I didn't die, I woke up

by Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  2. Ab abrupto

  The next day, they found themselves in the breakfast room, perhaps earlier than normal or what would have been expected of some kids without present responsibilities. The three small wooden tables that made up the hostel's breakfast room were empty. But the fresh walls that with their thickness contained the strong external heat, also helped to contain the delicious aroma of a recently made Atole [4]and something that could be some sopes [5]or some red chilaquiles, according to José Miguel, self-appointed expert in smelling and recognizing fresh red molcajete sauce."You look wonderful in black, I can see that you choose your clothes very well"."Black? This blouse is navy blue José Miguel! ""Mmhm. I thought it was black". "Really? You say you did all the rigor tests?""Do you think it could be bad eyesight? Any kind of daltonism or something?" Frida nodded with a warning look. "You think it's DALTONISM? Do not even say it! They would reject me for that. But no, it cannot be, as I understand it, that is not the color blindness, and the oculist did not find anything wrong with me. It's just that your dress seemed black to me, it must be because of the dim lighting in the room"."Let's see... what color are the walls?""Blue", responded Jose Miguel smiling and barely finding a second to take off the look of Frida's countenance and verify the answer"."Ehmm, that was difficult, to me they seem light green, but yes, I think they are definitely sky blue. What color is the tablecloth? "White, with blue engraving". He answered again, just as he perceived the referred object, he did not want to stop looking at her and she was approaching a few steps; absent in the game that she had started.

  For José Miguel, Frida’s beauty was almost maddening and the grace of his own luck, he could not believe how lucky he was to be there with her, of having been the one who had the fortune to find her on the bus and now enjoy her presence completely and alone in an unpremeditated adventure. "What? Heavens! It seemed to me... yes you're right. What color are my eyes? " Frida asked, standing in front of him, with her clean face raised and her hands behind her, playing with them; she opened her huge eyes and, José Miguel, whose movements had always been educated to make an audience fall in love with his gallantry, moved towards her as if he were walking through the arena, that was his moment, his chance to prove himself... "Let me see". He let himself be heard, and his voice was more serious and hoarse than usual. Frida noticed the change of voice and, surprised, opened her mouth in a short gasp, without knowing that she was doing it and without being able to know why she had done it, she only knew that her heart had jumped when she heard him "Look towards the light! " The voice took a friendly and teasing tone, Frida, relaxed, turned toward the tiny source of light; the window with thick blanket curtains that barely allowed to pass the weak morning sun, she let out a sigh, and returned to assume the previous position, now she began to wonder why she felt goosebumps while José Miguel moved slowly towards her. "Let's see". "José Miguel!, why did you do that?" "Your eyes", he answered with an explosive and bewitching smile, showing all his perfect teeth and the surprised look of a child before a gift. "They asked me! I swear! Your eyes said: "Kiss me please”! "

  Frida was astonished, not because of the kiss, but because of her reaction to it, her legs were weakening, her spine seemed made of steel, hard and heavy, the skin of the whole body was bristling, and the chest moved quickly, barely able to contain the strong blow of the lungs that demanded all the air in the world. Suddenly, her ears began to close and her head started to spin as she realized that only one thing could calm all that absurd and unbearable symptomatology. With the few strengths she felt she stepped forward and put her arms around his neck."Well kiss me more, please! "

  ***

  That second day was the best of all. Of course, the second kiss was followed by a contingent of them, a contingent that José Miguel had ready and gathered after years of waiting for her. She was grateful for life; finally felt everything she had read in the books. At last she saw herself as the protagonist of her own work of art. At last she thought she was beautiful, at last she thought herself important, at last she thought she was existing and with a purpose: The bewitching smile of him. That was, she only had to keep that smile in her canvas to be able to feel part of the picture. That day they decided to go out and see Veracruz together or, rather, that Veracruz saw them together. They visited San Juan de Ulúa and the boardwalk, the heat was not stronger or unbearable like the one that was inside them, although that confined, well yes, it was even more pleasant. Apparently, San Juan de Ulúa had an event, because they saw people in disguise for some kind of historical acted review. That did not matter to them and, in any case, they kissed all the way around ignoring the people. Naturally, they ended at sunset chatting at the "Gran Café de la Parroquia"; well, chatting and kissing, kissing and caressing, caressing and needing, needing and loving.

