Invisible. (Inglés) Eloy Moreno

Machine Translated by Google
Emotional, moving, different... Invisible tells, through the eyes of a child,

a story that could be that of any of us. Who hasn't ever wanted to be
invisible? Who hasn't ever wanted to stop being one? The problem is
that I have never managed to control that power well: Sometimes, when
I most wanted to be invisible, it was when the most people saw me, and
on the other hand, when I wanted everyone to see me, that was when
my body gave up. disappear.
Eloy Moreno
Invisible
ePub r1.3
Titivillus 16.10.2022
Eloy Moreno, 2017
Editor digital: Titivillus ePub

base r2.1
A hero can be anyone, even someone doing something as simple as putting

a coat around a young man to let him know that the world has not ended.
BATMAN
The dark knight
You don't need to have x-rays of your eyes to see that something is
wrong.
SUPERMAN
He has been in the opposite corner for more than five minutes, looking at the door without
knowing what to do: whether to go in now or come back tomorrow with the same doubts as
today.
Take a deep breath and start walking. Cross the street without even looking at the
sides and, after a few meters of sidewalk, pushes the door in fear.
That's it.
They tell him to sit for a moment on the sofa in the living room, and they will attend to him
immediately.
While you wait, you look at the works of art that cover the walls, drawings that will rarely
be exhibited in museums but that, more often than not, will be seen by many more people.
It will not be her case because only she will see hers, no one else. At least that's what he
thinks now.
After a few minutes they show him into another room, smaller, darker, more intimate...
And as soon as he walks in, he sees it.
Lying on the table, big, very big, enough to cover his entire back: a giant dragon.
They explain to him again what the process will be like, how long it will take, what
technique they are going to use... and, above all, they warn him that if it already hurts a normal
back, it will hurt much more on his own.
He thinks about it again for a few seconds.
He decides to move forward.
She takes off her shirt and pants, she also takes off her bra, and thus, practically naked,
she lies face down on the stretcher, revealing a back that hurts to see. A back full of scars—
the kind that come from burns—that have been growing along with the
skin of a woman who many years ago, when she was just a child, visited hell.
"Let's start," he listens.

And he shudders, and closes his eyes so tightly that he returns to the past, to the
moment when everything happened.
It was a long time ago, but he is able to feel the pain and fear every time he thinks
about it, there is no way to erase it. Over the years he has realized that some memories
hurt just as if they had happened yesterday.
And so, little by little, on a raised skin that smells of the past, a
dragon comes to life.
After several hours in which her mind has been traveling from the present to the
past, like a bird that is as afraid of touching the ground as it is of continuing to fly, the
woman gets up to look in the mirror.
There it is, the beginning of a dragon, your dragon. A dragon that is born right
where the back meets the buttocks and that will end, in a few days, when it is complete,
on the back of the neck.
He sighs and smiles, he has finally decided.
What he doesn't know yet is that there will be times when that dragon will awaken
and he won't always be able to control it.
What she still doesn't know is that it is not she who is getting a dragon tattooed on
her back, but rather it is the dragon that has found a body on which it can live.
INVISIBLE
The same thing has already happened to me again.
I just woke up shaking, with my heart pounding against my ribs, as if it wanted to

escape from my body, and with the sensation that an elephant is sitting on my chest.
There are times when it is so difficult for me to breathe that I think that if I don't open too much
My mouth is going to run out of air.
The good news is that now I know what to do. They explained it to me the first day I
arrived here, well, the third, because I don't remember anything about the first two days.
I have to start counting from one to ten while I breathe in and out slowly, trying to
slowly make my body calm down, my heart return to its place and that elephant leave.
One, two, three... I breathe in and out.

Four, five, six... I breathe in and out.
Seven, eight, nine and ten, I breathe in and out...
And I start again.
It is also important that when I wake up, I don't get scared. They've told me to try to
remember that I'm in a safe place, to not get nervous... to avoid something like the first
night when, as soon as I opened my eyes, I got so scared that I started screaming.
And that's what I do now: I try not to get scared, I wait for the little light around me
to enter my eyes, a light that little by little helps me distinguish everything around me.
One, two, three, I breathe in and out...

Four, five... I breathe in and out...
Six seven…
It seems to work, it seems that I no longer tremble, that my heart goes faster
slowly and that elephant sitting on my chest has already gotten up.
I stay still.
Now that I am calmer I begin to distinguish various sounds: footsteps that can be heard
far away, very slow... like bodies dragging their feet; voices, whispers, words I don't
understand; strange sounds, like people crying quietly, as if they were complaining with their
mouths covered; and from time to time silence, and from time to time a scream... and a
thousand more sounds.
Oh, and among all those sounds there is one of mine, I say mine because it is inside
my head. It's like a loud beeping sound, so loud that sometimes it feels like a needle is
going through my ears from side to side. It comes and goes all day long, but it bothers me
the most at night when everything is quiet.
One, two, three… I inhale and…

And I stop counting, I think I've already achieved it.
That's why, now that I'm calmer, that I know where I am, I start to move, and that's
when the pain comes.
I move my fingers, slowly open and close my hands, first the left, then the right, then
both at the same time. I try to move my neck and it hurts, it hurts a lot, but I keep trying, I
turn my head little by little to both sides.
Continuous.
I also start to move my legs, first the left one and then the
right…
And that's when I try to bend my right leg, when I realize that a hand is squeezing my
thigh.
I get scared again.
I'm starting to shake.
The elephant returns again.
One, two, three... I breathe in and out,
Four, five, six... I breathe in and out.

Seven eight nine…
I put my leg straight again, but the hand doesn't let go.
I try to remember what's happening, why that hand is there, why I hear that
loud beeping sound, why I'm in this bed, why sometimes it feels like I'm underwater,
drowning...
I look for the small clock on the opposite wall, one of those that have numbers
that can be seen in the dark: 02:14, more or less like the last few nights. It seems
that, despite the pills, I am not able to sleep more than three or four hours at a time.
But hey, things have been improving: I no longer scream when I wake up, I no
longer cry in pain when I move, and it takes me less and less time to remember
where I am. Oh, and most important of all, people can now see me.
I think that since the accident happened I can no longer be invisible, maybe
the blow has changed me inside or the powers that come just as they come go
away. I've been here for five days and I still haven't been able to get it.
I'm going to try to sleep a little, even if it's just an hour, because an hour is also worth
it.
I close my eyes.
I count from one to ten.
I breathe slowly.
The hand is still there, grabbing my leg.
The hand of a hundred bracelets
At the same moment that someone exinvisible is trying to go back to sleep, about five
kilometers away, in a small room in a six-story building, a hand full of bracelets has woken
up. And instantly the body to which it is attached did as well.
He hasn't been able to sleep well for five days, just since the accident occurred. He is
also taking pills and they are not working either.
She wakes up nervous at night, paces around her room at all hours of the morning
and keeps looking out the window at a sky as black as her consciousness is now.
For five days now he has seen life blurred, as if he had put on glasses of tears that he
is not able to get rid of. For five days now he has been writing love letters that begin with
anger and end with hatred. Love letters that may never reach their destination, that will
remain in the trash and forgotten.
Look at your cell phone, silent for a long time. He opens the photos and has to go back
several months to find any that interest him.
There's the first one, smile, the three of them on the beach.
There's the second one, just him, winking at her from afar.
Another more recent one, that of her last birthday, the one in which she blew out the
candles so hard that the cake almost flew away.
And the fourth, and the fifth, and another, and another, and another... and as the speed
of your finger increases as you move through the images, the tears come, and the rage, and
the helplessness, and the pain... because that, in the end it always comes.
He throws the cell phone against the ground in a useless attempt to erase the
passed and collapses on the bed.
And it is precisely at that moment, between the pain and the sheets, when
He finally makes the decision he's been putting off for several days.
It's that horrible beeping sound again that woke me up, it's as if someone had stuck a
whistle in my ear and wouldn't stop blowing into it.
I put my hands to my ears, cover them tightly, close my eyes and
I open my mouth as much as I can... but that sound continues inside.
I breathe slowly until, very little by little, it seems to pass.
It seems like it's gone, but it's not, it's just hidden so that, when I'm sleeping, it can wake
me up again.
I open my eyes.
I look at the opposite wall: 06:26.
I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep again today.
I remember everything that happened during the weeks before the accident but nothing
of what happened from that moment on. From time to time, sensations come to me: that of
drowning in water, that of flying through the sky, that of someone putting fire through my
mouth, that of a sound that filled everything...
And then I woke up here, in this bed, in this room: they told me that I had been sleeping
for two days.
But before the accident... I remember everything about that, and I realize how my life
has changed in a few months. It has been like riding a roller coaster that never ends. But
the trip ended, it ended five days ago.
Since everything happened, people have not stopped coming to see me. A few friends
have stopped by here, the usual ones and others that I didn't even know I had. Many
relatives have also come, although I don't remember having seen some of them in my life.
But above all, all those people have come who until now were not able to see me and
who, knowing that I am news, wanted to verify that yes, it is true, that I am visible again.
Oh, and of course, many journalists have also come, including TV

presenters, but they have not been allowed to talk to me. I know that I have
been in a lot of news, in newspapers, on the radio, on TV shows... but I
haven't been able to see or hear anything, they haven't let me.
It's strange that right now, when I'm visible again, that's when I feel the
most lost.
06:46.
Light is already starting to come in through the window, that means that
everything will soon get underway. And I will be here, another day. And the
hand will be there too, grabbing my leg, or my arm, or squeezing my own
hand, but it will be there, I can be sure of that.
The face with a scar on the eyebrow
It is also 06:46 in the room of an apartment located in the center of the city. There, on the
bed, is another body that has a hard time sleeping almost as much as it has a hard time
staying awake. Regrets.
He gets up, walks to the bathroom in silence and looks at his face in the mirror.
He looks at his right eyebrow, the one with a small scar, he touches it with his fingers and
remembers how he got it: many years ago, in a park, two bikes, a race.
And as he remembers that moment his eyes begin to water because for several months
now that small mark on his face is the only thing that unites them.
He leaves the bathroom and goes back to bed.

He has been doubting for five days whether to say something or remain silent as he has.
done until now, without knowing if he has been a coward or just a survivor.
He did go to see him at the hospital, but they barely spoke. It was a very uncomfortable
situation, like meeting someone you don't know if you've said goodbye to, very strange.
After so many years of being friends, suddenly, when they saw each other face to face
they didn't know how to look at each other, the bodies were the same but the words were no
longer found.
"Hello," he said as soon as he saw him, trying to hide the shock that the hairless head,
the wounds on his face, and the probe on his arm had on him.
"Hello," he answered.
-How are you? —he asked him again, as if he were commenting that the
sky is far away, that the snow is white or that it is cold in winter.
—Well, a little better...
—Here, I brought you this. —And the body with the scar on the eyebrow gave him a
package.
"Thank you," he replied as he opened it...
And the silence grew so much that for a few minutes all you could hear
was the wrapping paper crinkling in your hands. An uncomfortable silence, the
kind that everyone wants to end but that no one knows how to break.
—I don't think you had those? —said finally the body with the scar on its
eyebrow.
"No, I don't have them, thank you very much," he lied while looking at the
contents of the package.
I look at that hand again, a hand that hasn't stopped holding me during the five
nights I've been here.
I think he does it because he's still afraid that, at any moment, I'll become
invisible again and he won't know how to find me. I think that by keeping his hand
on my leg, at least he has located me.
A hand that I also need, that's why, every night, when I notice it, at first I get
scared, but then I understand that I need it.
I need to know that if I disappear again at least someone will know where I am.
I take out my hand and put it on hers, and I feel her warm skin, and I squeeze
it, and I feel the beating of her heart in her fingers... And I say to her in a low voice
something that I would never dare to say to her if she were awake: « Mom, I love
you.
Mother
And in that room there is not a boy who suddenly, one day, became invisible. There is also
a mother who, since the accident occurred, has not stopped wondering when she stopped
seeing her own son.
That's why now, night after night, he keeps a hand on his body that is at the same time
the anchor that allows them both to remain united as they were before they were born, with
that security of being together without even seeing each other, because sometimes they
don't. It is necessary to see the body when you are in contact with the feeling.
A hand that was unable to find it for a long time and that now wants to compensate for all the absences
that have built this damn moment.
A mother who, in the intimacy of the night, cries for everything that could have
happened, because sometimes it is a few millimeters of time that decide between life and
death, between an is and an era, between waking up a child. who has fallen asleep or
talking forever to an empty bed.
Because sometimes it is a small impulse in the brain that decides how the future will be
drawn.
A mother who, on the day everything happened, left the house without paying much
attention, without realizing that there was a body in front of her that was disappearing
among the furniture in the house.
He sleeps, but he is not able to rest because, although his eyes are closed, his wounds
—the internal ones—are still open, waiting for the scar of time to extinguish them.
A mother who, despite the fear she felt when, a few days ago, her son woke up saying
that he had powers, that he could be invisible, that he had flown with a dragon... is now
able to draw a smile when she feels that that same child He just gave her an I love you
hidden in the silence.
The girl with a hundred bracelets
A girl with too many bracelets on her hand has gotten out of bed, picked up her cell phone
from the floor and wiped her tears with the sleeve of her pajamas.
Dragging her feet, she heads to her parents' room to tell them that she is ready,
although in reality she is not.
She walks barefoot down a cold hallway, slowly opens the door and sees two sleeping
bodies facing opposite directions. He approaches the part of the bed where his mother is,
the closest to the door, and stares at her breathing: the fall and rise of her chest, the small
sound that the air makes as it leaves her half-open mouth...
Just then the alarm clock rings and she jumps a little.
For a moment she gets nervous and doesn't know what to do: whether to run, whether to
wake her...
—Honey, what are you doing here? Something has happened? —her mother surprises
her, as she sits up quickly.
"Today," she answers.
Silence.
-Are you sure? —he asks her while he takes his arms out of the sheets inviting her to
get into bed.
—Yes, I'm ready.
—Well then it will be today.
Her mother leans to the side and leaves a space for the girl and bracelets to lie down
next to her. She knows that her daughter is not ready, in fact neither of them is, even so, it
will be today.
Today.
And suddenly his hand stops grabbing my leg.

I look at her and watch her try to hide a yawn; how he opens his eyes, looks at
me and smiles.
-Hello darling! —he tells me while giving me a kiss on the forehead that seems to
never end—. How did you sleep today?
"Better, I don't think I woke up all night," I lie.
And I see that that lie makes her smile, and she hugs me.
"Well, nothing, one day less," he tells me as he gets up with effort.
You can already hear the carts that will bring breakfast, you hear laughter, also
someone crying, conversations in the next room... Everything starts again. Soon,
very soon, because here everything is done quickly. You have early breakfast, you
eat early, you have dinner early... but the night becomes long, very long.
My mother, like every morning, accompanies me to the bathroom and that is

something that makes me very ashamed. She waits outside, of course, and I wait
inside, but the door is left half open so that the probe that connects my arm to the
device does not break.
And if it was just pissing, well, but when it's my turn to do the other thing... then
I'm embarrassed that the door is left half open.
Especially when I have gas, which is almost always due to the medication I am taking.
—Wash your face well! Look handsome, the visit is coming today! —he shouts at
me from outside.
The visit, it's true, I didn't remember.
A visit so uncomfortable that my mother doesn't even dare to say the name.
real name of who visits me.
A visit that I neither need nor have asked for nor want.
The damn visit.

The boy with the scar on his eyebrow
—I don't think you had those? —the boy with the scar on his eyebrow finally said.
"No, I don't have them, thank you very much," his friend lied to him while
He looked at the contents of the package: about six or seven comics.
And that was the entire conversation between two friends who just a few months
before could spend hours and hours talking.
From then on, a silence settled in that both parents were responsible for filling with
elevator phrases: "Well, it seems like it's much better now," "Yes, it's better now," "I'm sure
you'll recover very soon." , "You are very strong"…
It was more than ten minutes of uncomfortable conversation, of silences

that became eternal and with eyes that could not find anyone to look at.
"Well, we're leaving now... hope you get well very soon," said the mother of the boy
with the scar on his eyebrow, a mother who really wants to leave there fearing that at any
moment a conversation could start about a topic about which he does not want to talk.
"Thank you, thank you for coming," answered the mother of the exinvisible child.
Nobody asked what had happened, nobody talked about the accident, as if from one
day to the next that boy had gone from his home bed to the hospital bed in a simple jump,
as if everything had happened in the most natural way.
Nobody talked about it.

Parents because, suspecting it, they could have done more than what
what did you do; the others because they did nothing to find out.
One child because he did his best not to see what was happening, the other because
he knows that when you want to be invisible later you can't blame anyone for not seeing
you.
The visit
No, I hadn't forgotten, how could I forget that visit.

