I had gone to the north to ask a question.

Eighteen hours of travel.I sat ahead on the second floor.First row on the double road of the road.A window without curtains, the fog lights in the eye, straight in the eye.A blind horn.An altered curve.The opposite driver could fall asleep.The front seat and its advantages: you die or die.

It rained.

My uncle greeted another of my age.It's me, I said.THE HAND AND A PALMAZO.We ran to your car in sandals, muddled.We forcing the doors a little.

Your hotel appeared at searches.Also his name.He had not seen him for more than fifteen years.I wrote an email.He told me he was waiting for me when I wanted.Tomorrow?

Drove with the windshield wiper turned crazy.Water covered, we skated and rewind, the brakes demanded to the maximum.He had a scratch in the knee, around a purple bruise, with the diffuse edges of a red malagua.For work? He asked me.Nopepepe, I said.Some neighbors passed from our side, the look fixed to the ground.Footweed with rain boots, the puddles protected in restingas raffled.

Here we are.Welcome.

Three bedrooms, five palm trees half -stretch, a dining room with a bar cabinet with some bottles, cane roofs, a kidney -shaped pool.The polished cement floor.

It is very nice.

Take your key.We put the bedding today.You like?

Yes.

Okay.Go out to eat something you can barely.The dining room closes in a while.

I tried the lights, the foci were cold.I left the room in the dark.I turned on the ceiling fan and the curtain and my skin shuddered.

I chose a table that looked at the sea, although the sea, a black landscape.

I saw my uncle go down some stairs.The tired, old step.It was ten years younger than my father.I limited.Nopepepew the wound covered a thick bandage.It was followed by two well -fed and dientudos dogs, with heavy jaws.As soon as he sat down, they knocked down on our feet.Under the fan my uncle's forehead sweated.A boy brought him a jug with water and ice.Moisture stains delineated the neck of his shirt.

You weigh two kilos at birth.They almost put you in the incubator.Who would say you were going to be so high.

And who would say that you were going to take off your mustache.

I took it off when your dad died.The glass of water was taken and chewed.It's good?

Very fresh, it's something else.How did you find out?

For the obituary in the newspaper.

And you didn't call.

You didn't call either.

Nopepepe.

Tomorrow maybe you are lucky and see giant turtles.Nopepe one eats them anymore.

Nopepe way.

Nopepepe hacen nada.They throw fish and go to the bathers.

Its rag caparazón looks like dinosaurs.

They are more curious than you.

That's for sure.

Some things do not change.

Better.

The air current raised a napkin.Floated a moment on my empty plate.

The ghost dinner, he said, without looking at me.Smiled.He changed his face and rejuvenated another ten years.Without a mustache was very different from my father.

How is my cousin? I asked.

There is.He married last year and what was the first thing he did?

What?

He put on the husband's last name and he took mine.Nopepew he is blonde.

Is it coming to see you?

Of course, when you can.

Did he get to study architecture?She drew some very nice houses.

Nopepepe pude pagarle nada, es carísimo.

The rain peeled in Las Palmas, the drops hunted a while, they played the table, they diverted splashing the snout.They shook and wet our legs.A kick I whipped the instep.

Enough! He told the dog.

But I could work and study.

Okay, no lo hizo.

And my aunt?

You know, well as always.

Is sleeping?

I guess.Rent a room at the Hotel de la Quebrada.Nopepepepe la veo desde ayer.

I looked strangely.It was a couple who fought a lot.My uncle slept anywhere and my aunt put matches in his ears.If he woke up, he started the box, turned them on and threw them.Nopepepepe creí que pudieran vivir sin el conflicto.

He has everything to leave and see you who is not leaving.

What happened to your leg?

I fell the other day.Nopepepepe se me termina de curar, ya estoy harto.

Let's go tomorrow to the post.

I already went.

It hurts?

Nopepepe.He grabbed the jug, threw water in one hand and soaked his neck.I can get used to everything, but not this heat.Never.This is your home, you don't have to pay anything.

I thanked.Got up.Dogs raised their heads.One arched, yawn and spatter again, his tongue brushed a puddle of slum.

Can you sure?Still raining.

Yes.Calm.

I went up slowly, clinging to the railing.Between step and step, a long pause.He arrived at his soaked door.

Roars like an outboard engine.

The propeller will fly and dismembered me.Nopepepepe, no, esas cosas no pasan.I concentrated in the painting in front of my bed: a wave reaching a breakup, bathing of blue prisms a winter and closed ocean.Why do hotels in front of the sea idealize other beaches?I ran the curtain and unlock the window.Warm air blow, embolized, the murmurs of the wind.Gotones slipped down the palm roofs, succumbed to the enameled puddles.A lizard advanced and stopped, disoriented, cement on cement.Hear the rain fall, invent rivers and that its course does not change anything.The pool would be overflowing forming a crystalline spring.There I would also swim.