  At night, the streets were more crowded, it looked like a carnival, they dreamed of taking a walk on the beach, alone, but it seemed an impossible undertaking, so they preferred the calm of the hostel.

  Frida had paid almost for everything, since she had money for years, taking into account how little they ate. This never bothered them, both already knew perfectly their situations, fate had put them there to get to know each other, even if they had moved for other reasons.

  A week after being there, a week in which they did not set foot in the University, nor at the Heroic Naval Military School, a week away from showing him Veracruz as a blind man, she took him to an even more beautiful journey, infinitely more pleasant than everything she had shown him before, and to say that about Veracruz and the passion with which Frida guided the trip is already too much, I know, but you will see. I think you can imagine where the new route was and if you do not know it, it's enough for me to say that it started on her lips, it went down the neck and...

  They lost their virginity at the same time, at the same moment they proved the delight of betaking their body to a beloved one, not for pleasure but out of love, out of necessity, out of the urgency that makes us forget all the others. Frida knew that first she would experience pain, but maybe it was that she was with the right person; she never felt any discomfort. Both had held for that moment without intending to, had lived outside their body, putting aside any distraction to their plans. They were not in a hurry, they were beautiful, came the time they would not have to worry about that.

  The bodies adjusted much better than in their dreams; the bodies did not tire quickly, nor could they stop. Frida learned to shed her tears in honor of happiness and José Miguel learned to say "I love you" and to shout it at times. If someone heard them, they must have thought that it was their own desire and inner love, moving of his own free will and screaming until it became audible, because their voices were angelic, as are the voices that have been kept in the chest for life, waiting for the ears to appear that would wither from not listening to them."Everything is so perfect!" the velvety voices would repeat with pleasure, and they did so with the recurrence that a newborn would express disoriented otherwise.

  ***

  In that state of the honeymoon, established by natural right, they remained for days; whole days that calmed them lightly all the anxieties contained.

  Then, they decided to go out and fix those issues that could tie them to their new life together, Frida with less suspicion than José Miguel. Life is always the same for everyone, you cannot stay consuming yourself in your vice without having to work and pay for it. Jose Miguel was afraid of the moment he would get apart from Frida and knew that he would be required more at school. They decided to go to face it and accept only what allowed them to live happily together. Not separated.

  When they saw each other again, they were bewildered."How did it go? " asked Frida, dying of anxiety.