Last night, after dinner, my parents started one of those awkward, complicated
conversations... They were nervous, especially my father, who is the one who started
talking.
"You see," he told me without looking me directly in the eyes, "tomorrow
A doctor will come to see you... special.
-Other? —I answered.
—Yes, another one, but it won't be because of the injuries to the face, nor because of
the blow to the head, nor because of the loss of memory, that seems to be more or less
under control.
-And then? —I asked confused.
—Well, he is someone who heals other types of wounds.
—What injuries?
—The wounds of the mind.
-A psycologist? -I asked for.
"Yes, a psychologist," he confessed.
"But, dad, mom..." and I looked at them confused, "I'm not crazy," I told them
nervously.
"No, honey, you're not crazy," my mother answered while keeping her hand
clinging to mine. Psychologists help people who have had a bad time. The most
important thing is that you tell him everything you want, don't be afraid, you can tell
him anything.
-Anything?
"Anything you want to tell him," he told me again.
—What if I don't want to tell him anything?
—Well... don't be like that, it's for your own good.
—About my powers?
—You tell him what you want.
And I didn't like his last answer: tell him whatever you want... and he
failed to add: even if he doesn't believe a word you tell him, even if he
thinks you're crazy.
And so an uncomfortable conversation ended, we no longer talked about it.

And now, in less than an hour, that “special doctor” will come to see me.
I'm nervous, quite a bit. I don't know what he wants to know, I don't know what questions he's going
to ask me and I don't know if I'm going to answer him.
Because sometimes telling the truth is not the best option. Especially if that
The truth is so incredible that it may seem like a lie.
So I'm going to lie, well, I'm not going to lie, but I'm not going to tell you anything
about what happened to me. I'm not going to tell you that all my powers started the day
I turned into a wasp. I'm not going to tell you that I can breathe underwater for as long
as I want, or that I am capable of running so fast that at times people are only able to
notice the wind when I pass by them; I'm also not going to tell you that I have a kind of
shell on my back - like a ninja turtle - that protects me from blows, or that I can
anticipate people's movements or see perfectly in the dark... because I'm sure you
won't believe me, And he also thinks I'm crazy.
I think the best thing I can do is pretend that I am someone normal, very normal.
Nor am I going to tell you about my ability to detect monsters, that I can sense
them even if they hide behind doors, or under tables, or inside cars...
And of course, I'm not going to tell you about my great power, the one that has
brought me here, I'm not going to tell you that after a lot of training one day I managed
to become invisible, although perhaps you already know that from the news.
They knock on the door.
Surely it's him.
I have no idea what to tell him.
She
Well, in the end it wasn't him, but her.

And that made me even more ashamed because I was also pretty. And of course, he
saw me like this, with these shabby hospital pajamas, no hair on my head, with the wounds
on my face...
He came in smiling, introduced himself and, after talking to my
parents for a few minutes, he was left alone with me in the room.
He sat next to me, in the armchair where my mother sleeps every night.
For a while he has been explaining to me what a psychologist is and what he does.
I listened without saying anything, until he asked me if I had any questions, and then, I
don't really know why, I answered him.
-I'm not crazy.
As soon as the words came out of my mouth I regretted it because I think saying
something like that is the best way to make the other person think you're crazy.
We have both remained silent, a silence that seemed to never end.
He looked at me intently and suddenly started laughing.

"No, no, I know you're not crazy," he answered, smiling, "we psychologists also treat
normal, very normal people, so don't worry about that."
"Well then I'm normal," I replied.

—Oh, yes, and how normal? —he asked me again, smiling.
—Very very normal, well, it was normal until I managed to become an invi…
—Until you started what?

And there I have been silent.
The boy with nine and a half fingers
While an ex-invisible child receives a visit from a psychologist, in a room in an apartment

located on the outskirts of the city, a child with nine and a half fingers remains lying on his
bed.
He thinks now about everything he hasn't thought about in recent months, he thinks
about the consequences, he begins to suspect that actions also have a back side.
He is scared like he has never been in his life, but he won't admit it, his strength will
be to pretend the opposite: that he doesn't care about anything, but he does care.
He has been looking at the ceiling for hours, as if there, among the white paint, he
could find the solution to everything that has happened.
He sits on the bed, opens his hands and looks at all his fingers. It is a hobby that he
has had for many years, something he only does in private. It would never occur to him to
open his hands like that in high school, in front of others. The nine complete and one that
is missing half.
He does tend to brag, however, about the scar he has on his chest, just above his
heart. It's big but he doesn't care, he thinks it makes him look tougher. Maybe, in a few
years, I'll decorate it with a tattoo.
-No, nothing nothing. Well, I'm normal, I continued, like other normal
people. I'm neither as tall as the Giraffe, nor as short as Raúl the Hobbit, nor
as fat as Nacho Concrete, nor as skinny as Pedro the Noodle... come on,
normal.
And I think I've been trying to explain to him for at least twenty minutes.
how normal I am compared to my high school classmates.
But it's true, until a few months ago, I had always considered myself
normal. In fact, anyone who observes me for a long time will not be able to
detect any trait in me that attracts attention.
For example, I don't wear glasses, I have almost perfect eyesight, I am
able to see even the smallest letters on the board from any point in the class.
In fact, since the wasp nest happened, I have realized that I have better
eyesight than the rest of the people, I can see things from afar that no one
else sees, I can even see in the dark, I also have that power... but this I
haven't told him.
I also don't have any of those iron braces on my teeth, neither the small
ones nor the ones as big as Willy Wonka's when he was a child. It is true that
my two front blades are a little big, and a little crooked too, the left one goes
to the right and the right one goes a little to the left, but it is almost not
noticeable, and with the mouth closed, even less so. Well, with my mouth
closed I only notice it when a piece of food remains between my shovels and
I spend minutes moving it with my tongue until I can get it out.
I am normal, very normal, that's why I never thought that what happened
to me would happen to me, that suddenly someone as normal as me would
become someone so... special. I am quite normal in almost everything, and I
say in almost everything because I do have a defect, but I have not told her
that, of course.
It's a strange defect because I didn't know I had it... Well, I did know
I had it, but I didn't know it was a defect. But it seems that yes, it is a
defect and depending on the places, a big defect.
It's not visible to the naked eye, you could spend a while with me
and you wouldn't notice anything, or even a whole afternoon, well,
maybe you would notice it or not, I don't know. Although I have realized
that it is a defect that affects many aspects of my life: my way of
speaking, my way of writing, my way of communicating with others... A
defect that has landed me in bed. this hospital.
The girl with a hundred bracelets
The bracelets don't stop moving on her arm.

She is sitting on the couch, looking—without seeing—the time on her cell phone, pretending
to be watching TV, but in reality her mind is somewhere else.
He still doesn't know what he's going to say to him, the only thing he knows is that today he
wants to go see him, even though he's scared to death, even though his whole body trembles
when he enters the room, even though the words don't come out of his mouth, even though his
heart It explodes…, but she has to see him, she can't stay like this any longer, locked in her
house and even less, locked in her mind.
Now he is already visible, and he has been on the verge of not being visible forever. That's
the reason why he's in a rush again, what if he disappears again and he can't tell you everything
that's inside him?
Look at your cell phone again.
There are fewer hours left, it will be this afternoon.

She looks back at all those photos in which they are together without knowing that they
were, and it is now, when she has been on the verge of losing him, that she realizes, upon
observing the images better, that their looks—and also their smiles—are different. They crossed
in all the photographs.
He touches his pants pocket to make sure he has taken the letter he has been writing for
several days. What he doesn't know is if he will be able to give it to her.
She is nervous.
A lot.
And she's not ready, but of course, she doesn't know that.
Nor have I told him about my ability to be invisible. Although you already know that
because since I've been in the news, everyone already knows me, well, they know the
story since because of the issue of child protection they can't see my face.
And that's it, we haven't talked any more, he told me that today was just to get to know
each other, that tomorrow we will continue, that we have many days to talk and that even
later, when I leave the hospital we will have to continue talking.
I don't know if I feel like talking so much, especially with someone I don't know, and
even less with a girl, and even less with a girl who is so pretty. Especially because she's a
psychologist, and I'm not crazy.
He got up, told me see you tomorrow and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
And as soon as he walked out the door I really wanted to cry.

I heard my parents talking to the psychologist outside, although I didn't

understand very well what they were saying. I think they spoke in a low voice so I
wouldn't hear anything. Even so, I know that they have said the word time many
times. Time, time, time...
They said goodbye and the door was opened.
My mother approached me and, seeing my eyes, hugged me. He didn't ask
me anything, he just hugged me.
They don't understand very well what has happened. From the first moment
they have treated everything as an accident and I have played along. I have taken
advantage of the memory leaks I had at the beginning to pretend that I don't
remember many things. But I do remember, I remember perfectly, everything that
happened before the accident.
They do not dare to ask and that is why they have called the psychologist.
I'm small but I'm not stupid.
The problem is that I have a feeling inside me that I don't like, as if I had
swallowed a hedgehog that is growing bigger and bigger, which runs through my
entire body, from my feet to my head. A hedgehog that hurts my stomach every
time I tell myself a lie or every time I hide some truth.
And I can't take it anymore, I can't go on like this anymore.

I think so much about that day... and I still don't really understand why exactly
at that moment I stopped being invisible. The rain? Could it be?
but…
For several days now, a father and mother have been asking themselves the same
question: What really happened? They know one version, the official one, the one they tell
everyone who asks, the one they have told to family, friends, journalists... a version that
they themselves doubt but force themselves to believe: it was an accident. , but fortunately
everything has turned out well.
But what about those marks on his back? They don't make sense, they don't match
the accident, there are too many and, most importantly, they are not recent.
They don't dare ask him anything yet, they don't really know how to bring up the topic,
perhaps because they are not prepared for the answer. That is why they have been advised
to leave it in the hands of the psychologist so that she can try to find out the truth.
Today I ate the same as always, food that tastes like nothing, hospital food.
And after eating that moment has come when everything falls silent. It is the time of
rest, especially for my mother, who barely sleeps at night. She says it's because the chair is
very uncomfortable, but I think it's because of other things, because she doesn't stop talking
in her sleep, moving around, I even saw her crying in her sleep the other day. I think
monsters have also gotten into his chest, like me, and he doesn't know how to get them out
either.
While she has been sleeping I have taken the comics that my friend gave me the other
day and, although I already have almost all of them, I have read them again. I love superhero
stories, I have always dreamed of being one of them, I have always wanted to have some
superpower... and look where in the end I have managed to have a few.
And so, my mother sleeping next to me and me reading, the afternoon has passed until,
suddenly, someone knocked on the door. It has awakened us both, her from her sleep and
me from my adventures in the sky.
The door opened, slowly, and she entered: the person who saved my life.
Officer
Luna has entered the only way she knows how: running.
He braked just before hitting the bed. He was about to throw
the dropper and ripping out the needle stuck in my arm.
My mother took her in her arms and placed her next to me on the bed.
He kept looking at me strangely, as if he didn't recognize me, even though I was
wearing these pajamas, my hairless head, my face like that... well, I understand.
Luna is my little sister, she just turned six years old and she is the person who
knows me best, even though she doesn't know it. He is also the only person who has
always, always, been able to see me.
It's funny because for the last few months I've been able to become invisible in front of
everyone, but never in front of her. Many times I practiced my power at home and I was
able to become invisible on the couch, or in the kitchen, or going down the stairs... and
everything was fine until she appeared. At that moment my power disappeared, I was
always able to find myself. He looked directly at me, smiled and came running towards me.
She is also the only person who knows everything that has happened since day
one. Maybe that's why, on the day of the accident, she was the only one who came to
help me, she was the only one who managed to save me. Although of course, at six
years old, she doesn't know that either.
-You are a lil sick? —he asked me, opening his eyes wide.
"Yes, but it's already happened," I answered while I held his little girl.
thousand.
And without opening my mouth, speaking inside, I said: thank you. At that moment I
really wanted to cry, to tell everything, to tell mom our secret.
It is the first time that Luna has come to see me since I have been here and that is
very important to me. My mother has explained to me that it is not good for small children
to go to hospitals, because they can catch any virus and that is why Luna is not going to
come as much as I would like.
Luna and I have been playing for a while: I have taught her how to raise and lower the
bed with the remote control, I have drawn a pen heart on her hand, she has been looking
at the illustrations in my comics... but the visit has lasted very little. After an hour or so my
father said that they had to leave. And just at that moment he told me something that I no
longer remembered.
—I have lost my little sheep…

—The one with the black spots on the legs?
-Yes that.
"Don't worry, I know where it is," I answered in a low voice.
-Yeah?! —he shouted.
—Yes, as soon as she leaves here we will go look for her —and at that moment I
looked at my mother, and she looked at me. And I realized I was about to cry.
"Well, it's late, we have to go," my father interrupted.

And Luna gave me a kiss, my father gave me a kiss and my mother kissed Luna. And
suddenly, my father also gave him a
I kiss my mother and that's strange because they never do it at home, I think that since
I've been in the hospital they've loved each other more than in their entire lives.
My father and sister are gone. My mother told me that during
These days he is sleeping at my grandparents' house.
You don't need to explain it to me, but I know that my parents' lives are a little more
complicated now because of me. One of the two is always here: my mother. And my father
does nothing but come and go: from work to the hospital, from the hospital to home, from
house to my grandparents' house, from my grandparents' house to the hospital, from the
hospital to work...
As soon as my father and Luna were gone, my mother went to the bathroom.
He came out after a while, gave me a kiss and sat back down in the armchair. He
turned on the television and started watching TV, one of those programs that only makes
you scream at each other; and I've started reading comics, the kind where the protagonists
keep hitting each other.
The truth is that the days go by very slowly, every day is the same.
Tests, results and wait the next day for more tests.
The afternoon was very quiet, from time to time the door would open and a nurse
would come in to see if I needed anything, to see how the drip was going or simply to say
hello to me, because now I'm famous.
But suddenly everything has changed.
I heard a message arrive on my mother's cell phone. One more message, I thought,
from a family member, friend or journalist. But when I saw his face I realized that something
strange was happening.
—What's wrong, mom? —I asked him.
"Nothing, nothing," he answered without looking at me while answering the message.
I noticed that his fingers were shaking while he was typing on the mobile screen.
—Mom, what's wrong?

But, instead of answering me, my mother put her cell phone in her pocket, stood in
front of me and told me to sit on the bed.
He buttoned my hospital pajamas, pushed up my pillow and arranged the sheets as best
he could.
-What's happening? —I insisted again.
—Wait a moment, wait a moment here, I'll be right back. -And
She got up running, nervous.
And it's gone.
And I have been scared. What could happen? Who could that message be from? Maybe
from the police again?
I left the comic on the bed and looked at the door.
And suddenly I heard footsteps.
The door has been opened.
And I have remained silent.
Skin
And Kiri has entered.
And his mother.
And my mother behind them.
They approached the bed in silence, slowly, as if they were afraid of hurting me.
"Look who's come to see you..." my mother said.

Kiri waved at me, without looking at me, without saying anything. It was his mother
who began with the typical questions asked of a sick person or, in this case, someone who
is said to have had an accident.
Kiri stared at the drip, and then at the bed, and then at the floor... I think she looked
everywhere except at me.
It was my mother, seeing that no one was saying anything anymore, who tried
fix a strange situation.
—Well, are you coming out to have a coffee? -He has told.
But her mother, seeing how quiet Kiri was, hesitated for a moment, they looked at each
other and they must have said something in that language that mothers and daughters
have so that she accepted.
—Yes, of course, let's go grab something, is it far away?
"No, no, it's right next door, in that same hallway," my mother answered.
—Ok, well now we'll come back, okay?

"Okay," Kiri replied.
"Okay," I answered.
And we were both alone, as we have been so many times,
but this time it was different because we had nothing to say to each other.
I couldn't stop looking at those freckles that today were more still than
Never.
She looked down at the ground.
We've been like this for a while, a long, long time... until he asked a strange question.
-Me too? —he whispered, very slowly, I barely heard him.