From my room, the gold and turquoise horizon.

I put on the swimsuit.It should be eleven in the morning.Nopepepepe me despertaba tan tarde hacía años.And what did it matter.

My uncle spread a bread with butter.He turned his back on the sea.

How are you?The dirty, muddy bandage.

Better.Do you want to eat something?

I want to bathe first.

Very well.Look at me with fixed eyes.In their eyes the pupils reabsorb, disappear, are of intense brown.It may have an air to him.

Did you go to the post or are you medical?

In the post there is a nurse, not a doctor.

What if it is serious?

I was already married.

Yes.

Nopepepe necesito a nadie más metiéndose en mi vida.

I know.

Nopepepe te vi en años.How long do you plan to stay?

You tell me, I don't want to be a nuisance.

Okay, ¿estás de vacaciones o en ruta hacia otro lado?

Nopepepe lo sé todavía.

How did you remember your uncle?Tell me.

It is true?

What thing?

You know.

Nopepepe.Nopepepepe.

Yes sabes.

Nopepepe, por dios, ¿de qué estás hablando?

Nopepepe te hagas el tonto.

Nopepepe tengo la menor idea, te lo juro.

Okay, as you say.I'm coming.I go to the water.

Put on my sandals, you're going to burn.

Shadow in shadow I crossed the cement until I reached the pool.

I was emphasted and cloudy.Insect fluff cracked the surface by deforming it.Grilling lines were revealed overlapping and mold spatulas and lichens green the light blue wall.One vine was wild in the well.Where was the ladder?Maybe it wasn't a pool.Maybe my uncle intended a pond.An ark.An aquarium.I looked towards the dining room.The dogs went to him.Maybe an island.He rested his sick leg on a bench.Head and fallen shoulders, a mild shaking, and again, straightened.In profile, it didn't look like my father.The two were strangers to me.I wondered if these dark and hot waters would hatch fish, eels, reborn.If this hidden life travels and intertwines in recesses that nobody has discovered.

The boy passed by me loading some sheets and I greeted him.

Have you ever cleaned the water?

The rain does.

So I thought I should be the only guest.

I go through the beach, the hot sand, the seagulls wait and leave a satin flight, from a nailed to the sea, break all resistance, without going out to breathe, kicking and kicking, the arms cut and row.

One hundred meters from the coast, the tight little hoteliers, there must be living my aunt, the houses, there are no walkers or bathers, the palm trees, the ravines, the naked spring: absent planks and rust bars.I always wanted to meet this beach.It is one of the few that I never swam.It has a bad reputation.

Accustomed to cold waters, this warmth occurs.Parallel to the shore, braceo and resurreous, I feel in the total presence of myself.I swim and I know I shouldn't go so far.

But something sinks me.

The eyes wide, the blue and also gloom roof, the inescapable dark sky, drags me, my mouth floods, it is sweet, painless, the vortex, who was going to say it, this was all, rocking me, the fin of a turtle,a keel, the stillness of transparent fish, blood gills, I am being aspirated and there is nothing I can do.

When the swirl spat me back to the shore, an impenetrable turbidity: the ravines threw mud, garbage, sediments.Planks, broken plates, cans.

Deflating in the brown foam, a heart of balloon fish.Five hen trotted to the same body.

I lay my head between my legs.I had lost swimsuit.Nose sand.Potted breath.I closed it, in case a chicken.

A metallic noise rerezuamo in the ravine.The river as the sea.A tide of shoes was running around me.The sea like the river.Plastic, leather, resin, of all colors and sizes, open and knotted, with pins and studs.Used, spent, premiere.With whole soles and templates on.As just torn.Freshly washed.Of man, woman, as a child.This is the kingdom of the odd.Yellow sandal, white shoe, blue heel, pink botita, brown moccasin, black eye.No complete pair.A stick leg, made with a sanded broom.I got up coughing.Inventory, I don't know why.If the entire town had been shipwrecked, I was part of their remains.And who had escort his transit to the sea.I started to tell and lost me.Three hundred?This emptiness.Who would walk barefoot and maybe naked.Shoes are the last one saves and the first thing you want to save.Five hundred?Oild in the wet sand, an amazed shoe store, survivor and lame, as anyone else's measure.

At the foot of the hotel, the boy and my uncle, upside down on the ligasiestas, sunbated with closed eyes.The dogs wandered next to the mats, hunted shadows and threw them.My uncle wore a new bandage.I walked between them wondering how to tell them what I had lived.

Later the cranes come and they clear everything, said a sleeping voice.