  "You already know". He replied grimly."I wouldn't ask". She added mischievously."I have daltonism, I was rejected". They were silent for a moment and serious and then he looked at her smiling. "I’m just kidding, I did not go. I did not dare. I do not want any of that. I just want to
be with you and, for sure, there they would prevent me. I will look for another option. I will work, I am not yet of legal age, I know that I am a fool and that I have not done more than living fantasies until now, just for believing that nobody would ever need me, nor I for someone. Now I need you in my life and I do not need anything more than that, so I will plan a new future including you. I'll look for a job, even if I have to start from the bottom. I know I'm a fool, I have nothing of experience but in foolishness, and if that unique experience has to serve me I will use it to hold on to be with you and make you happy. I will pick you up after school and you will see that I will not be tired to carry your books and still walk a little in the afternoons through the port. I have been educated like a gentleman and I will not disappoint you, I will even help you with your homework, let me be your planet and be around you, let me continue living in the world that you see. I will not ask for anything more than that as long as I exist". Frida listened to him absorbed, loving, and with eyes shining with tears. In her mind, the voice of José Miguel sounded like the best romantic reading ever written, and in the background, she had placed the opening of the Traviata, so that his body felt light and lifted off the ground, but aching with desire. She remembered why opera tends to hurt: reality. Then she could talk."I, think that..." her mind still wandered in threads of clouds. "I...José Miguel..." she swallowed. "The registration dates had already passed in the university; I did not sign up". Finally announced, with his eyes on the ground. José Miguel opened his eyes and mouth surprised, and waited to know more, to know as best as possible the state of mind of the reason for his adoration to know what to do, as a result. Frida organized thoughts and words as she spoke, searching the ground for an invisible map that she could visualize in order to proceed, as she always forced herself to do when she reasoned. "Either way, I did not feel like belonging there, not like when I dreamed I was. Today I felt ignored and totally out of place. It’s for you, now I'm just hungry for the attention you give me and I feel sick if I am away from you. " "Wait, my love". These last words had changed the face of José Miguel, filling it completely with a visible concern. "I also feel sick away from you too. And, I think, I feel, I cannot live without you. I know that it’s foolish and that maybe all the lovers of the world feel it and have felt it, I do not know if they do it for a year, five, or ten. I have witnessed so many divorces in my life. I know that now I am promising too much and that I have nothing, like any fool of my age who falls in love, but I do not want to live without you. You tell me what we will do and I will accept it if the only condition you accept is for me to be with you". He paused, and now he looked sad, his dark skin turning pale contrasted beautifully with the black shirt he was wearing. He sat down in one of the wicker chairs and his face lowered looking at his nervous hands playing in front of him. Frida could only see her black and long endives hanging heavy, when he resumed. "Love, I have a personal situation". Frida was attentive, "It's only fair that I tell you since I'm asking you to join our lives together and I can no longer hide it from you in any way. It is the next: since I arrived in Veracruz I've sent messages to my mother's and my brother's mobile phones and ... they do not answer. Now I have to explain to them that I am not where they believe I should be and that I found you and everything that has happened, but if they do not answer, I will have to go to Huamantla to not worry them and see what happens, and the problem is that I don't want to leave you.”

  Frida smiled with relief, and although she had to approach him to comfort him, she preferred to look at him like that, from a distance, like the eternal perfect canvas that always seemed to her to be. "You have nothing to worry about, my love. I ran away from my house, you know. My parents will know from time to time that I'm fine, but I do not want to go back. I can basically go wherever I want. Why do not we go together to Huamantla?"

  José Miguel raised his head and his face was a beacon beamed with hope, the same that Frida had anticipated seeing after what she said, and smiled satisfied and happy.

  Immediately after, José Miguel jumped out of the chair and hugged her. The future did not have to be planned on large scales, it could be advanced step by step. "You will see that you will like Huamantla, all the houses are like this hostel, and my family will love you and...""Wait, love. We won’t go immediately. First we will make sure we know what we will tell your family, remember that you are under age.""I'll be 18 years old in a month and you'll see, in Huamantla, I'm not proud, but most of the kids my age there have years of being parents and struggling with alcoholism. " "You will not be like them, let's plan that well, just so that your family does not question you or criticize you too much, then we will leave. Agree? "

  José Miguel looked at her even more in love."You order, I enjoy. " It was all his answer.

  Under that arrangement, they stayed a couple of days more in the hostel, they lived their honeymoon there. They hardly left the room where they spent hours loving each other, telling each detail of their lives.

  Then they packed their bags and left for Huamantla. The trip weakened them both, they arrived sick and exhausted. So many days without eating properly, locked and filled with various emotions, they diminished, the bodies seemed weak and pressured; about to fragment.

  3. Ab aeternum

  In Huamantla he was the guide, she only had to listen to him to look at things in the same way that he did, from the day they assumed that he had daltonism they did that more often, they were obsessed with seeing the same things and they were describing and imagining what they were listening to, as they listened to it, not as they saw it.