Me too? What question was that? What answer was there to such a strange question?
And after that what about me?, I started to notice that something was happening to him.
He clenched his fists tightly, as if he wanted to break his fingers, he clenched his teeth so much
that he thought he was going to bite his own mouth... and he began to tremble.
First it was her hands, then her arms along with all her bracelets, then her freckles and
finally her entire body.
He raised his head and looked at me crying.
Me too?
And finally the girl with the hundred bracelets has asked the question that had been
hidden in her head for so many days. They were just two words, but enough to shake
an entire world, at least yours.
Me too?
A question that arises from that part of love that is sometimes stained with hate. A
question that comes when one of those butterflies that flutter in the stomach stops
doing so.
Me too?
Asks a girl who has been on the other side of the mirror for too long, the one from
which you can see without being seen, from which you can feel pain without anyone
laying a finger on you, from which you can hate someone so much that You would like
to kiss him to death.
Me too?
A question that, inevitably, always implies a we.
-Douchebag! Damn asshole! —He began to scream, clenching his fists even more.
He grabbed me by the shoulders and started moving me while

He looked at me so strongly that I had to close my eyes.
-Because? You're crazy? Is that? You're crazy?! -He continued shouting, getting louder
and louder. Are you a fucking nutcase?
I have remained motionless, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say, not
knowing anything.
—Asshole, fucking asshole! —He continued shouting without letting me go, squeezing
me so hard that I could feel his nails digging through my pajamas.
»Idiot, damn idiot, asshole, fucking idiot! —And suddenly, as if all the strength he had
had suddenly gone, he let go of me.
He punched the bed, wiped his tears with his hands.

hands and ran out of the room slamming the door.
I heard screams outside, I don't really know what was happening but at that moment I
would have liked to become invisible again. And I have tried, I have done the same thing I
did every time I wanted to disappear: I have concentrated, I have closed my eyes as tightly
as I could, I have shrunk my body... but nothing, since the accident I am no longer able to
do it. Maybe it's the damn medication... I don't know, but I can't anymore.
At that moment my mother entered.

-What happened? —she asked me nervously.
"I don't know, I don't know," I lied to him.
—Come on, tell me! What happened? Why did he get like this?
"I really don't know, mom," I lied to her again.
"Listen, don't give me nonsense," he insisted.

-Let me! —I yelled at him.
He looked at me angrily and left the room again.
And I have felt terrible.
I never usually yell at anyone, especially not my mother. And even less the person who
spends hours sitting in this shitty chair, the person who grabs my leg at night, the one who has
changed me every time, because of the medication, I have peed on myself... at her, I have
yelled at her.
And I can't take it anymore, I just want to cry, I just want to tell everything, say that I'm such
a coward... And that beeping started again, loud, very loud, and this time it caught me alone in
the room. I have tried to endure in silence but it has been impossible, I have started to scream,
to scream a lot, to cry with pain... it was so strong that even my eyes hurt.
And my mother came in again, running. And seeing me like this he went out
hallway to call the nurse.
And he has come back to sit next to me.
And he hugged me.
And I have continued screaming.

And I heard people coming into the room.
And some pills in my mouth.
And a puncture in the arm.
And my mother's hug.
And an elephant, and another, and another, and another... and a thousand elephants beating
my chest with their legs.
And just as they have come, they are gone.
And the room has begun to disappear.
And the noise.
And the pain.
Everything.
The boy with the scar on his eyebrow
And while one ex-invisible boy has fallen asleep thanks to the medication, another is
thinking about how Kiri's visit went. Did he say something?
He peppers himself with questions that lead him nowhere, questions that do not even
They don't even serve to try to evade his truth, his feeling of guilt.
Think of all the times he and the invisible boy have spent
together. He touches the small scar on his eyebrow and remembers that race.
He had mercilessly spent the winter on two old bikes—grandfather's—that rested in
an old storage room, waiting for some summer to arrive that would give them life again.
After cleaning the rust and dust accumulated over the years, after inflating the wheels
and repositioning the saddles...
—Have you ever caught one of these? —he asked him.
—No, never, how big they are!
—Yes, giants, and they don't have gears, eh?
—Nothing, they look like two irons.
-A race?
-With these?
—Sure, come on.
And the two friends went to a large esplanade nearby, in the town.
They positioned themselves and the three began a race whose start was the house and
whose finish was a fence.
—One, two and three!
The two children pedaled as hard as they could on two old bicycles. There was no
clear winner, both were going to reach the finish line practically equally. The only problem
is that neither of them had thought to check the brakes: on one bike they still worked; in
the other, no.
That's why, when Zaro pressed the brake, he realized that it was dead, the lever was
flaccid, without strength.
The fence was getting closer. Nervous, he suddenly put his feet on the ground and
that contrast of speeds caused the bicycle to go out of control and both—bike and child—
fell to the ground.
Result: scratches on his hands, elbows, knees and a big blow over his right eye and
eyebrow.
Hospital, stitches, a memory in the form of a scar and an anecdote that they would
laugh about for years.
Now, however, it is not him who has fallen, but his friend, and the problem is that his
wounds are more complicated to see, because they are the kind that go inside, that you
never know if they will heal. over time.
And that's not the only difference between now and then. Because back then, as soon
as he fell off the bike, his friend ran to help him: he picked him up, he put him on his
shoulder to take him home, he told his parents... precisely nothing that he has done now. .
Now he has stood by, letting his friend remain on the ground, day after day.
The night comes over a boy who continues sleeping inside a

hospital where there is only silence.
The night also comes about a father who has rushed out of work as soon as he is told
that his son has had another panic attack.
A father who realizes that he is seeing more of it this week than in his entire life: work. A
father who is realizing that to educate a child it is necessary to be with him.
And it is that same father who, for this night, has relieved his wife, who is now trying to
settle into the chair in the hospital room, who remembers with pain a conversation he had
with his son in that same bed, Just two days ago: —Aren't you working today either, Dad?
—No, not today, they have given me permission to be here with you, taking care of
you.
—And they can't give you those permissions when I'm well, when I'm not sick, so we
can spend more time together?
And that's when his heart started to hurt. That night he tried to remember the times he
had been home during the week: when he caught that bad flu, when he had an accident
on his hand, when his grandfather died, the day off he asked to go to his mother-in-law's
funeral... but They had never given him permission to celebrate the loss of a first tooth, to
teach a child to ride a bike, to spend their birthday together, to bathe at the beach... in
short, for the only important things in life They had never given him permission from work.
And it is that same night that arrives in a thousand more rooms in the city...
About the room of a girl who doesn't know how many kisses away hate is; that
she has realized that she was not ready to see it; who is discovering that there is no
love without fear.
A girl who must be careful when gathering the remains of a disappointment
because now he knows that he can cut them.
About the room of a boy who can't stop thinking about what the meeting between
Kiri and his friend must have been like, what they must have said to each other, how
they must have felt about each other when they see each other again. Because
deep down, he also likes that girl, although he doesn't dare tell her either.
About the room of a boy with nine and a half fingers who continues to think that
nothing is going to happen, and yet, every time the home phone rings his body
trembles.
I woke up, again this damn beeping going through my head.
I look at the clock, 05:14.

Today it is my father who sleeps curled up on the armchair I have here next to me.
I've been looking at him for a while and I really wanted to hug him, to tell him everything
and put an end to the hedgehog once and for all.
After a while Kiri entered my thoughts. We have known each other since we were
little, we were born in the same year, in the same month and almost on the same day, she
on the 20th and I on the 19th, in fact, we have always celebrated the years together, we
even shared birthday candles.
Kiri is just as tall as me, thin, with hair so long that she mostly wears it in braids. She
usually dresses in a special way and wears more than a hundred bracelets on one of her
wrists.
Kiri was one of the last people to stop seeing me. At first I disappeared in front of her
like a game, like a little joke, without giving it importance, but little by little I needed to be
visible for less time and so the moment came when I almost didn't let her see me anymore.
Never.
Why did I do it? Well, because I like her, I like her a lot. Until a while ago I had not
noticed her like I am now, I had not felt those ants running over my arms every time she
looks at me, every time she smiles at me...
And of course, after everything that was happening to me, I preferred to be invisible
than for him to see what I had become.
Since the accident I had not heard anything from her, many people have come that I
hardly care about, others that I did not even know existed, and on the other hand she had
not been here yet. I thought he was never going to come and instead, today... today he
was here.
Today he was finally able to see me, even though he didn't want to.
And a boy who can't stop thinking about everything that happened knows that eventually
he's going to have to tell someone, otherwise that beep will end up breaking his head.
Maybe I'll tell her, the psychologist, so that everything happens now.
Because he just wants his arm to heal, his hair to grow back, his wounds to heal, that damn
ringing in his head to go away, the hedgehog to go away, no more elephants to come, no
more Kiri. Talk to him again, let everything be as before. Well, not like before, like before
before.
And so, thinking about so many things, it was daytime again at the hospital.
Today the psychologist will come early, first thing in the morning, right after breakfast,
and then he will tell everything, absolutely everything... even if at first it is of no use.
The day
It's been a strange day, in the end everything turned out the other way around. Neither the
hedgehog, nor the elephant, nor the beeping sound has gone away. Today I had decided
to tell him everything, I have been mentally rehearsing all night how to do it: how to start,
what to tell him first, how to explain to him about my powers... But everything has gone
wrong.
-How are you? —He asked me as soon as I entered.
—Well, fine, but… —And I have remained silent.
-What's happening? —he asked me again as he approached me.
—It's just that… —And there I collapsed.
He took my hand and hugged me for many minutes. I felt his breath on my
hairless head, I noticed how he really hugged me. Little by little he has
separated from me...
-Do you want to tell me something? —he asked me while holding my hand.
thousand.
"Everything..." I answered.
—That's what I'm here for.
And I have started to talk.

—It all started with the monsters, well with the monster, with the
First… —I told him.
—Monsters? —he asked me, opening his eyes wide.
—Yes, monsters, many, many, thousands. Many of them are still here,
they are the ones who visit me at night and get into my chest, because even
though I can't see them now I still feel them. You don't have to have them in
front of you for them to hurt you, in fact I think they have always hurt me
more when I haven't had them in front of me than when they were there.
—But..., you know that monsters don't exist, right? —has me
said while looking at me.
"Of course they exist," I replied. You, adults, tell us that they do not exist
so that we are not afraid, but you know that they exist, that they are
everywhere. The thing is that they are not under the bed, nor in the closets,
nor behind the curtain.
-Oh no? And then where are they? -I've been asked.
—Well, in many places: on top of trees, behind doors, walking down the
street, inside cars waiting for the children to get out of school, sitting in the
cafeterias in front of the school… —And I've started telling him the places
where I have seen them. In reality, I have seen them everywhere and the
worst of all is that they have also seen me, although they did not want to look
at me afterwards.
—Is there also here? -I've been asked.
"Yes, someone has come to see me, well, many have come, because
anyone can be normal today and a monster tomorrow, even yourself," I told
her. They have come during the day and entered through that door, and
others come at night and get into my body, those are the worst because I
can't see them... Other times they grab me with their invisible hands and get
my arms and legs legs start to shake...
She sighed and wrote something down in a small notebook.

"Go on, go on," he told me.
—There was a first day. And from that first day, the first day I saw the first
monster, was when it all began. I became obsessed with searching for some
superpower that would make me stronger, or faster, or taller, or bigger, or even
smaller, anything would do for me.
-Superpowers? —he asked me again while taking off his
glasses and rubbed his eyes.
"Yes, powers that we all actually have," I told him, "there are always people who
have some of the most developed senses: for example, they may have very good
eyesight, a highly trained ear, a sense of smell like that of a dog... although those
are small powers compared to what I have achieved.
—Like the ones you have gotten?

—Yes, many, but it all started on the day of the hornet's nest, that changed everything.
There we both stayed in silence. She left the notebook on the table, took off her
glasses and looked at me.
-What happened that day? -I've been asked.
—I turned into a wasp.
While an ex-invisible boy begins to tell everything he has been keeping until that
moment, in a room in an apartment located on the outskirts of the city, a boy with nine and
a half fingers remains lying on his bed, nervous.
He has no idea what is happening in the hospital, he does not know if he is telling the
truth or taking advantage of what happened, he is also telling a lie.
The truth?, he asks. How true? The one that happened? What could have happened
when he approached on the last day? The one you thought in your head? The one you felt
in your heart? How easy the world would be if there was only one truth.
How to fix someone else's sand castle that you yourself have destroyed?
How to give a flower without plucking it from the ground? How to enjoy a forest when the
fire first passed? How to recover the stone that you have thrown into the lake? At the
moment he continues his normal life, no one has said anything to him, but he suspects that
one day or another he will receive a call. And then he will have to speak.
—I thought that if Spiderman had been bitten by a spider and had had
superpowers, I could also have them if I was stung by another insect, for
example a wasp.
—And what happened?
—I was able to become one, and I also managed to keep the monsters
away, I managed to make them afraid of me. From that day on I began to have
powers.
-As which?
—For example, I am able to breathe underwater as long as I want, in fact I
think I would be able to live underwater if I wanted to.
"Wow..." and he continued writing something down in his notebook.
We both remained silent.
"Continue, continue..." he told me.
—Well, I also have other powers, I can hear any conversation from very far
away, I can see perfectly in the dark; I am able to go much faster than other
people. But despite all those powers the monsters were still there, they left but
came back again, so I decided to look for a new power, one so great that they
couldn't do anything to me. And finally I found it.
—What was that power?

—I am capable of making myself invisible.
—¿Invisible?…
—Yes, of course, haven't you read about it in the news? Everyone talks about it.
—No, I haven't read it, but go on, tell me what happened, how did you become invisible?
—Well, it was by chance, one day when there were monsters everywhere, I began to
wish I could disappear from there, I concentrated, I curled up... and suddenly, when I
opened my eyes I realized that the monsters had stopped see me. They looked everywhere
except where I was. I had them in front of me, but they didn't see me... And they left
without knowing that I was still there. From that day on I have dedicated myself to improving
my technique to be able to disappear whenever I want.
At that moment the psychologist closed her notebook and put it in her bag.
—Could you do it now? -I've been asked.

-The fact that?
—You could make yourself invisible right now.
—Well, not right now, since the accident I think I have lost the ability to do so.
"Wow..." he told me as he began to get up. Well,

I think we're done for today.
—What?
-Yeah I know.
—But… there are still many things missing, I still haven't told you anything about when
I flew with a dragon.
"With a dragon?... You see..." he told me while he put on his
bag—I prefer that we continue tomorrow, right now I don't know what to think.
—But, it's true, everything I've told you is true, it's all true!
Really! —I yelled at him.
"You see," he told me while holding my hand, "I know you're not crazy, well, at least I
think so." Everything you've told me could be due to the blow you suffered in the accident,
it could also be because of all those comics your parents told me you read, it could even
be because...
I don't know, I don't know why you told me all that, but today we're going to leave it here.
Tomorrow I'll come back and we'll keep talking, okay?
He gave me a kiss, held his bag tightly and said see you tomorrow and left.
I don't understand what happened, why did he leave like that? I haven't been
able to make myself invisible in front of her because since I've been here I've lost
that power, but that doesn't mean that everything I've experienced is a lie.
I understand that something like this is difficult to believe, in fact, at first, when it
happened to me the first time, I was also hallucinating.
At first the effect only lasted a few minutes, a few minutes in which I suddenly
disappeared, becoming invisible. But little by little I managed to increase the time,
one day half an hour, another day forty minutes, an hour... Sometimes I was able to
let no one see me for hours!
It is also true that I never managed to disappear for a whole day, there was
always a moment when, suddenly, I became visible and someone saw me.
The problem is that I have never managed to control that power well: sometimes,
when I most wanted to be invisible was when more people saw me, and on the other
hand, when I wanted everyone to see me was when my body wanted to disappear.
The first few days I felt like a superhero, I thought I was the only person in the
world who had managed to be invisible. But just a few days before the accident
occurred, I met someone in the park who, years ago, had also managed to be
invisible.
—You are not the only one who has ever been invisible, there are many people
who experience the same thing as you, what happens is that everyone keeps it a
secret, nobody says anything —he told me.
-Because? -asked.
—Who have you told?
-To nobody…
"Look," he said to me as he turned around and lifted his hair.
nape-. Know what it is?
—Does it look like the head of a dragon?

—Yes, it is a dragon, but this is a very special dragon.
-Because?
—Because this dragon appeared when I wanted to disappear...
In a small apartment, a psychologist tries to sleep but can't.

