summer story | 'Eyes that seemed silver', by Lucía Lijtmaer

Sorry for making you come so early today, especially considering that there is not much to do in the office, we both know that it is deserted and that we have chosen to stay to work in the summer so that no one gives us a hard time, not the bosses, not our Women, I understand you, man, you don't have to give me explanations, the same thing happens to me.

I already saw that the other day you diverted the calls from your cubicle to your cell phone to go to the bar, don't worry, I won't say anything, if I'm the same, if we're all the same.

The bad thing about staying on the plateau to work in August is that this is a wasteland, there is absolutely nothing to do, it feels like a life sentence.

I already know that you need to anesthetize yourself in any way, I used to do it before, before everything changed.

By the way, if you need it I have beers in the fridge in the back,

Well, I stop circumlocuting.

The thing is, she wanted to talk to you because I've always felt like we have a certain connection, you know?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think not.

Sometimes when I see you in meetings I notice that you are gone, that you are not exactly there.

Forgive me if I'm abrupt, but we're two grown guys, we're already an age.

What happens to me is that I notice in your lost look that you also believe that you have made a mistake in your choices.

Why am I going to deceive you, that's what I think.

You can see it in your face, you seem to wonder how we ended up here, putting up with these useless people, day in and day out, how we ended up in this mediocrity.

I know that's what happens to you, because it's what happened to me.

I don't know exactly when your life got screwed up, tell me if you feel like it, but for me it was the same:

every day of my life that I came to this range I felt that it was one more defeat.

I couldn't stand Sanz anymore and his problems with his semi-detached house, Rodríguez's fanaticism for his local team, or if Delgado's wife sucks him off alone every six months.

None of them is special, there is no brilliance in anything they do or think, their life has the same excitement as an overheated Tupperware.

But I come here to tell you that you don't have to put up with that anymore.

You don't have to keep living like this.

I haven't talked about it with any of these because they wouldn't understand, but I feel like it's different with you, because I see the contempt in your eyes.

You feel you deserve more than all this, and it's true, you do.

I'm here to offer you a better life, if you're willing to accept it, which I think you are.

I'm playing a lot telling you everything I'm going to tell you, but sometimes in life you have to take risks, right?

I'll explain.

It all started just a few weeks ago, when I had to go to one of those awful conventions that they put on in downtown hotels, one of those that has a metal food truck on the roof that they call a foodtruck and a swimming pool the size of a postage stamp, you know, the kind of thing they put out for foreigners to take photos and upload to Instagram.

You skipped out on that event, good for you, but I had to go with the rest of the commercials to talk nonsense and drink gin and tonics for 12 bucks.

The younger ones are even excited about all that simulation.

They still believe that the drinks are free, they have not yet found out that there is nothing free in this life.

Well, the thing is, we were there, talking about balance sheets and budgets with the competition, measuring our dicks, basically, when I saw it.

That awful,

it was like an apparition.

She had blond hair, almost white, the consistency of cotton candy, and gray eyes, a gray so light they almost seemed to glow.

I've never seen anything like it, I swear.

At one point I even thought that I couldn't see with such clear eyes, eyes that seemed silver.

She had a glass of champagne in her hand and was looking around her absentmindedly, as if she was bored, as if she was searching for something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, who the hell was that woman and how could she be like that, and how could everyone go on with their lives around me, pretending everything was normal, didn't they see her?

She was so beautiful and so strange that she looked like a flower from another world, I don't know how to explain it.

of a gray so light that they almost seemed to phosphoresce.

I've never seen anything like it, I swear.

At one point I even thought that I couldn't see with such clear eyes, eyes that seemed silver.

She had a glass of champagne in her hand and was looking around her absentmindedly, as if she was bored, as if she was searching for something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, who the hell was that woman and how could she be like that, and how could everyone go on with their lives around me, pretending everything was normal, didn't they see her?

She was so beautiful and so strange that she looked like a flower from another world, I don't know how to explain it.

of a gray so light that they almost seemed to phosphoresce.