  At his house, they did not find anyone and he could not find the key. For days they slept in the Hotel of the Park, they rested from the trip, but the fatigue was never gone. "What’s happening? Where have they gone to? Were they waiting for my departure to go away and start a life without memories?" Jose Miguel questioned. "No, it cannot be that. I think that my brother finally gave my mother the trip that he wanted to give her so much in the Mayan area. That must have been what happened, and they did not warn me not to make me feel bad, but, for sure, they are okay. I'll take the opportunity to show you Huamantla, and you'll like it.” "Agreed. You are not worried, right? You do not want to ask the neighbors? ""The neighbors almost do not know us, this house we just bought it to be able to leave behind the memories, before we lived in the outskirts of Huamantla, but, after the death of...my brother..." the sadness extinguished the face of Jose Miguel and seemed to weigh so much as to force him to drop his head forward."Don’t bother explaining, I understand." Frida said finding his face and giving him a kiss."Surely they did go on the trip they wanted. Today we will rest a little more and tomorrow you will take me to the most touristic places in Huamantla." "And if they died? " José Miguel opened his eyes before the thrust of anxiety and fear. "What are you saying?" Frida asked with a pout of incomprehension. "And if they died? Maybe they went to the trip and ... that's why they do not respond." "No, it can’t be, don’t even torture yourself with it. You have said that they went to the Mayan zone, the archaeological zones are usually in the jungle, it is normal that they cannot communicate and, finally, they imagine you locked at School. " "You're right, bad news are faster than good ones. "

  Frida allowed herself a moment of reflection before this last sentence, how would the news of her escape have fallen to her family? Would they be calm or desperate? She had tried as much as possible to make clear in her letter that she would be fine and she would tell them periodically her progress. Remorse gnawed at her already weak stomach and she staggered dizzy."José Miguel!" She managed to say before falling into his arms, almost unconscious.

  ***

  Frida recovered on a park bench. Under the cool shade of a tree. She looked at José Miguel and felt that she owed him an explanation. But he too looked sick, and he was. A constant tingling sensation in the skin had seized both of them and something inside them was sucking the joy and energy of living. "What is happening to us, José Miguel? Since
I met you, since I saw you and fell in love, I feel different; invaded by so many ambivalent sensations and I do not know if it's part of love, but I'm also sure that I'm sick or something.”"Yes, my love" José Miguel answered, loving and delicately passing her ring finger on one of Frida's perfect eyebrows. "I feel the same, I think". He confirmed. "Yesterday, when you gave me to try the muéganos[6], and you warned me that they fell apart easily, I had the clear feeling that this was happening to me. Then I tried it, and it was delicious, just as you promised. And again I thought it was your love that was making me fall apart, despite its delicious flavor". She smiled with weakness. "I look like one of those fatal divas of Opera. ""Don’t be silly" José Miguel smiled thunderously, some birds rose from the tree, scared, "you are much more beautiful than all of them and you are not sick, nor me, but it is a fact that something attacked us the same day we met."

  With these words, Frida opened her eyes in surprise and a light of reason crossed her eyes in love. "You're right, something attacked us and invaded us. Don’t you feel invaded like me? We have already compared our symptoms and, if you feel the same, and we have no apparent illness, that was it. " "What was it?" he asked anxiously."A possession". Frida said exclaiming loudly and then lowering her voice when a child, who was passing by running, almost jumped from fright to hear her shouting. "A couple of spirits have gotten into our bodies. That weakens the body so much." "But, Frida, do you believe in that?" José Miguel inquired, but seeing the gesture of strangeness in his beloved tried to clarify his point and avoiding making her feel silly. "What I want to say is that, yes, I do believe in that too. Here in Huamantla, wow! You don’t know how many ghost stories there are! People are very used to see them, listen to them or talk with them in dreams or awake, but you, I did not know.”"Of course I believe in that, I have many ideas regarding metaphysical topics. Nothing ascertainable, of course, but it does not mean that it is not true. And what I believe is possible. Right?"