Turning into a wasp, breathing underwater, seeing monsters, becoming invisible, flying with
a dragon...he wonders why a boy needs to invent things like that. He knows he's not crazy,
that's why he doesn't understand what's happening. After a thousand turns in bed and
many other thoughts he finally manages to fall asleep.
It is the next day, upon returning to the hospital, when that boy
tells the same truth but in a different way.
It is then that her heart shrinks so much that for a moment she thinks she will never
find him again; when he also begins to believe in monsters, powers and dragons; when
you understand where that feeling of suffocation comes from when you wake up, those
elephants in your chest and, above all, why you hear such a loud beeping sound in your
head.
It is then that he realizes that to be a monster it is not necessary to do something

special, sometimes it is enough to do absolutely nothing.
THE VISIT
The first monster

It all started on a Friday.
It was going to be a Friday like any other, the only difference is that we had a last
minute math test. Yes, late on a Friday.
I had been preparing for that exam for several weeks because it was very
important for the average grade. But also because I like mathematics, I like to play
with numbers, do calculations by heart... that is part of my defect.
I remember that that day, like most days when I had an exam, I
I woke up very early, even before my parents.
I also remember that my sister, like almost every morning, came running to my
bed to snuggle next to me. And that, although she doesn't know it yet, is something
important in this story, so important that in the end she managed to save my life.
I guess, like every day, my mother would rush me to

He would get dressed and from the kitchen he would shout for me to come down to breakfast.
In my house, breakfast has always been a bit chaotic: my father has a coffee
and runs to work, my mother does not drink anything and as soon as she has
dressed my sister she takes her to morning school since she goes to school. work
very soon. And I stay alone at home from 7:45 until 8:10 or so, which is when I
leave for school.
It takes me about fifteen minutes to walk from my house to the school, but that
was before I had superpowers, later I was able to get there in less than five minutes.
In just five minutes! And someday even in less time.
During the time when I am alone I always take the opportunity to make myself
a sandwich. My father says that the world is not here to raise more useless people,
so if I want something to eat for lunch I have to make it myself. And that, in this story,
It is very dangerous, because it was about to end badly, very badly. I almost killed
a monster.
That Friday, like so many other days, I went out into the street at 8:10,
knowing that it would take me about ten minutes to cross the park that separates
me from Zaro's house. He and I always met at a supermarket on the corner of his
street. Afterwards, the two of us continued together to an open field where Kiri
was waiting for us. That's what happened almost every day. And from there, the
three of us arrived at the institute together, but well, that was before I became
invisible, of course. That Friday, like every other day, I grabbed my backpack,
closed the door and went down the stairs.
That Friday, at the same moment that a boy who still does not know what it
means to be invisible has left his house, another boy does so from an apartment
located quite a few blocks away, heading towards the same institute.
He also has the same exam: math at the last minute, but he hasn't studied
anything. In reality, he doesn't care if he passes or fails, since this year he has
repeated and he knows that he will pass the course no matter what he does,
advantages of the system, he thinks.
He comes out with a backpack that could just as well have books inside as
stones, since it would give them the same use, perhaps more for the stones. And he
has other goals in mind, such as Betty, a beautiful girl with a piercing in her nose and
another in her navel.
He realizes that he left home without lunch, but he doesn't care about that either,
he'll get one at recess.
I crossed the park quickly, I suppose thinking about the exam questions, and almost
without realizing it I reached the corner of the supermarket where Zaro was already waiting
for me. He is my best friend, we have known each other since childhood, and we have spent
many summers together, at my grandparents' house, in his town, at some summer camp...
As soon as I arrived we high-fived, it is a ritual that we have been doing years, since the
day a bike race ended a little badly.
I guess that Friday we would talk about a thousand things: about the exam, about Kiri,
about what we would do over the weekend, about how well prepared I was for the exam
and how he was doing it as always. That, as always, was a fair pass, but pass. Zaro never
got more than a 6, but never less than a 5. Always just enough to not fail but at the same
time just enough to not stand out.
We also talked about the madness of scheduling an exam at the last minute, and on a
Friday. Everyone knows that putting an exam at the last minute is the worst. It is much better
to do it first thing in the morning, so that what you have studied is more recent and, above
all, you are not nervous throughout the day, you get it out of your mind soon.
We continued walking down the street, to the open field, and there, right on the opposite
corner, we saw Kiri. That day she could be seen from afar. She is so different from me, she
is always visible, very very visible, and that day much more...
Kiri was dressed in yellow, all dressed up. A yellow sweater, yellow pants,
yellow sneakers. A lemon with bracelets.
We laughed for a while, but she didn't care, and that's what I like most about Kiri, she
goes about her business, she doesn't give a damn what other people think.
In just two minutes we arrived at the institute.

I remember that that day, like almost every other day when there was an
exam, during recess many had their books or notes in their hands, rushing until
the last moment. Not me, I have never wanted to review anything before an exam.
Kiri and Zaro did go out to lunch with their books.
The bell rang at the end of recess and we all ran in, because the next two
classes, the last two, had been put together to take the exam that was going to
be longer than normal.
We were waiting in the hallway, outside the large classroom, for the teacher
to arrive. It took a while. There is always a moment in exams when there is still
hope that something happened at the last minute: that the teacher got sick, that
they missed the exams... but none of that happened. He ran in, sweating, with
a pile of papers in his hands.
-Go Go! —he shouted as he walked nervously around the classroom.

He was accompanied by another teacher who stood at the door and began
taking roll. And so, in that order, we sat on the benches in the classroom.
It's funny how one small detail can change everything. If that day the tables
had been distributed differently, if someone had been missing, if they had made
a mistake when reading the list... if any of those things had happened, I would
not be here in this hospital right now. Just that, a detail that can change a life.
We entered and I saw that Zaro had sat right at the other end of the room, while Kiri
was almost next to me, only one student separated us. I stuck my head out and greeted
her. We laughed, and I saw a thousand freckles moving all over her face.
-Silence! —was suddenly heard, but no one was silent—. Silence!! —Again, stronger.
But it took at least four more silences to achieve silence.
"We are going to hand out the exam face down," said the teacher as he
he placed his glasses on, "no one should pick it up until I say so."
And as he and the support teacher handed out the exams, he
The first thing we all did was pick it up to see the questions.
"As soon as you finish it, you can give it to me and go home, it's Friday," he said, half
smiling.
—If you want, I can give it to you now! —was heard from the back of the room. AND
We all started laughing.
—Come on, stop fooling around, time is starting now.
We had an hour and a half to do it.
But I finished it much earlier.
And it was noticed.
And that detail could have also changed everything.

The exam was easy, I would say quite easy. My uncle, who is also a teacher, says
that the subjects are getting easier each time, because they have to lower the level to
equalize downwards, towards the dumbest, so that the laziest in the class does not feel
bad. "Someday, if someone doesn't know how to write, they'll leave you all there, doing
calligraphy all year long," one of them told me.
turn.
I looked at the clock, it hadn't been an hour yet, but I was already done.
I looked askance at the others and each one was in his own world: some were moving the
pen slowly without hardly writing anything, others pretended to read the question a
thousand times, others looked at the ceiling from time to time in search of inspiration...
and I, I was already finished.
But I was embarrassed to hand it in so soon, so I started to do
I kind of went over the questions.
It is important not to be too smart at school, so one goes unnoticed more, it is better
to be one of the mediocre ones, not to stand out either above or below. In fact, I think that
the lazy person is valued much more than the one who works hard, well, at least that's
what my father says.
And that's exactly what I was doing, reviewing without reviewing the answers, when I
heard it.
—Sheee, sheee…
—Sheee, sheee…
It was like a whisper.

I stood still, trying to know if that sound was real or if I had imagined it.
—Sheee, sheee… —again.

No, it wasn't my imagination. Also, this time the whisper sounded louder. Someone
behind me was calling me. But I didn't turn around. I didn't turn around because I knew
who had sat there.
"Sheee... Hey, asshole... I'm talking to you," he said in a low voice.
I panic.
I didn't turn around at all, just enough to know what I already suspected: there,
He was sitting right behind me.
"Pass me your test," he told me in a low voice.
"It's… it's just that I haven't finished…" I lied.
"I don't care..." he whispered again, give it to me and take mine. And at that moment
I noticed something touching my back, his exam, I assumed. I felt a chill that ran through
my entire body.
I looked for the teacher, but he was on the other side of the room.
discussing something with a student.
—Give it to me now, idiot! —he told me more forcefully.
And there, in my answer I could have also changed everything. I could not have
awakened the first monster, the first in a long list, a list of more than ten, more than a
hundred, more than a thousand monsters...
A word that changed my life from that moment on.
NO
-That?! —he shouted furiously.

And I kept quiet, I cowered forward in case a blow came from behind.
—What's going on over there? —said the professor as he approached

us.
"Nothing, nothing," he answered.
"Nothing," I answered.
-You already finished? -I wonder.
"Yes, now, I'm done," I told him while I gave him the exam, I really wanted to get out
of there.
—Well, those who have finished can hand me the exam and leave.
At home.
At that moment a lot of chairs were heard.
That day I didn't wait for Kiri or Zaro, I grabbed my backpack, went out to the street and
I started walking home as fast as I could.
I looked back again and again. There was no one, but I kept shaking, I knew
that this one would NOT cause me problems.
And at the same moment that one boy leaves too quickly for his house, another
has remained motionless in front of a blank exam, as angry as he is surprised.
"No. "He told me no," he continues thinking, without paying attention to anything
else, neither the exam, nor his friends, nor the teacher... nothing, it is as if that simple
two-letter word had collapsed his mind.
A mind—and especially a body—used to always getting what it wants, perhaps
that is why it does not fully assimilate what has happened. It's been a long time since
he heard no for an answer, not at home, not at school, not on the street... because
NO means becoming his enemy.
He is tall, strong and handsome, and he thinks that in the society in which he
lives he doesn't need anything else. He is also two years older than his peers. His
only defect is that he is missing a piece of his little finger, although he has turned it
into an advantage by saying that he lost it in a fight, the same one in which he
received the scar on his chest, just above his heart.
At least that's what he says. Nobody knows if it's true, but there won't be anyone
who doubts it either.
«NO.».
"He told me no," he thinks.
«But who does that idiot think he is?
»He told me no, and in front of everyone, everyone said no.
I heard, you made me look ridiculous.
»And worst of all, I have failed again. My parents have already told me that one more
failure and they'll take away my cell phone and my pay and my motorcycle, and shit,
everything.
»Because of that idiot I couldn't pass the exam, but I managed.
He will pay, I already believe he will pay me.
"He told me no."
In reality, what worries him most is not the suspense, because he knows that, in the
end, his parents will give him the cell phone, and the payment, and the motorcycle, and
everything that is needed; What bothers him the most is that no. A no that follows him in
every step, in every thought. No, no, no, no, no... two letters that, like a machine gun, hit
a mind that has no tools to tolerate frustration.
He would like to get revenge now, now, he hates waiting. He kicks a door several
times to release his rage. He spits, clenches his fists, bites his teeth so hard it seems like
they're going to break right then and there.
time.
He can't wait, he can't wait, because he doesn't know, because no one has taught
him. That's why he has to do something, otherwise he's going to go crazy. And that's when
an idea comes to mind.
“Perfect,” he thinks while calling one of his friends on the phone.
That Friday I came home very nervous.

I couldn't put the keys in the first time, nor the second time, nor the third
time... my fingers were shaking. I entered the house and closed it as quickly
as I could, as if there was a ghost on the other side of the door.
My parents had not yet arrived and I spent a long time walking from one side of the
dining room to the other without knowing what to do. I tried to convince myself that nothing
had happened; that on Monday, when he returned to class, everything would be forgotten.
I opened the refrigerator, grabbed something to snack and went up to the

room to take refuge in my comics. Whenever I have had a problem that has
been my therapy.
I was reading for a long time, and while I was looking at those comics I
was thinking about what Spiderman, Superman or Batman would do in my place.
In the end I realized that I was looking at the drawings but I wasn't able to concentrate
on anything. I put them aside and lay face up on the bed.
I started looking at all the posters in the room until I came to one that had
a phrase that caught my attention: "You have to become more than a man in
your opponent's mind."
I read it several times, it was as if someone had put it there for me:
“more than a man”…
I spent a long time looking at the ceiling, doing nothing, letting
Time passed until I got a message on my cell phone.
I jumped out of bed, scared.
Hello, what happened? You left the Era Zaro exam very quickly.
Nothing, well, I was in a hurry.

Well, what's wrong?
Na
And about MM
Nothing, he wanted me to pass the exam Be

careful with that one Yes,
nothing happens But

the exam okay then?
Good, yes, very good, ok

Great, me too, it wasn't difficult And Kiri?
Kiri, you already know that he always says the same thing, that's normal, but very well sure. What
are you
doing tomorrow?
With my parents shopping, I guess. Wow, we're
going to town. Great. See you on Monday.
Okay.
Have a good
time. :) :)) :))) :))))))
And he stopped writing.

And I picked up the comic again, but when I had barely read two pages, another
message.
"How annoying he is!" I thought, but when I saw the phone screen I realized
that it wasn't him.
My heart raced.
Hour!!!
They write to you from the other side of the screen.
Hour!!!!!!
He answers, and her heart also races; Her fingers, freckles, and even her smile also
tremble.
He has been looking for the moment for a long time to confess what he feels, to ask
for a kiss, an afternoon at the movies, a hug of the kind that leaves you breathless... but he
doesn't dare. They have been friends for so long that now he doesn't know how to change
that situation, he doesn't know how to go from friendship to love without spoiling the first or
closing the doors on the second.
That's why, for now, he's going to continue like this, rehearsing on his cell phone what
he doesn't dare to do in person. Adding more icons to each message every day: today a
heart or a face winking at her, tomorrow a smile with a kiss... making those images express
what she doesn't dare to say.
It was Kiri. My fingers were shaking.

My father says that in this life there are two reasons why you can be
leaving the heart out of the place, the first is out of love, the second out of fear.
Hour!!!
I answered him.
Hour!!!!!!
How was the exam?
Good very good.
Have you left soon? Why?
Well, I was in a hurry, I had to help at home.
What are you doing this weekend…
And we were like that, exchanging messages, for more than half an hour. Every
time a heart came to me in one of his responses, I began to float. I assumed that they
were just that, drawings, nothing more, icons that I would send to everyone, but in my
world I imagined that the kisses that appeared on my screen were just for me.
I've always liked Kiri, but it's been in the last year that I've realized that I really like
her, I think I've fallen in love with her. That's why, on my last birthday, because it was
going to be such a big wish, I blew out the candles so hard. The problem is that we've
been friends for so long that I guess if she liked me maybe she would have told me by
now, maybe she would have noticed. That's why all this time I've never wanted to say
anything to him, I didn't want to ruin our friendship. I preferred to have her as a friend
every day than not to have her.
After a lot of messages we said goodbye: she with a

violet heart and two faces with a kiss that left a smile on mine.
Soon my parents arrived.
I left my cell phone in the room and went down with them.
They had brought pizza, it was Friday. The four of us had dinner together at the dining
room table.
After dinner we watched TV for a while but I went to the room with the excuse that I was
tired, that I hadn't slept much preparing for the exam. But really what I wanted to do was re-
read each of Kiri's messages, go over our entire conversation. It was a way to savor their
words again, to see if any of their kisses or their hearts could mean something more.
But when I picked up my phone I found a new message that I wasn't expecting. I came
across the second reason why your heart can jump out of place.
So no, eh, you and I will talk on Monday

That was the first threat of all those that came to me during the weekend.
On Saturday, after a lot of messages full of insults, I decided to turn off the sound on
my phone. And yet, every time it vibrated, my whole body trembled.
On Sunday I decided to turn it off.

