I, THE COLD

By: TTT

We are sitting in your living room, classic and elegant, made entirely of wood, with a

curved staircase that starts in the center and leads to the second floor. Someone

knocks on the door from time to time. It is the cold, announces quietly - small and bent -

close to eighty. We drink tea of his preference while, without realizing it, he abandons

the subject of lilies.

-Some people recently came, he says. -From the city! It was a party invented by the

priest. And do you know what they gave as a present for the children? Machine guns.

Guns. Bates. -His voice comes to me in a low voice. -Don't you believe me?

You've told me a lot of things this afternoon. That, the butterflies in his short life enter

his room and decide to drop dead inside the containers. That the appearance of the

onion killed off all the other plants and colours. And he described to me an apparent

village like the one in his dreams.

-Yes, of course I believe him.

He hides his hands in his coat pockets.

-You're a journalist and you must know what I'm talking about.

By saying this, I'm realizing how old the paintings in your house are. A pair of clay

masks lying on the furniture with their mouths open. Hollow. Eternal. A metal tricycle,
immovable. On the table that divides us; a container supplied with butterfly skeletons,

and an old colonial lock surrounded by seeds. Only a real black cat -quiet- does not

appear on the scene.

-They are of thought -I don't understand you-. The seeds are from a plant called he

explains.

Its hair is short and snowy, its skin fits the definition of dry to clean - of good health. She

is a provincial of Caldas who lives in Tenerife, in a very modern house in the moorland

of the Valley surrounded by eternal hectares of onions. I try not to alter it with light

movements. I observe her. The smell of onions gets between the boards of the facade

and the sides. The cold, thick, caresses the house from the outside. From time to time,

it finds me watching the furniture and interrupts, sometimes with an a cappella song that

lets you hear from its mellifluous voice.

-Here we are used to singing about everything, mind you.

-He does it well.

-That's how it works here. You sing, the butterflies fall into the jar. You sing

and...

A spider web falls from the ceiling in the middle of the conversation and slowly

interrupts. At this hour, on the other side is Forro, the old muleteer who was

recommended to me if I wanted to know the history of this, an uncertain town of which,

rumor has it - because like all uncertain towns, this one also fits in the mouths of those

who do not know it - carrier pigeons came to warn of the arrival of a battalion during the

Thousand Day War, among other traditional feats that lie prey to the heads of infants

and old quarrelsome men.

 -Yes, there were very strong men here, but don't believe that old man," he said with a

cold cigarette at the corner. -He's only interested in getting on camera and telling his

story. You must know what I'm talking about!

Then he brings in more tea, adjusts his worn pullover, sits down, and tells me about a

legend called John Genoy.

-... And they would lay us down on the floor as if we were tobaccos. Just like

that, close together. That's how they were laying us down while they were shooting

everywhere. Pump! Pump!

A butterfly flies over the table that divides us, I think it would be better if, in my text for

the newspaper, I put "A butterfly flies over the cemetery". "She goes Pump! Pump!", I

write in my notebook.

The camera finally asks for a battery. She, once again, returns to the subject of the lilies

and, on the smaller container she throws the ashes and cigarette butts. Now she

describes to me with longing how excellent it was to catch guinea pigs, and that,

according to her, with the passing of time she got the title of the protector of these

intruding guinea pigs in the whole area of the moor.

-I let them go. I don't like them being killed.

Outside, someone is knocking on the door, insistently. He explains to me that he doesn't

know why the cold always comes there. He stops and, opening the curtains, warns me

that in a few minutes his sister will come, and that I will have to leave.

-She hates journalists," he says. -So do I, only I trust she won't show my

face in her documentary.

I swear to you while I put away the equipment and finish my tea. Once again I look at

the equipment, at the paintings, and for the first time at the room in the background -

dark and desolate. She interrupts me with a shout and asks me urgently to leave. Leave

now!

Outside I could feel the icy wind caressing the crops. The peasants, assiduous in their

hard work, never look at anyone. Far away, in the only chapel of the village, the

faceless crowd, crammed together, carried the goods for the priest and on the red cloak

of a Jesus Christ - false - they managed to dispense tickets in the spirit of a miracle.

I look for the notebook. It is not there.