Tears ran down his face and I stood in silence at his side. I decided to wait, not to break that silence that I thought it was necessary.
All he was telling me was something he must have deep inside and when he released it, he was freeing himself from a heavy burden.
Suddenly Enrique got up and approaching where I was, hugged me and in my ear I heard with a thread of voice that said to me:
— Thank you, friend! I needed it, you know, I had never told anyone like that — And walking away a little bit, he told me — Have I made you feel bored? — While he cleaned his face, as if wanting to erase those spilled tears.
— No — I replied, smiling. I wanted him to calm down completely and to be sure that by my side he was fine, that I would never reveal his secret.
— Well, if you want, I’ll tell you something else — he said, looking at my reaction.
— Even more? — I asked quietly.
— Yes, it is that my life has been, I think, a little particular.
— Well, go on, I’m all ears.
— Look, I was already in my twenties. One night I couldn’t sleep and I went out to the field, you know, the needs that sometimes we have. Well, I was going back inside and when I reached the door, I thought I heard something. He didn’t even give me time to turn when a blinding light crossed the sky. I stayed in the same place where I was. It couldn’t be true! I didn’t want what I still remembered as a child to happen to me and that it had given me so many headaches, but no, I was lucky. At the moment, the truth is that I do not know if it was seconds or minutes, or perhaps hours that I was there without moving a single muscle, as if wanting to go unnoticed, and if someone was somewhere that did I expected that it did not notice that I was there. It was natural that all those who lived around the environment were asleep at that time, but I was not lucky, perhaps their way of detecting is different, because I am sure that nobody had never moved me and I could not know if I was there much less if I was far away.
— And what happened? — I asked him, curious. You have to see how impatient I am, but he was even making me nervous when listening to him.
— Well, what had to happen, no more and no less. They approached me and said “Hello” and I don’t remember anymore. Probably, I fainted.
— But how are they going to talk to you? And who were they? Come, clarify it for me!
— I don’t know, because I don’t remember seeing them, but I can assure you that I did hear them, and I think there were three of them, but don’t ask me why I know. I know! And I can only say that, I heard perfectly how they said to me “Hello”.
— Come on, joker! That can’t be possible. Assuming they were, I don’t know, aliens, how would they know your language? So how could you have understood them?
— Look, I’ve asked myself that a million times. Well, yes, it is an exaggeration! But what I want to tell you is that every time I think about it, I ask myself the same question. How could they talk to me about something that they understood? That would be impossible, of course, I’ve been through something like that twice in my life, everything can be possible now, don’t you think?
CHAPTER II.
We were sitting quietly. The afternoon was coming to an end, the sun had just hidden over the horizon. When he proposed his idea and I heard it I thought it was great.
— What do you think if we go there? And we see “in situ” the place and if it is possible, that, surely it will be, talk to someone who witnessed it.
— But what do you say? And how could it not have occurred to you before? Of course, that would be great — was my immediate reply.
Now remembering it, with the perspective given by the passage of time, it did not seem to me such a good idea. That little trip had brought us a lot of complications, and in the end, what for? We had not clarified anything, just a lot of preoccupations.
I sat on the bed, here alone in my room. I began to review mentally, I do not know why, that distant day when the two of us gradually entered that place. As we saw it, we did not find it pretty, as we both at the same time express, “Ugh, what a place! Nothing beautiful.”
I remember as if it was just a moment ago, that when we finished saying it, we burst out laughing at the coincidence.
— Well — we said to each other by way of comfort —. Places are as they are, and they may seem better or worse to us, but we have to take them in their own way, not in the way we would like them to be.
— But friend — you said to me —. It is that this has “tomato” and surely that of trails nothing at all. We will have to manage by climbing as if we were wild goats.
— You are exaggerating! — I remember answering —. It will also be good for us to do a little of exercise.
We continued walking for a long time in silence, neither of us dared to tell the other to stop, that we should not continue, until the inevitable happened, the ankle said “I have come up to this point!” and tired of climbing those rocks, almost inaccessible, decided to break.
I looked at him, I still have the scar, and I said, “Why did you have to do that to us at that time?” Of course, the ankle is not going to answer me, but if I remember correctly, that problem made us not be able to continue, but it didn’t let us turn around either, so we had to spend a few days on those burning rocks, which seemed endless.
Even though I want to stop thinking about it, it seems that I can not, it is as if something I have inside, some memories of the moments we spent there that I must take out and try to forget.
I will keep remembering them sitting here, nothing will happen to me, there is no one, I am at home, in my room, in my bed, I have enough tranquility to review all that, without emotions arising in between from those events, but the truth is that just thinking about it, something gets in my stomach, which barely allows me to breathe, it seems that I have not overcome it yet. Although I believed that since so much time had passed, it no longer affected me, now I see that I was very wrong.
What were those noises ? It seemed that they were getting closer. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t see anything, only rocks and more rocks, and that scorching sun, which today did not want to leave. Suddenly everything changed. I remember how I fell with my back to the ground, it would be because my ankle caused me enormous pain at that time. Although I think it was the other way around, the fear that entered me made me fall and the ankle protested, and it was not for nothing, my whole body had fallen on top of it, and of course it couldn’t bear my weight and it broke.
The pain, so intense and sudden, that I felt in that ankle, made me at the same time take my hand to try to catch it. Looking towards that site, that reason freed me from that, I couldn’t see it, but I think it was the best, because in the situation I was in. If I had seen it, I don’t know how my heart would have responded.
Now remembering it, I think I’m exaggerated, but at that moment, I don’t think I would have assumed it. But what was it? I’m still asking myself. The truth is that the place was steep enough, so that nothing, or anyone, could be and at the moment not, but it was so. That scorching sun was shining and a second later something came between me and its light, and that shadow, whatever it was, was so big that all the sunlight covered those moments, and then it was gone, as quickly as had arrived. Of course, I was already on the floor and with the problem of my ankle, what happened or did not happen was not so much of my interest, the tremendous pain I felt