Until that moment I only knew MM by hearsay. I had just arrived new to the institute this
year. In my class I had met four boys and two girls from my previous school, but of my
friends, only two, Zaro and Kiri.
The first days of high school everything was much better than I expected. We were all
new and we arrived nervous, all except MM who had already repeated the year.
And the first exams arrived, and as always, by default, I got the best grades. And apart
from some teasing, some nerd yelling or another, nothing else happened until the damn
Friday arrived when as luck would have it, MM would sit behind me on the math test.
That Sunday I spent almost the entire day in my room, I told my parents that my
stomach hurt, that maybe I had felt a little bad and I took advantage of that lie to stay in bed
for hours and hours reading comics.
From time to time Luna came to my room and acted as a doctor who took care of me,
she gave me her fake thermometer, she gave me her fake medicines and she also put
plasters all over my body, but these were real.
And so Sunday passed, very slowly, imagining everything that could happen on Monday,
that's why the closer the night got, the more nervous I got.
I didn't want the next day to arrive, I didn't feel like going to school and meeting MM.
I ate dinner without hunger, the stomach thing was still useful, so I went to bed
early.
I picked up my phone to turn it on. I wanted to know if Kiri had written something
to me, if she had given me another smiling face, or kissy lips... any little detail that
would make me happy. But on the other hand, I didn't want to know if MM had
written to me again, I didn't want to encounter more threats, more insults...
In the end I realized that fear was more powerful than love, so I decided to
keep it off.
And I closed my eyes, but I couldn't sleep...
Monday
And Monday comes about a boy who doesn't feel like going to class. He looks at the
window wishing that it snows so much that he can't go outside, that it rains in such a way
that it seems like the sea is right there, that it is so cold that even his fears freeze... but no,
it's sunny.
He could pretend that he is still sick, that his stomach hurts so much that he won't be
able to get up, but that would create chaos in his house. His father has to go to work, his
mother too, we have to leave Luna at morning school... and it's not the right time to do
stupid things at work, he heard his mother say to his father the other day. And also, how
long can a stomach ache last? "Until she forgets about me," he thinks.
He reluctantly goes down to breakfast, but tries to hide it so that his parents
Don't notice anything different, so you don't have to give any explanation.
His father has already left, his mother will leave in a few minutes and then he will stay
home.
He will prepare his sandwich, his backpack... but he will leave his cell phone in his
room, turned off.
And he will leave in the direction of the institute. He knows that he will get the best grade in the
exam, so you don't know if that will be good or bad.
Monday comes about a boy with nine and a half fingers who wants to go to school more
than ever. Look at the window wishing it was sunny, that there was no excuse not to attend
class. In any case, he knows that today he would go even if there were a thousand storms,
even if so much snow fell that it blocked the roads, even if the cold prevented him from
walking down the street... in fact, today, even if he was sick, he would not stop going.
He got up early, got dressed and went straight to the kitchen. There is his mother
preparing breakfast, and lunch, and everything he needs... he thinks that this way, by giving
him everything, maybe he can make up for what happened a few years ago.
On the other hand, he barely sees his father, he works all day and when he is at home
there is no conversation between them. On the part of the adult because he carries within
him a feeling of guilt that oppresses his body; on the boy's part because he has already
gotten used to that situation—to the absence of words, and affection—between them.
He takes the backpack with an illusion that he tries to hide from his parents.
so that they don't notice anything different, so that they don't have to give explanations.
He carries a cell phone in his hand from which he has not stopped sending messages
throughout the weekend, messages that have not received a response. "Coward," he thinks.
He smiles as he walks to school, he knows that he will fail school.

exam, but he also knows that he has a new hope.
That morning was the first of many in which I left home afraid. I crossed the park
looking everywhere, looking for Zaro from afar.
As soon as I got to him the first thing he did was ask me about my cell phone.
—Have you had it off all weekend?
—Yes, it's just that I've been sick, with a stomach ache... and it's over.
battery and I didn't plug it in anymore —I lied.
"You do have a bit of a bad face, yes," he told me, and that made me feel even worse.
He also asked me if something had happened in the exam with MM, but I told him no.
—Okay, but be careful with that one. He's one of those who doesn't give a damn about
being here.
A few minutes later we met Kiri. He smiled as soon as he saw me and that made my
day. Just that, a smile, even if it came without emoticons, without kisses, without violet
hearts...
We arrived at the institute and I started looking everywhere again, trying to locate him. I
couldn't see him anywhere and that made me even more nervous.
That morning was the first of many in which a boy with

nine and a half fingers leaves for the institute with a new enthusiasm.
A few minutes later he meets his friends in a small square.
—Has he responded to your messages?
—Not one, nothing, I don't think he's even read them.
-Coward.
—Yes, he is a coward.
They arrive at the school early, much earlier than usual, and hide in
a corner, far away, from where it is easy to see and difficult to be seen.
And they see him, yes, precisely the child who will later manage to be invisible,
now he is the first one they see.
MM notices him nervous, realizes that he doesn't stop looking at everyone
sides, he also realizes that he does not separate himself from his friends... fear.
Fear, the gasoline that makes people like MM work.
Perhaps, if our future invisible boy had had a different attitude, more defiant, more
carefree; If she had seen him much more sure of himself, calmer… she wouldn't have
been so happy. But MM the only thing he saw there was fear.
I entered class with fear, I looked at his table and he still wasn't there. I sat in my chair,
in the second row, three away from him, and promised not to turn around at all during the
entire class.
The teacher entered.
The problem was that we had math class first thing on Monday morning. I
prayed that he hadn't corrected the exams yet, that he wouldn't say the grades.
"Well, guys, today I bring my exam notes," was the first thing he said, "I've
been correcting all weekend to get it out of my way." And as almost always,
bad, very bad.
The laughter began.
"Although there are some exceptions," he continued while taking out some
pages from his briefcase.
There I was, the exception, the damn exception.
He started giving the exam notes out loud, something I hated, something
he enjoyed. Because if there was something that teacher liked more than
anything else in the world, it was ridiculing the students.
—A two, a three and a half, a four and five, a six, a five, a
one… —and that's how all the notes fell… And it came to MM.
—One and a half, one for knowing how to put your name and half as a gift. —And then
an awkward situation occurred in class. Well, at those moments, many of my colleagues
didn't know what to do: whether to laugh at the bully on duty to make him laugh or not to do
it in case he thought you were laughing at him.
And more grades, and more failures... until my exam arrived.

—A ten, as always, great. Learn from him, this boy will go far,” he said.
Whistles were heard, some booing... I wasn't able to turn around to see MM's
face, but I imagined it. At that moment I would have liked to be invisible, not to be there
when everyone turned to me.
And suddenly, while the teacher continued saying the remaining notes, a ball of
paper hit me on the back. It was the first of many, of thousands. I didn't turn around
because I already knew who had thrown it.
I have thought many times at that moment, what would have happened if I had gotten
up, if I had gone to MM's table and punched him? Surely it would have all been over, he
wouldn't have thrown any more balls at me.
But I didn't do it because to do something like that you need to be in a certain way.
that I am not, because you need to have a value that I do not have.
The recess bell rang and I started to get nervous. I quickly looked for Kiri and Zaro
to place myself between them.
And we left.
And that one and a half falls like a blow on MM even though he hides it on the
outside, even though he laughs about it in front of the public. He knows that by failing
the exams he will be more popular, more respected, more feared... but a different reality
grows inside him. The one that makes him sad in the privacy of his room when he thinks
that he is not capable of being smarter, that he will always be the fool in the class; the
bad one, yes, the popular one, the handsome one, the strong one... and also the clumsy
one, the one who can't do much more.
Therefore, to compensate for this weakness that he will never confess to anyone,
he uses violence, because at the moment it works for him. It is rage that compensates
for helplessness, rage against a boy who represents everything he does not have, a
boy who gets A's with the same ease with which he punches.
Therefore, to release all that anger that floods his bones, as soon as he goes out
into the yard he will look for the culprit of everything, he will look for that boy who didn't
let him copy the exam.
And as the time arrives, his body accumulates rage.
I went out to the courtyard with Zaro, Kiri and two other girls from class. We
stood in the same place as always, in one of the corners next to the fountain.
That day, I tried to place myself in the center of everyone, as if they formed the
shield with which I would be able to protect myself.
But there are times when one cannot avoid the inevitable and the inevitable
came.
We hadn't even opened the sandwiches when MM and two other guys
approached us. He addressed me directly.
—So not, huh? —he said angrily.
-That? —I simply dared to say.
—You know what I'm talking about, the exam you didn't pass... idiot. —And that idiot
came out of his mouth with even more anger.
"They were going to catch us..." I tried to excuse myself.
—No, they weren't going to catch us, you didn't want to give it to me, idiot.
—No, no, they were going to catch us…
—The one who's going to catch you is me. —And in that moment of frustration,
MM pushed me.
It wasn't a hard push, he just moved me a little, but that was enough for both of
us.
For me because I had started something that I didn't know how to stop and for
him because by not defending me, by not pushing him back, he realized that he
could continue.
-Hey hey! But what have you believed? —Kiri shouted.
"So you have a defender," he said, addressing me.
And without me realizing it, he reached out and took the sandwich from me.
—Let's see, let's see what you have in here? —he said laughing as he walked
away a few meters.
We all wait.
"Wow, tuna, I don't like it," he said as he threw the sandwich on the floor.
He looked me in the eyes, I think to see if I would react, but when he realized that I
was not doing anything he raised his foot and stepped on it with all his strength. He stood
there in
front of me, laughing. And I stayed looking at how the sandwich was left on the floor.
And a few seconds later something happened in my body that I couldn't control.
The sandwich
And just at that moment, the scared boy looking at his sandwich on the floor has just
discovered that real violence exists. Not the violence that he is used to seeing every day on
television, the one so far away that happens to other people, in other places... but the one
that has just touched his surroundings right now.
He has also discovered the other side of violence, the one that is never mentioned: that
of those who look and do nothing. That of all those colleagues who have come to see the
show but have decided not to intervene; those who, when faced with a fight, only know how
to take out their cell phone camera so they can brag after the moment; those who, when
faced with an accident, prefer to do everything but help; that of those who, when faced with
injustice, turn their heads to the other side, towards where there is nothing to see.
And after discovering these two faces of violence, he looks at the ground again to
realize that there is not only a destroyed sandwich there, there are many more things. In
that sandwich is the whole world—his world—: there is his father arriving so late every night,
tired from working; There is also the early morning of a mother who has to clean other
people's houses so that the salary arrives at the end of the month; In that sandwich are
some of the excursions that you have not been able to take, the trendy sneakers that you
have not been able to buy, the trip to the amusement park that you have not been able to
go to, all the movies that you have not seen in the cinema... There, on the ground, it is part
of his life, there is the effort of an entire family to get ahead.
There, on that piece of bread with tuna.

And perhaps that is what makes someone who has never used violence want to now
become the Hulk. Let him be filled with rage and hatred.
That he wants to attack, to hit, to destroy his enemy. You notice that the blood begins to
scratch inside you, as if a torrent of crystals were passing through your entire body.
The problem is that he doesn't know how to expel that violence outside, how to get
out the fire that is burning inside him... And that, not knowing how to purge revenge, has
consequences on his own body.
Like an infection that cannot find a way out, his skin begins to turn red, several veins
on his face swell, his hands—from squeezing them so much—are becoming more and
more purple... Although he cannot be seen, he is
able to feel all those changes. in its
inside, and that's why he believes that he is somehow turning into the Hulk.
The problem is that from the outside... from the outside the reality is different.
The face of a child who has just had a piece of life thrown to the ground begins to turn red:
his ears, his cheeks, even his nose... his entire face turns red. His hands, fingers, and upper
legs also begin to itch... and he feels a heat that seems to want to set his body on fire. He
doesn't know it but that's what happens when anger wants to leave the body but the mind won't
let it.
And that spectacle, that of a boy who stores violence but does not know how to release it,
generates laughter from his enemy and from the entire audience that watches him.
—Look, look, he's acting like a tomato, he's starting to laugh.

Look, look, a super tomato! —MM shouts in the middle of the patio.
And those screams make more and more students gather around a boy who begins to
sweat, to shake with fear and rage, who could at that very moment throw himself against MM
and hit him in the face, in the eyes, and push him against the ground, and then kick him until he
bleeds... but when he realizes that he is not capable of doing anything, he runs out of there,
towards the bathrooms, leaving behind a trail of laughter.
He walks in, looks in the mirror and doesn't recognize himself.

He knows that when he gets nervous, when he is afraid, his body reacts like this: turning
red, but it has never affected him as much as it does now.
He washes his face several times, gets into a toilet, sits down and tries to calm down.
He would like to stay there for a while, a few hours, a few days... but he knows
that he will have to go out, not to the patio, but to the world.
From that day on, images began to reach my cell phone with my tomato-shaped face,
turned into a red Hulk, or with my body so swollen that it looked like a monster. The problem
is that I couldn't control it, the images went from cell phone to cell phone without me being
able to do anything.
During the following days I also began to find things in my wallet: one day a drawing
with my face in the shape of a balloon, another day a photo of the Hulk, another day a
rotten tomato that stained my backpack and all the books.
That was the first day I started lying to my parents, I told them that I had made a
sandwich with tomato and it had spilled in my purse and stained everything...
Sometimes I would come into class in the morning and notice that many classmates
were looking at me and laughing. At first I didn't know why but little by little I found out that
this meant that some joke about me, some video, some photo had been circulating around...
What I understood least was that most of those who were laughing at me didn't even
know me, they hadn't been there the day I turned red. They laughed just because, to go
along with the group.
And at recess... taking away my sandwich became a habit, it was the spectacle of the
day, there were always people waiting for the moment when MM would approach me to
humiliate me.
He did it to see if I would turn as red as the first day.
That's why he attacked me harder and harder, insulted me for longer, tried to get a lot of
people around so they could see how he was making fun of me... and he insisted and
insisted until the moment came when I couldn't take it anymore and I was turning red again.
And again the laughter, and the videos, and the things in my backpack...
Sometimes he would take my lunch and throw it on the floor, but other times, if
He liked it, he ate it...
Every time I did it I also thought about my parents, about everything they worked for.
How would they feel if they found out that their son was such a coward: that he was not
able to defend himself, that he let another boy take his sandwich every day, I was
ashamed, I was so ashamed.
So I started making smaller sandwiches every day, with
less stuff inside.
—But why do you let me take it away from you? —Kiri asked me,
another friend of hers asked, some of my colleagues asked me.
"And why don't you help me?" I thought.
"It's better not to do anything, maybe it'll go away," said Zaro, trying not to get too
involved.
"Well, it doesn't matter, as long as you're satisfied with that..." he replied.
"But every day he will want more, and more, as long as you don't confront him he will
continue like that, and when he gets tired of taking your lunch he will want something else," Kiri
told me.
In the end there came a time when I no longer cared that he pushed me, that he
insulted me, that he took my sandwich away... actually what hurt me the most is that Kiri
was always there when all that happened.
That's why, for her, for my parents, for me, for the anger that I didn't know how to get
out, I thought of a plan to end it. A perhaps disproportionate plan, yes, because the
consequences could be fatal, but I didn't care, I think that when hate gets so deep into
your body, your mind is no longer capable of thinking logically.
He won't do it anymore, I told myself every time he took my lunch away. You won't do
it again, I told him with my look as I tried to remember where my mother kept the rat poison.
The morning I decided to do it I waited until I was alone at home. As soon as my

parents left, I looked in the pantry, downstairs, where my mother has everything for
washing, disinfectants, ammonia... and in the end I found it: rat poison.
I opened the bread, took Nocilla, mixed it with the poison and rubbed the mixture on
the bread. I wrapped it up and put it in my backpack.
That day I left home happier. I met Zaro and smiled, I met Kiri and smiled as I had not
smiled in a long time, and as I went to the institute I did not think about the consequences
that could have.
Maybe he ate it and nothing happened, or maybe he got indigestion, or who knows
what... I also thought that there were other options: that he realized that it didn't taste good
and that he took it out on me for trying to trick him. And in that case he would force me to
eat it myself.
Although there was also the option that he simply didn't want it and threw it on the ground.
I thought about many options but not the one that happened, that would never have
crossed my mind.
And between paper balls on his back, laughter, looks and messages on his cell
phone that he barely read anymore, the recess bell rang.
I left with my sandwich in my hand, nervous, looking forward to him coming.
I waited, I began to open it slowly.
—What does Mr. Tomato have for breakfast today? —That's how I
He had been calling since that happened on the first day. Let's see if I like it...
And as always, he took the sandwich out of my hands.
"Ummm, Nocilla, I really like it today, tell your mom thank you very much," he told
me while he laughed, while everyone around him laughed, and there were more and
more of them.
He began to open it to take the first bite. And at that moment, when he already
had part of the sandwich in his mouth, something happened that was not among all
my options, something that I did not control.
It wasn't me, I swear, it wasn't me who did it, it was my mind that moved
my whole body without me ordering it. Consciousness I think it's called.
Perhaps one of the most incredible characteristics of a superhero is that, in the midst
of fighting evil, even having already defeated his enemy, he will do everything possible to
save him.
That's why the boy who put the poison in the sandwich, to everyone's surprise, pounces
on MM and pushes him away, and they both fall next to a sandwich that opens when it hits
the ground.
For a few moments there is silence, the kind that comes after surprise,
after a reaction that no one expects, after the awakening of a hero...
And within a strange situation in which the roles of the protagonists have just been
exchanged, perhaps the most curious thing is that all the courage that our hero has never
had to defend himself from his villain he has now had to save his life. precisely to him.
But the initial surprise passes.

And MM gets up.
And a few cell phones are waiting.
What will happen to this Superman who has suddenly become Clark Kent again? With
that momentary hero who, upon realizing what he has done, returns to being the usual
anonymous boy? What will happen to that villain who, after a moment of uncertainty, is once
again in charge?
MM looks around: a public that, cell phone in hand, is crying out for revenge.
She heads towards him with fury drawn on her face. He grabs his neck with one hand,
intending to punch him in the face with the other, because he can't leave an attack like that
unanswered, because he can't disappoint the audience.
He already has his fist ready to attack when a teacher shouts

as he comes running.
-What's going on here? —he asks, separating the two boys.
"Nothing," answers one.
"Nothing," answers the other.

