the world. He tries to behave as is proper. He undertakes casual mandates as if they were edicts.