I've never seen anything like it, I swear.

At one point I even thought that I couldn't see with such clear eyes, eyes that seemed silver.

She had a glass of champagne in her hand and was looking around her absentmindedly, as if she was bored, as if she was searching for something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, who the hell was that woman and how could she be like that, and how could everyone go on with their lives around me, pretending everything was normal, didn't they see her?

She was so beautiful and so strange that she looked like a flower from another world, I don't know how to explain it.

He had a glass of champagne in his hand and was looking around absently, as if bored, as if searching for something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, who the hell was that woman and how could she be like that, and how could everyone go on with their lives around me, pretending everything was normal, didn't they see her?

She was so beautiful and so strange that she looked like a flower from another world, I don't know how to explain it.

He had a glass of champagne in his hand and was looking around absently, as if bored, as if searching for something.

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, who the hell was that woman and how could she be like that, and how could everyone go on with their lives around me, pretending everything was normal, didn't they see her?

She was so beautiful and so strange that she looked like a flower from another world, I don't know how to explain it.

Finally, in a moment, our eyes met and her eyes seemed to light up like liquid mercury, and she came straight at me.

I moved away from the group to receive it, I was very clear that I wasn't going to share it with any of the ranchers who accompanied me, that wasn't going to happen.

When I had her close to her it was even more impressive, her skin seemed to shine, I don't know, she looked like a mermaid, yes, that was it, a mermaid.

You're going to think I'm kidding you, but I swear to you on my children who are the best thing I have that he told me "I've been waiting for him for a long time", and he took me by the hand and just at that moment something happened between his hand and the mine, a strange current.

Suddenly all my fears disappeared, all my anguish, I felt that he knew everything about me and that everything was going to be fine, no matter what happened, as if he could read deep inside my soul just by looking at me.

He took me to one side of the pool and whispered in my ear: “They gave me his physical coordinates at the central office, you don't know how happy I am that he has finally arrived.

I've been waiting for you for years, Master.

We have no time to lose, the instructions I have been given to inform you are clear.

He has to know that at the left end of the pool, just below the third tile, there is a gate that connects this space with the old thermal power station of Sant Adrià de Besòs, the one with the three chimneys.

Today we can't do anything because this is full of people, it's just a reconnaissance mission.

But in a couple of weeks we'll be able to use this light portal to get there.

The headquarters is our base of operations,

He looked at me with his eyes of ice white and his voice trembled as he said: "There is still much precious truth to be revealed to the people in this time of danger and darkness, but it is the determined purpose of our enemies to prevent the rays of light of the truth penetrate into the hearts of men... Precious truths, long hidden, are to be revealed in a way that will bring out their sacred value, oh, these are your words, Master, you do not know how long we have been waiting for you” .

I don't really know what happened afterwards, or how I left the hotel, I only know that since then I have felt a profound and intense peace, an absolute calm for having found my destiny.

I finally feel completely and absolutely alive.

I knew that everything else, all this routine, all this day to day could not be real.

Life couldn't be this, if it was like that it wasn't worth it.

I knew, deep down, that I was in for better.

I had to share it with someone, man.

I had to share it with you.

We can live differently.

I know it's hard to understand, I get it.

It was hard for me too, especially at the beginning.

You feel dazed by the amount of information that you are going to have to handle, you will not like the weight of all the responsibilities that you have to assume, but everything is part of the process,

to be able to understand that what was white before is now black.

What you thought was right is wrong.

That the real world is something else.

And that is why today I want to share all this revealed truth with you. Because she told me that I am the chosen one, you know?

And I think she's right.

Lucía Lijtmaer (Buenos Aires, 1977) is a journalist and writer. She was born in Argentina and grew up in Barcelona, ​​where her parents went into exile.

Together with Isa Calderón, she leads the weekly Deforme podcast.

Her latest novel, Cauterio, is published by Anagrama.

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