And so, with the battle postponed, a revenge ends that could have ended very badly,
because what they both don't know is that there was too much poison in that sandwich.
MM returns to class angry, thinking about how to get revenge for what happened.
The tomato boy returns to class shaking. He remembers a phrase from one of his
favorite Batman movies: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to become the
villain." He knows that he is a hero because he has saved a life, but he also knows that
he is a villain because he has been on the verge of ending that same life.
From that day on when I saved his life, things got worse: more and more pushes in
the hallways, more trips when entering or leaving class, more things that they put in my
purse... but they did everything in one go. so hidden that no one seemed to see anything.
In class I had already gotten used to having everything thrown at my back: at first it
was just papers, erasers, pieces of chalk, spit... but then they started throwing things at me
that were already doing more damage: pencils, pens, those sharpeners. metal, someday
some small stone... the problem is that I never did anything, I never rebelled.
What MM liked the most was to hurt me in front of people, to

for everyone to laugh at me, to feel important, with power.
Sometimes I thought I deserved everything that was happening to me, for being
so cowardly, for not facing him.
I thought that if I didn't do anything, that if I didn't stand up to him, eventually he would get
tired of me and leave me alone. But that didn't help, quite the opposite.
I remember that at first everything happened inside the institute: in class, in the
hallways, at recess... they had never done anything to me outside, on the street, so the
day it happened it caught me by surprise.
That day I was still returning from class with Zaro and Kiri. I said goodbye to her first
with a goodbye, almost without looking at each other. A few minutes later I also said
goodbye to Zaro.
We almost always did the return home in silence, we never talked about what was
happening to me, I think they didn't dare to bring it up in case they hurt me, in case I felt
bad, and I preferred not to say anything, like if by not talking about something that
something did not exist. It hurt me enough to have to suffer it and then have to talk about it.
That day, at the corner of the supermarket, Zaro went home and
I was doing mine, in the park. That's where they surprised me.
They came out from behind a tree and surrounded me. I didn't have time to react, I
stayed still. Suddenly they had me there, defenseless. I think they themselves were
surprised at how easy it had been to hunt me down.
MM stood in front of me and started laughing, insulting me, pushing me while someone
else was recording with their cell phone. One push, two, three, four... until I fell to the
ground. They took my backpack and emptied it, and laughter, and more laughter, and
nothing more. Too many people around.
“We still have to settle the score about the sandwich,” MM told me as they left laughing.
In the middle of a park a boy kneels down to pick up everything he can find.
They have thrown on the floor: the books, the pencil case, the folder, the self-esteem...
He puts his backpack back on and looks around, hoping that no one has seen him,
because the shame hurts him more than the beatings. But there are witnesses, many have
passed by when everything was happening but no one has come to help him, no one has
asked him how he is, everyone has looked at a boy whose self-esteem was being stolen
but no one has done anything.
"And tomorrow again," he thinks.

He crawls until he reaches his house, but instead of entering, he turns left, continues
two streets higher, passes a small square and crosses an alley that ends at a small wall.
Look around to see if anyone is there: no one.

He jumps and goes to his refuge, to his secret corner, a place he knows
for years but lately he visits more than ever.
He leaves his wallet on the floor and sits down, alone, trying to adjust his vision.
in that darkest area.
He has been going there for several afternoons now, since the exam happened. It's the
only place you can find some peace. And above all, the only place where you can let off
steam. There he can cry and scream all he wants, there he can let out all the rage he has
inside. Of course, it has to be done at the right time. He looks at the clock and there are still
ten minutes left. Grab some chalk and start writing a very special list on the wall. A list that
will get bigger or smaller, and everything will depend on that, including your life.
Wait for the right time to arrive.

Look at the clock: there are only two minutes left.
He leaves the chalk on the ground, turns around and walks a few meters.
And for ten endless seconds he screams as loud as he can, until his throat burns. He
screams until he can't take it anymore, until he runs out of air.
She takes a deep breath, slowly returns to her wall and sits next to her purse, she
feels better now. He knows that he needs to vent in some way so that his body doesn't
explode, so that everything invisible inside him comes out in some way.
He takes the backpack, puts it on, jumps over the wall again and begins the return
home. If he arrives before his parents he will not say where he has been, if he arrives later
he will have to make up some lie: the library, with Zaro studying, in the park...
And that day, when he returns home, that boy will have dinner with his family and hide
everything that is happening to him.
Before going to sleep he will give a kiss to his mother, another to his father and a hug
to his sister. A sister who, as almost always, will lie next to him, waiting for a story, a story,
or simply to sleep with him.
It will be there, in bed, when he will tell his sister about the adventures of a boy who
dreams of having superpowers but has not yet found them; It will be there, in the privacy of
the night, when he tells you about his day to day disguised as adventures and emotions.
And later, when she is asleep, he will be the one to take her to his small bed to be
alone again in a room that smells more and more of sadness.
He will go to bed and think about everything that happened during the day. He knows
that the screams are only a momentary relief, that the worst always comes at night, when,
with the house silent, all the noise begins to come out of his body. It will be when he puts
his head under the pillow—which acts as a silencer for suffering—and begins to cry
everything he has inside.
Then, like every day, there will be anger, punching the mattress, digging his nails into
his own arms, choking on his own saliva while crying... Until, dejected, he will begin to think
that he has a literature exam tomorrow, an exam for which you have not studied anything.
He looks at the books from the bed, they are on the desk, three meters away,
but he doesn't have enough strength to get up to get them.
The next day I woke up scared: 7:03, I had just over an hour to pick up the book and
study something. I opened it and started reading the topics that came in as fast as I could.
I was studying until my parents left, then I got dressed

quickly and left the house without having breakfast.
I got to school and nothing happened, no one messed with me.

And the exam also came, and since I hadn't been able to study and I didn't feel like
answering anything, I left it almost undone.
That Friday I came home and as soon as I closed the door I felt a little happy: I had two
days left in which I was not going to go to school, two days to do the same thing I had been
doing for the last few weeks: say that I had a lot to study and not study at all. Lately I was
just reading comics, one after another, day after day, hours and hours reading comics. My
great
wish was to become a superhero, to get some power to put an end to MM.
I thought that every superhero has his villain and I had to fight him. The big problem is
that fighting was something I wasn't good at at all and I hadn't yet found a power with which
I could defeat him.
What I didn't know at the time was that there was very little left to
to make them feel the fear, that happened the following week.
Well, at the moment it was Friday, I had the whole weekend to be happy. Of course, if I
disconnected my cell phone, if I didn't go on social networks, if I didn't check my email, if I
didn't talk to anyone, if I isolated myself from everyone...
In a small apartment on the outskirts of the city, a teacher has started correcting the
exams she just took that morning.
He has an appointment on Sunday and wants to get everything done ahead of time to
complete his notes on Monday.
It's eleven o'clock on a Friday night and you've already had twenty exams, and more
than five coffees. He gets up from his chair, walks around the house, looks at his cell phone,
and sits down again. Take a sip of coffee and grab the next one
exam.
But when he's barely been reading it for two minutes he realizes that something strange
is happening, there's something that doesn't fit. He recognizes the letter but not the content,
he recognizes the strokes, the characteristic shapes of the s, the writing so tight but at the
same time so legible... but he does not recognize anything that is written, because he writes
very little and that is not normal.
After correcting the first exercise, turn the sheet of paper again to look at
the name: "What is happening?" he asks.
He continues correcting but everything gets worse.
Finally he gives it the grade: a four, failed.
And that word: suspense, falls like a stone on his head and, worst of all, on his
memories. Because that suspense begins to awaken the dragon that until that moment
remained asleep on his back. He feels a chill running through his body from his buttocks to
his neck. HE
shudders
She takes off her glasses and gets up scared: she knows that the dragon wakes up
very rarely, but if he does, it takes him a long time to fall asleep afterwards, too long.
She goes to the bathroom, takes off her shirt, takes off her bra as well, and turns around.
There he is: with his eyes open, looking at her, spitting out fire scars that are now
beginning to burn the back of his neck.
Close your eyes.
Silence.
She turns around and walks out like that, half naked, to the dining room. Take the exam.
-I do? —he asks the dragon.
"Yes," he answers.
—And if they discover it?
"They won't find out."
—And if they do?
"Then, assume the consequences," the dragon answers.
And he does it.
And it seems that the dragon calms down.

He goes to the bathroom again and puts on his pajamas there, assuming that, now that
he has woken up, the dragon is going to try to do what it always does: take control.
And that scares him.

WASP BOY
On Monday something very strange happened.
The teacher brought the corrected exams and began to say the grades. I didn't want
to know because it was going to be the first time I failed an exam. But I also thought that
that could help me, maybe if I failed the exam the monsters would leave me alone.
The teacher was saying the notes and almost at the end mine arrived.
"A nine and a half," said the teacher.
"A nine and a half!" Impossible, I thought. But he had only answered four or five
questions out of ten correctly. I couldn't have gotten a nine and a half...
I was thinking about that all morning, about the strangeness of that note. Something
had happened.
When we finished classes I went home alone with Kiri, because on Mondays Zaro
had soccer and his father came to pick him up.
Mondays were the days when Kiri and I had time to talk to each other.
alone I was clear that if I ever wanted to ask him out, it would be a Monday.
Kiri and I always took advantage of Mondays to talk about a thousand things, to
laugh, to touch each other in some way that didn't compromise anything else: a touch
on the hand, on the shoulder, a smile longer than normal... but lately it's almost We
didn't talk, we almost always returned home in silence. She looking at her phone and I
looking at the floor.
That Monday we arrived at the corner of the field and without looking up from his
cell phone he said goodbye and walked towards his porch. And that hurt me so much. I
didn't care about the kicks they gave me, the pushes, the spitting on my back... until that
moment nothing hurt me as much as when we said goodbye as if we were strangers.
I stayed there. Still. Watching him go, hoping

that before entering his house he turned around to look at me.
It did not.
And a girl who pretends to be looking at something on a switched-off cell phone

approaches the entrance to his house knowing that he is watching her. At that moment
she wishes she had enough courage to turn and run towards him.
And I would hug him so hard... and I would kiss him so hard...
And I would tell him everything his heart feels...
But he doesn't know how to do it. He stays for a few moments looking at the door
lock, sighs, inserts the keys slowly... if he knew how many times he secretly glances at
him.
He is about to turn his head, he knows that he only needs that, a small impulse
and that then his whole body would follow his heart: his legs would begin to walk, to
run... until his arms would open to catch a shipwrecked body. out of the sea
But he doesn't dare. His head does not turn, and his heart hides, and the
whole girl is ashamed.
He opens the door and enters the house slowly, almost without entering, putting all
the words he hasn't said in his pocket. He doesn't suspect what is going to happen next.
After standing there, watching him disappear into the doorway of his house... I turned
to cross the street and it was at that moment that I saw them. There they were, two in one
corner and MM in the opposite corner, waiting for her to leave so that there would be no
witnesses.
I looked at both sides: there was no way to escape, they would catch me whichever
way I came out. I thought about the open field that was behind me.
It was big, very big. Kiri, Zaro and I had played there so many times as children... until one
day they fenced it off. But later, over the years, several holes had appeared, both in the
fence that I had right now behind me, and in the other one, the one that faced the opposite
street.
He could enter through here, run across the open field and come out through the other side.
I barely thought about it for a second: I turned around and looked for one of the many
holes in the fence and went into the open field.
And I ran, I ran as much as I could among the abandoned scrap metal and the weeds
that grew everywhere. I ran to the other part of the field, but there I found something I didn't
expect.
They had taken down the fence and put up a wall!
How long had it been since we went in there? At least two years.
They had put up a wall!
I hid behind some tall bushes that were next to the wall, in a corner. I knew I had just
walked into my own trap. If they found me there, no one would be able to see me, they
could do whatever they wanted to me and no one would see anything.
My only option was to stay put and hope they didn't find me.
I stuck my head out and saw that they were already outside, right in front of the hole I
had entered through.
And they entered.
From where I was I could see them, they had already entered the field to look
for me.
While I was hiding there, I don't know why I imagined MM as an adult, what
would he be like, what would he do? I imagined him hitting more people: maybe
his girlfriend, maybe his wife when he got married, or his children, hitting them
from a young age every time they did something he didn't like.
Maybe in the future he would be one of those people who appear in the news
for having killed his wife and children. I thought at that moment about Betty, who
was now his girlfriend, I also thought about all the girls in class who were dying
for him, just because he was handsome, and tall, and strong... even knowing
that he liked to hit, push, command so much. .
I was thinking about all that when a noise brought me back to reality: they
were approaching me. I knew that in the end they were going to discover me,
because the open field was not that big and they had already realized that there
was a wall in this part.
I began to look around for something to defend myself with: a stone, a stick,
anything would have helped, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing... until I
heard a noise that changed everything.
A buzz around me, and another, and another... I looked right above me and
there it was: a hornet's nest. My imagination, fear and comics were to blame for
what happened from that moment on.
The hole that wasps came in and out of was big enough to put your hand in.
That's when the idea occurred to me: if Spiderman had gotten superpowers because
he was stung by a spider, maybe the same thing could happen to me if I got stung
by a wasp. Maybe I could have powers too... and I could fly, move as fast as an
insect, inject my poison into others... I also imagined myself with a giant stinger in
my ass, with superhuman strength that would allow me to crush those monsters
that were coming for me. my.
I had never been stung by a wasp but I thought it would be like the
mosquito bite, maybe a little stronger but nothing more.
I knew that they would find me soon, that I had to hurry... and, without thinking
about it anymore, I got up and put my hand into the hornet's nest.
The first sting comes as soon as you insert your hand, it is as if a burning needle had
been stuck into it. Instantly comes the second, and the third, and from there you lose count.
He takes his hand out as fast as he can but the wasps come out after him and begin
to occupy his hand, his arm, surround his head... He only feels pain, a
pain that has instantly spread throughout his body but that maintains its intensity. in
the right hand, a hand that has stopped feeling.
He runs from one place to another, screaming, not knowing what to do to make it all
end.
All those screams reveal him to his monsters. Some monsters that are paralyzed
watching the spectacle. They don't intervene, they don't do anything, they just watch.
A spectacle that suddenly comes upon them, because a boy who no longer knows
what to do to eliminate the pain, opens his eyes and sees them there, in front of him. And
it is at that moment when, out of pure rage, he runs towards them with the intention of
hitting them with his right hand as hard as he can, to see if that can at least alleviate his
own pain.
That's when they flee from there through the same hole in the fence through which
they entered. And wasp boy follows them, ducks, crosses the fence and falls on the
sidewalk. And he doesn't get up anymore, but before losing consciousness he still has time
to see something, something that will be part of his list, the one he hides in his secret corner.
I was in the hospital for observation one day while my body began to deflate. It was a
strange sensation, my skin felt like cardboard, I moved the fingers of a hand that seemed
to be full of glue. The attack had been so strong that I heard the doctor tell my mother that
I almost didn't tell it. Practically my entire body had swollen.
When I first looked in the mirror I realized that I had unintentionally turned into some
kind of Hulk.
The doctors explained to me that there really weren't that many stings, in the end they
only found five, the problem is that I'm allergic to wasps and that's why I got like this.
Well, that's what the doctor told me, but I knew it wasn't the allergy that had turned me
into some kind of superkid. What had happened was that in some way that poison had
modified my DNA and, surely, from that moment on my body would begin to undergo
transformations, to have superpowers, and so it did, the thing is that it took a long time for
them to appear.
When my parents asked me how I had done it, I made up a story that I didn't even
believe, I had gone to the open field to look for something, I put my hand where I shouldn't
have and... I have lied to my parents so much lately...
I was going to go a few days without seeing the monsters, and that made me happy.
What I didn't suspect at that moment was that it was going to be the monsters that were
going to come visit me, that they were going to get into my house, into my room, into my
bed.
What the wasp boy did not know at that moment is that while he was going from here
to there screaming in pain, one of the monsters was recording everything with his cell
phone.
What the wasp boy did not know at that moment is that while he was going in an
ambulance to the hospital, that video was already flying like a virus from cell phone to cell
phone: WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube...
Thousands of people were watching a boy covered in wasps running back and forth,
trying to get them off of him. A video that cannot be censored, because no one has done
anything, no crime has been committed, you can only see the comic suffering of the
moment.
A video that not only makes the future invisible boy's classmates laugh but also many
parents who also see him at home - with their children - and cannot help but smile when
they see that child running uncontrollably...
It is curious that no one wonders—neither children nor adults—why during the minute
the video lasts no one comes to his aid; Let no one find it strange that there is at least one
person who could help you, the same person who holds the camera... it is curious and sad
that there are so many monsters in this society, those who do and those who look, those
who laugh and those who record the video...
A video that, second by second, travels through an entire mobile network... until it
reaches a very special mobile phone.
A cell phone that trembles on a hand full of bracelets of someone who does not laugh,
but quite the opposite. Who cries of rage, of helplessness, who immerses himself in that
type of pain that stays inside you when someone you love has been hurt.
She does know what happened, she does know where that video was recorded and
above all, she does know when everything happened...
Why didn't he turn around?
Why didn't you come back to him?
There are so many whys that are analyzed when something has already happened.
How it hurts to ask questions when the answers arrive late.
He doesn't know what to do to help him, he doesn't know what to do to tell her what he
really feels... he spends the afternoon thinking about it until an idea occurs to him.
Back to class
After almost a week at home the day came when I had to return.
I tried to delay it as much as I could with lies: I complained much more than it hurt, I
pretended to feel dizzy when I got out of bed... but in the end that only made them start
asking me uncomfortable questions, in the end I went back to class.
Of course, I did it by surprise, I didn't tell Zaro or Kiri, I went alone to school. That first day I
left home earlier than normal and went through different streets than usual, I didn't go through
the park and I didn't go through the open field either. When I was about fifty meters from the
institute I stayed hidden in the door of a garage. From there he could see everyone without
being seen.
I heard the bell and waited for the students to enter. When there was almost no one
left, I started running and entered just before they closed the gates. I don't think I had
ever run so fast in my life, probably because of the wasp stings.
Once inside, I also ran down the hallway and stayed in a corner, between two
lockers, waiting for the teacher to enter class. As soon as he did I ran out again and just
before he closed the door I came in too.
Seeing us enter almost together, the class fell silent, it seemed that
They had seen a ghost.
I sat up and looked at Kiri. She smiled to me.
During that first day nothing special happened: nothing was thrown at my back, my
sandwich was not taken away, no one pushed me... Every time something bad happened
to me, for the next three or four days everyone left me alone.
A boy with nine and a half fingers was scared when he saw the teacher enter with the
wasp boy. For a moment he thought the worst, that he had told everything, that they were
coming for him, but no, nothing had happened. He was relieved to see that the wasp sat
down in his place and that the teacher began the class.
Even so, he has decided not to do anything, he does not know if he has told anything
to his parents, a teacher or the director... he does not know if the hospital has asked him
what happened, if the video has reached the eyes of someone who does not should…
That is their tactic: attack and wait to see the consequences, and if there are none,
then continue attacking harder. And so, until when? Not even he himself knows it.
In fact, sometimes he doesn't even know why he does it: to make others notice him, to
maintain the status of being the strongest, to compensate for how bad he feels inside when
he thinks he has repeated a grade, to hide the envy he feels of the wasp boy...
Sometimes, in the solitude of his room, he imagines getting the best grades, discovering
something important, inventing something that will make him famous... and the higher his
imagination goes, the more painful the fall to reality is, when upon landing in his bed He
knows that he is two years older than all his classmates.
And it is there, at that point, when various feelings come over him.
a brain that cannot control: anger, hatred, envy, rage...
It is amidst that hurricane of sensations that he asks himself the questions he would
never want to ask himself: why doesn't anyone kiss him at home? Why does his mother do
everything he tells her without question? Why doesn't anyone ask him how he feels about
having only nine and a half fingers? Why are his parents always incapable of looking at
him when he goes around the house shirtless in the summer?
towards that scar on his chest, over his heart?… and, above all, why does his father never
talk to him about what happened a few years ago?
That is what hurts the most, what does the most damage to a body that, in reality, is still
a child inside. Sometimes he hates his father for what happened, but other times he doesn't,
other times he just hates him for how things have turned out afterwards. Why did she distance
herself so much from him, why do they never sit down to talk, why doesn't she take him on a
trip, or go to the movies, or to a concert, or have lunch together... just the two of them, and
talk, and take out what they both carry inside...
What our boy with nine and a half fingers does not know is that if his father works so
many hours a day it is not only to earn money, but to not have to face reality. If you never talk
to him, if you don't go anywhere together... it's because you don't know how to deal with what
happened either. The only way out he has seen is to work as hard as possible to bring home
as much money as possible so that his son has all the possible things... except those that
cannot be bought with money, of course... the moments.
The problem is that it is precisely those moments that he does not have that make the
boy hit the bed, and the pillow, and everything in his path... sometimes even himself.
Another day passed without anything being done to me, and another... but after the
third it all started again. A trip as soon as I entered class made me fall to the floor in front
of the laughter or silence of the others—both things hurt me equally. Another day, a push
in the hallways, a blow just after returning from recess, the empty wallet with everything it
had inside on the floor...
My hope was that the poison of those wasps would take effect and give me some power
with which to defeat my enemies.
Super strength, super speed, supervision, super hearing, super something... but at the
moment the only thing that happened was that nothing happened and each time MM and his
friends were more violent with me.
For example, in class, at first they only threw pieces of chalk, erasers or papers at my
back, but little by little they threw bigger things at me, their goal was to make me scream. I
tried to avoid it, I tried to endure the pain as best I could, but there were times when it was
impossible. Like that time when they threw one of those metal pencil sharpeners at me,
they threw it with such force that it seemed like they had stabbed me with a knife, or like
another day when they threw a stone at me so hard that the scab on the wound lasted for
many days. But until then the teacher had never found out, until it happened, it was in
English class.
We had just started and suddenly I felt the impact of a paper ball on my back.
And laughter from all the other monsters, and silences.

Then another. And more laughter, and also silences.
Then something harder, a piece of chalk, almost at neck height, that hurt a little more.
And laughter. And several more pieces of chalk, many.

And a few minutes later...
—Ayyy! —I screamed, and I screamed a lot.

They had just thrown something so hard at me that for a moment I thought it had been
a dart, it hurt me so much that I imagined I was still stuck in it.
—What's going on over there? —the professor asked.

But nobody said anything. Silence.
And he continued writing on the blackboard.
I saw that next to me, on the floor, there was a metal pen; I assumed it was
that had hit my back.
And I think that there, right at that moment, was the first time I felt the
wasp poison, because something happened that I did not control.
I crouched down slowly, picked up the pen, turned around and threw it as hard as I
could at MM.
Something had changed in me, I had dared to stand up to him and that didn't happen.
I had done it, the wasps had done that.
The problem is that MM dodged the pen and it hit the girl sitting behind him, Betty, his
girlfriend.
"Oh, oh, oh," he began to shout in an exaggerated way.
The teacher stopped class and approached us.
Betty didn't hesitate to tell him that I had thrown a pen at him.
I had actually hit him in the shoulder and hadn't hurt him, although that hadn't been
my intention either.
The teacher did what he always did.
"Well, that's it," he said as he returned to writing on the blackboard.
I sat back down in the chair with anger all over my body, I clenched my fists and tried
to calm down. And I knew at that moment I was turning red again.
—Tomato, tomato! —was heard from the back, and laughter from all the
monsters that were in the class.
—Super tomato! —Again, and more laughter.
The class continued like this until a few minutes later Kiri raised her head.
thousand.
—Tell me Kiri, what's happening? —the professor asked.

—He has blood on his back.
—Who, who has blood on his back? —said the teacher upset as he approached Kiri.
-He said.
And that he was me.

The teacher told me to go to the infirmary, but I didn't go, I didn't want anyone to see
my back. In the hospital, when the wasps attacked me, they were about to discover it,
thank goodness my whole body was swollen and they focused a lot on my hand and arm.
Therefore, as soon as I left class I went to the bathroom and tried to heal myself.
I opened the door, walked in, took off my shirt, turned around and did something that
For many days I had been trying to avoid seeing my back in the mirror.
I started to cry.
A boy with nine and a half fingers was left mute when the wasp boy was sent to the
infirmary. He doesn't know what they're going to ask him and he doesn't know what he's going
to say. He is scared, like every time he thinks they might give him away.
He's just looking for an excuse to attack him more, when he knows that deep down he has
nothing against him, he hasn't done anything to him, but he needs someone's weakness to
demonstrate his strength, just like the fire needs to continue burning the forest to not disappear.
That and seeing that others laugh at him in thanks, that some even encourage him; see
that you have the support of the rest of the class, stand out from others.
He also knows that, in some way, he is protected at the institute. The teachers don't say
anything, the principal has never called him and when leaving and entering the school no
parent sees anything, everyone goes to their own thing, with their children.
Even so, he will let a few days pass before attacking again, since he never
Do you know if that idiot said anything?
Of course, sooner or later he will have to avenge what he has done to him. She dared to
throw a pen at him in front of everyone else, and that is something she cannot allow. Plus, he
hit Betty, and he can't stand that either, the only one who can hit his girlfriend is him.
Now he just has to find a moment when there is no one to give him what he deserves, he
will watch him at all times and as soon as he catches him alone...
The mirror is the only witness of what is happening; the only one who
does not lie, who does not hide, who shows him reality even if it hurts: a
constellation of small black dots on a back that acts as a white sky.
Points that shine now although they were formed a long time ago.
Some of them will disappear as the days go by, but others will leave
small marks forever, and not only on the body.
And now, when looking at the stars in the cosmos behind him, he
discovers a new planet, a blood red color, that stands out in the
immensity of helplessness.
He still doesn't know what he will do when summer comes, when all
those marks are visible, when someone asks him how so many black
holes have grown in such a young constellation...
Classes ended and Kiri, Zaro and I returned home.

For the first few minutes there was only silence, but after a while it was Kiri who spoke.
—But why don't you say anything? Why haven't you said anything today?
"Leave it," I replied.
—No, I don't want to leave him! —he shouted at me—. Why are you like this?
-As well as?
—So so... —And I noticed that I wasn't able to say the word.
—So cowardly? -I answered.
-Yeah! —he yelled at me.
-Leave me alone! —I yelled at her—. Leave me alone, both of you! Go to hell.
And there I brought out the violence that I was not capable of bringing out against MM. I
separated from them and went in another direction to my house.
That hurt me, it hurt me much more than the wound on my back, than the hits that I
received in the hallways, than the tripping in class, than the spit that was thrown on my back
in class... It hurt me so much that Kiri thought that of me... even if it were true.
I came home and took advantage of the fact that my parents were not there yet to heal
myself. Reach for alcohol and gauze to disinfect the wound. I hid my shirt among the dirty
clothes so that no one would suspect anything and I looked at the time. It was still early.
I left the house towards my favorite corner, the only place where no one bothered me. I
had to get out all the sadness I had inside somehow.
As soon as I arrived I looked at the clock: there were still fifteen minutes left. I grabbed
the chalk I had hidden and started writing names on the list until a few minutes had passed.
After a while I walked a few steps, stood in my usual place and got ready. 10, 9, 8, 7…
And I started screaming, screaming, screaming as much as I could.
And when I finished I felt so good, I had been left empty of hatred, of resentment, of rage.
That day I came home late, my parents were already there and I told them that I had
stayed in the library looking at some books. What I didn't mention was what had happened
to my back.
I also didn't mention it when my sister rode a piggyback on top of me. I also didn't say
anything when we had dinner or when they asked me how my day had gone.
That night, when Luna came to my bed, I told her the story of "The Boy Who Had a
Universe on His Back."
The next day, when I woke up I had ten new messages on my phone, all ten were the
same: You tried to hit me with the
pen and you also hurt my girlfriend. This is going to cost you dearly.
MM kept his promise, he always did. It wasn't the next day, nor the next. But I knew it
would come, I just hoped my powers would arrive before his revenge.
But no, he arrived first.

And the worst of all is that it was my fault because I made a mistake: I went to the
bathroom alone.
Since I started to be afraid of going to school, since they started insulting me, hitting me,
throwing my wallet on the floor, spitting on me... I decided to follow a series of rules so that
they wouldn't hurt me more than necessary.
One of them was trying to be less smart, getting a lower grade on exams, not raising my
hand in class when the teacher asked something I knew; another was to never bring anything
of value to school; and the most important of all: never go anywhere alone, much less to the
bathroom. To fulfill the latter, it was very important to piss just before leaving the house and
not drink anything, absolutely nothing, throughout the day, even if I was dying of thirst, even if
my mouth was so dry that my tongue stuck, the important thing was not to Never stay alone
in the bathroom.
Still, there were times when I couldn't control my body. If that happened to me, what I
would do was wait for someone to go into the bathroom and I would go in too.
But it was hot that day, much hotter than normal, and he had been drinking.
It's also true that MM hadn't done anything to me for a few days and I had already trusted
myself. Also, to complicate everything, that day I had fruit for lunch, come on, it all came
together. I waited and waited until
The recess bell rang and I watched MM and his friends go to class.
I took advantage of that moment and ran to the bathroom, I was pissing myself.
I opened the door to the bathrooms, opened the door to a cabin and pulled
down my pants as quickly as I could. And I started pissing.
But when I was finishing I heard the door open, and silence. AND
some steps that remained inside.
That day I discovered two things, that monsters exist and that superpowers
do too.
I started to shake, pulled up my pants as fast as I could and stayed silent. I knew
that time was on my side, the longer I was there the more likely it was that the teacher
would miss us and come look for us, I wasn't going to open it.
But suddenly there was a knock on the door.

—Come on, come out, we know you're there!
I stayed silent.
—Come on, tomato, get out, we still have the pen thing pending! Come on, come out!
I kept shaking, I didn't go out, I didn't want to go out.

—It seems like you really like being in the toilet, but in the end you're going to have
to get out, by hook or by crook.
Silence.
They were no longer talking, only whispers could be heard, and suddenly a sharp
knock against a door that shook, a sound that also made me tremble.
That was serious: the kick had been so hard that it had moved the latch out of place.
From the inside I knew that that door couldn't withstand more than two or three hits
like that. Then came another kick, and another one, and another even harder, so much
so that the latch jumped and the door opened inward, hitting me in the legs.
-You already finished? —MM asked me as he looked down at the cup. Yes, it is
finished, but look, he has not flushed the toilet and that cannot be done, we will have to
give him a lesson so that he learns.
I prefer not to tell you what happened next, I will only tell you that there I discovered
one of the superpowers that the wasps had given me.
And while three children play against each other in the bathroom, class—with four empty
chairs—has already begun.
-And those who are missing? —asks the teacher.
Nobody answers, although in reality everyone imagines what may be happening.
—Well, so there are four students missing and no one knows anything, well okay...
let's start.
It is Zaro who at that moment is about to ask permission to go to the bathroom. But he
instantly starts thinking about what he's going to do if he gets to the bathrooms and sees MM
hitting his friend. Nothing, that's what he will do, nothing, because he is also afraid, very afraid
that everything that is happening to his friend could happen to him later. And between
friendship and fear, this time the latter can happen.
The teacher forgets the four absences and continues his explanation. In his subject,
history, things have not changed much, so he continues with the same notes he started with
twenty years ago. He takes them, reads them and writes something on the board.
He also thinks about the missing students, he knows them and knows that three of them
are friends, but the other... Anyway, he continues writing, he has very little left to retire and
this is not the time to mess around.
And so the minutes pass until suddenly there is a knock on the door and three students
enter.
-Where were you? —the teacher asks them.
"In the bathroom," they answer.
—All at the same time?
-Yes of course.
—And the missing one?
"I think it got stuck in the toilet," says MM without hiding his smile, "maybe there's
something that's bothering him."
And as soon as the teacher turns around to write something on the blackboard, MM
looks at the rest of the class and sees someone smiling back at him. That is the true
gasoline of your life, the only thing that makes you function on a daily basis.
And perhaps everything that is happening in that class is not too different from what
happens in the rest of the world. Because there, just like outside, among all of Wasp Boy's
companions, there are as many monsters as there are victims.
There is, for example, a blonde boy, sitting in the third row, who prefers to laugh and
be a monster, rather than protest and become a victim. There is another one who has the
same thing, he doesn't play along but he does his best to stay out of it. And so, one by one,
they all have their reasons for being monsters, the main one being not to become victims.
Everyone knows how to distinguish between good and evil, between jokes and abuse,
between playing and bullying... but no one knows how to stop it without hurting themselves.
And it is there, in that environment of fear, where people like MM grow.

That is where he can exert all his power, he knows that as long as there are more monsters
everything will be fine, the real problem will come the day when the masses do not follow
along with him, but that will not happen.
And while all this is happening, a girl with a hundred bracelets is about to ask
permission to go to the bathroom. His heart wants to raise his hand but his mind won't let
him, it's an internal struggle between what is sensible and what he feels.
What others will say, something so important in those ages in which everything is so
exaggerated, in that age in which the silliest thing is analyzed by the group, by the masses.
That's one of the reasons why she's never stepped forward to be with the tomato boy.
And the thing is, every day, in every class, whenever he doesn't realize it, she looks at
him, observes him from a distance, sighs at every movement, suffers every attack with him,
feels every shame as if it were hers. And being by his side, so close, he misses him so
much.
"It's idiotic that my actions depend so much on the opinions of others..." he thinks
while finishing a drawing in which there is a gun pointing at two initials, MM, this is
how he releases his hatred every day.
And suddenly, while his hand is busy drawing a bullet that goes straight to the
first M, his body rises. It wasn't her mind, of that she is sure, it was her heart that, in
a mistake of the first, acted on its own.
And there he remains, in the middle of the class, like the monkey that has not
obeyed the line, like the black sheep that has decided to leave the flock, like the
mermaid that was stranded when the tide went out... Visible, more visible than ever .
—Yes, Kiri? —asks the teacher.

-Can I go to the bathroom?
-Now?
"Yes, now, girl things..." he tells her while he manages to get the
smile from several of his companions.
-Come quickly.
And Kiri leaves the class.
That day, while I was washing my face and trying to dry my hair with the
handheld device in the bathroom, I discovered one of my great powers: that of
breathing underwater for a long time. I knew it was one of the effects of wasp
stings. I would never have endured all that if I hadn't had a superpower inside. I
knew that what had happened had made me stronger, that I was no longer the
same, that something in me had changed.
I spent more than half an hour drying my hair and my shirt, although I didn't
I was able to completely eliminate that smell of piss.
As I kept the clothes under the dryer I realized that no one had come looking
for me, not even the teacher, no one.
If at that moment I had had a superpower I would have used it against
everyone, if I had had a ray of fire I would have fired it against MM but also against
everyone who laughed at them, against all my classmates, against the teachers,
against all the monsters. who watched and did nothing.
And there I was, trying to wipe away all the shame, when
she entered.
And inside that bathroom, love stumbles against shame, the desire to hug
versus the desire to run away, the sadness of those who watch and the humiliation
of those who are the protagonist.
Because there are moments in life capable of stopping the environment in
one fell swoop. Moments that, no matter how much time passes, will give us the
impression that they happened there, just around the corner of memories.
And it is now that yours truly prefers to leave the rest of the page blank,
because I fear that I will be unable to find the words to define what they both felt
at the moment their gazes met.
That same morning, while a boy has fled the bathroom to hide somewhere in the
institute, a teacher approaches the principal's room.
-I can pass? —he asks as he slowly opens the door.

"Yes, yes, of course, go ahead," the director answers.
—You see... I wanted to tell you about a topic, a somewhat delicate topic...
—Dime, dime…
"I think there is a student who may be being bullied..." he tells her.
The director puts down the pen she is holding in her hand, leans back on her
armchair and looks at her with a strange face.
-Here? No, I do not think so.
"Yes, yes, here..." he answers timidly. I have been observing a student's behavior and
something strange is happening to him. I think there are three others who are making his
life miserable.
—And since when has that been happening?
—I don't know since when, maybe a few weeks ago, maybe longer.
—But what evidence do you have? —the director asks as she moves nervously in her seat.
—Well, actually many of them, for some time now they have been picking on him in
the playground, taking away his lunch, throwing things at him in class... plus, his school
performance has dropped a lot.
"Well," the director answers, relieved, "maybe we shouldn't give it more importance,
maybe they're just kid things..."
And it is precisely those three words "kid things" that make the dragon move. A dragon
that is not able to forget what happened many years ago on the back of someone who is
currently alive. Also
Then they were kid things, until those kid things get out of hand and everything ends
badly.
—No, they are not childish things —answers the teacher while trying to endure
the pain that the dragon causes when it moves.
—Surely so, surely it's just nonsense. Anyway, don't worry, I'll take care of it.
—But… that's it, that's it?

-What else do you want? I've already told you that I'll look into it, although I'm sure it's
just nonsense, kids always argue and in the end they fix themselves.
A pain runs through the teacher's back: it is the dragon that wants to come out,
that wants to fly and swallow the headmistress's head.
"Take a deep breath, control it, control it," she tells herself... She knows that now
she has no more evidence, that she can't do anything else in front of a director who
only cares about the prestige of the center. A bullying case would be a stain on the
school, enough for some parents to start asking questions, and money is money.
That's why there are things that are better to cover.
The teacher and the dragon leave the office towards the bathroom, the first with
a completely rigid back, the second restless, without stopping moving.
-What are you going to do? —the dragon asks him.
—Something, I still don't know what, but something...
-I hope so.
"Yes..." she answers again while remembering everything that happened many
years ago, in her high school, when a prank went wrong, very wrong.
Children's things that are still there, drawn on his back.
After seeing Kiri there, looking at me with those eyes that trembled as much as me, I ran
out into the hallway. I looked for a place to hide. I didn't want to go back into the classroom. I
would wait until classes were over, and then, when almost everyone had left, I would go in
and get my backpack and leave that damn place.
The doorbell rang and from my hiding place I watched as everyone went home, smiling,
playing with each other, making jokes... everyone except me.
I waited for everything to clear, I went to my class and there was only my backpack, with
a broken strap, on the floor, open. Surely they had put something in it again. I closed it, took it
with one hand and walked out slowly, there was no one left there.
As I walked out through the hallway I began to notice everything that was on the walls:
murals full of symbols of peace, harmony, and love in the world. Posters calling for solidarity
between people, for collaboration to build a better world... There was even a wishing tree on
which each student had hung a message when the course started: let wars end, let there be
no more violence, that all human beings are equal...
That day, as soon as I got home I took a shower, emptied my backpack into the
bed, and yes, there was something there for me.
I took the keys and went to my favorite corner, to that place where I had never
Nobody bothered me.
Once there I wrote several more lines on my list. I also took the opportunity to stick
several papers on the wall, for that I used a special glue, the kind for walls, from which it does
not come off.
That day I really wanted to scream, much more than the rest of the days.
I looked at the clock, two minutes!

I stood in place and from there I waited for the moment.

I screamed and screamed and screamed until my body couldn't scream anymore.
After the bath, two or three days passed without anything happening.
After each attack there was always a calm that lasted for a while, long enough for MM to
find out if there were consequences or not.
And so it happened once again.
The following week the fear had already passed. They realized that I hadn't told anyone
about the back injury or the toilet, and the pushing, the insults, the tripping began again...
and I cared less and less, so each time They had to make it stronger.
For many weeks now, a boy's life has changed too much: he no longer remembers
the last time he got out of bed without fear, that he walked down the street without
constantly looking everywhere, the last time he had a conversation with someone.
buddy…
Now, as soon as the bell rings indicating the end of classes, grab your backpack
and try to get out of there as soon as possible. He runs across the courtyard without
anyone observing anything strange in his behavior: not the teachers, not the principal,
not the other classmates, not even the relatives of other students whom he sometimes
bumps into as soon as the outside door of the school opens. Institute.
And every day he runs, and runs, and runs... with the hope of reaching as far as
Before going home, close the door and leave fears outside for a few hours.
He is not in such a hurry, however, when he wakes up in the morning. At that moment he
always looks for some excuse to not have to go to class, but none of them work. He also
searches, among his comics, for some power that will help him stop time, so that it does not
dawn or so that Sunday never passes.
He also thinks, many times, about the option of staying home and not going to
school, but that wouldn't fix anything, the next day they would call his parents and he
would have to answer too many questions.
And every day he knows that, when he arrives at school, the insults will begin, the
pushing, laughter... acts that will almost always occur with people in front of them.
He also knows that as soon as he sits down in class, they will start throwing
objects at his back. He hasn't even tried to avoid them for a long time, because his
back is so covered in scabs that he barely feels anything. He imagines that, like the
ninja turtles, he has grown a shell capable of repelling any blow.
He thinks many times, while absorbed in class, about the superheroes

who appear in the adventures of his comics. He realizes that when someone
is about to die, someone always comes to help him.
The fantastic four form a team; the X-men support each other; there is a
justice league to call when one of its members is in danger; Even Batman
has Robin, but who does he have?
What the future invisible boy doesn't know yet is that his Robin is about
to arrive, he will do so the next day.
There was only one class left that day, forty-five more minutes and I could go home.
The literature teacher came in and, as always, told us to open the book we were
working on. He began to write some sentences on the blackboard when the first piece of
chalk was thrown at me: it hit me high on the back, almost on the back of the head, and fell
to the ground.
The teacher turned around and I think she had time to see the chalk rolling across the
floor. He stared at her, turned around again and continued writing.
And again they threw another chalk at me. I dodged this one and it hit the back of the
colleague in front. The teacher turned around again and stared at the ground. It was very
strange because she was like that for a long time, still, without saying anything, without
doing anything.
And again he turned and began to write.
The class continued without anything happening for a while until MM threw three more
pieces of chalk at me: one hit me in the center of my back, the other hit me on the side,
and I was able to dodge the last one. And immediately I heard that he was preparing to spit
on me. I got nervous, I didn't know what to do to avoid him, I didn't know when he would hit
me. It took a while, I guess he kept it in his mouth until he saw the perfect moment to do it.
And he arrived, and hit me on the back, next to the shoulder, I didn't have time to get
away.
At that moment the teacher stopped writing, curled up a little and put her hands behind
her head, as if she were suddenly dying of pain.
And there, in front of everyone, something happened that none of us had ever seen in
high school.
Today, since class started, the dragon has remained awake, observing everything that
was happening behind the teacher. He has seen the first chalk, and the second..., and the
other chalks... but it is just at the moment in which the saliva has touched the wasp boy
that he has moved.
And that hurts the back of a teacher who has spent many days—since the exam grade
changed—observing what is happening in the hallways, at recess, in the classroom...
So far, on each of those occasions he has been able to keep the dragon under control,
he has been able to calm it; The logical part has won, his own, which has led him to discuss
the topic with his colleagues...
The bad thing is that no one has done anything: the director prefers to let time pass to
see if the problem disappears on its own; the English teacher hasn't seen anything; The
history student is going to retire soon... in the end the most important thing is to maintain
the center's good reputation.
Furthermore, he doesn't have much evidence either: a failed exam that in the end he
didn't fail, some pushing that no one has noticed, some insults that no one has heard,
some objects that are hit on his back that no one in class has seen...
Therefore, because the logical part - the peaceful part - is failing, it is becoming
increasingly difficult for him to control a dragon that lately is always restless.
And it is now, when he imagines how a boy who has just been spit on his back must
feel, that he finally gives up and lets the animal act.
That's why he straightens his body, slowly puts the chalk on the blackboard and gets
off the platform, crossing a class that has fallen into silence, in the direction of the wasp boy.
He looks at his back: a black shirt with several white dots, one for each
chalk impact on it. And on one side, a yellow stain, still foaming, a sign of the
humiliation of one human being to another, a sign that makes the dragon
completely dominate the situation.
It is the dragon that grabs MM by the neck with both hands and lifts him
into the air. And so, almost flying, he takes him out of class. He closes the
door with a single violent blow.
It is now, in the solitude of a hallway without witnesses, when a battle is going

to be fought. Not between the teacher and MM, but between the dragon and herself.
They both know that their future at the institute depends on who wins in that
time.
The dragon tells him to corner him against the wall and squeeze his neck there
until he can't breathe, to spit fire in his face, to scratch him until there is no skin left
on his body...
She knows that she could do it right now, it even hurts her to think that she
would want to do it... and yet she tries to calm the revenge that she has tattooed
on her back.
-What are you going to do? —the dragon asks him.
-I do not know i do not know! -shouts.
"Well, I'm going to change the question then," says a dragon that is now moving
freely, going up and down the scars that decorate its back. What do you want to
do?
"You know, you know what I want to do," she tells him, holding back tears.
—Then do it, drown him, finish him off right here.

—I can't, I would like to do it, but I can't... —answers a teacher who is turning
over from the pain, which burns her back like it hasn't burned in years.
“Drown him,” the dragon spits angrily.

-No I can not!
-Because? Because you can not?! You didn't have this opportunity years ago.
How many times have you asked yourself why no one did anything, why no one
stopped it in time? If someone had intervened today you wouldn't have those scars
on your back. Do you want the same thing to happen to that boy?
-No! Of course I don't want to! —she says angrily as she squeezes harder the neck of
a boy who is against the wall, paralyzed with fear.
—Then do it, put an end to the problem.

"I'm sorry... I can't," he says as he lets go of MM's neck.
-Because?! Because you can not?! —a dragon yells at him
he stirs on his back, whipping his tail on his scars.
—Because I am not made of hate, I am not like you! —she shouts at
him as she puts her hands to her face and begins to cry.
"For now..." whispers a dragon that returns to its position.
place, which closes the mouth and eyes.
The teacher doesn't know what to do right now with a kid who is
shaking on the wall.
MM just received the strangest attack of his life. For a few moments he has felt the
worst fear, not the one that accompanies violence, but the one born of madness.
He knows he could have attacked her, that he could have defended himself, but
there was something in her eyes that left him paralyzed. When he saw them up close,
having them a few millimeters from his own, he realized that they looked more like those
of a cat than those of a person.
He has been paralyzed watching how the teacher spoke with
herself, how she discussed what to do with him until she finally let him go.
For a few moments, when everything had calmed down, he stayed there,
against the wall, shaking, not knowing what to do.
"Come on, accompany me to the address," she told him.
And they both headed towards the office.
He knows that his father will fix everything, because he has money and in the end everything
He gets by with money, at least that's what he's been taught at home.
In a house where there is hardly any affection, no hugs, no kisses, no praise, no
words of encouragement... but where there is money and all the comforts that that
entails.
Who wants a hug when I can wear the most expensive clothes? Who wants a kiss
when you can buy anything you want? Who needs that nonsense? asks a boy who
remembers that it wasn't always like this, that before the finger thing happened
everything was different, better, much better.
We had never seen anything like this in high school. As soon as the teacher took MM
away and closed the door, the whole class fell silent. For a few minutes we looked at each
other without saying anything.
MM and the teacher did not return to class that morning.
And from that day on, no one ever threw anything at me again in literature class. Never.
In the end it seems that what my father says is going to be true, that there are times
when violence can only be stopped with violence, that human beings are like that.
The following days there were many rumors about what happened in the hallway
between MM and the teacher, but of course, no one knew anything. And although we had
all seen what happened in class, no one said anything, we knew that they could fire the
teacher, and the truth is that we all liked her classes.
After that, no one messed with me for at least a week. I thought they had finally gotten
tired, but no, as soon as MM got over the fear came back again, but it was no longer so
direct.
He began to threaten me on my cell phone, by email, on social networks... he also
managed to get me removed from all the WhatsApp groups, he had changed his way of
attacking me a little: he no longer hit me as much - although he did sometimes - , he no
longer took away my lunch every day - only some -, nor did he throw away so many things
in class - although also, less in literature, of course -; What it did achieve was isolate me
more and more from my colleagues.
No one approached me in the yard anymore, no one did work with me anymore,
practically the entire day no one spoke to me.
There was also the issue of some superpowers that did not arrive, I thought that the
attack of the wasps was going to change everything, but at the moment nothing changed.
For now... because a few days later what I had been waiting for so long finally
happened to me. At last!
One of the days when I was returning from school alone—well, the truth is that
I returned alone every day—, while I was walking through the park, I heard voices
behind me that I immediately recognized: it was them.
I turned around and saw them, they were about a hundred meters away. And
like every time I saw them, I started to tremble, I was afraid of them. And although
the normal thing would have been to run away, the truth is that I was so tired of
running away that I decided to stay sitting on a bench, I stayed there waiting for them.
I looked at their faces from afar and I realized that I had surprised them, they
didn't expect that, I guess they thought I was standing up to them, when the truth
was not that, the truth is that I didn't even feel like escaping. . I saw that little by little
they were getting closer.
Fifty, forty, thirty meters... - at least that's what I estimated - and at that moment,
when they were so close to me that I could even see the angry face they were
making, I closed my eyes.
I squeezed my eyelids as tight as I could and wished with all my might that I
could disappear from there. I crouched over myself, put my head between my legs
and waited for a blow that never came.
Anything.
Silence.
After a few seconds I opened my eyes and something incredible happened.
They were passing in front of me at that very moment, about ten meters away, and
were looking everywhere except where I was. At that moment I didn't understand
anything.
They passed me by, as if I wasn't there, it was as if... as if they couldn't see me!
I looked at my hands, my arms, I looked at my feet... I could see myself, of course,

but that didn't mean that others could see me. Maybe the poison had worked, maybe
he had finally managed to be invisible.
As they walked away, from time to time they turned their heads and looked towards
where I was, but they didn't do anything, they didn't come, they didn't give me the
finger, they didn't yell at me... they still didn't see me.
As soon as they disappeared down one of the avenues in the park, I jumped up
and started running towards my house.
They hadn't seen me! I had finally found my superpower, finally all the bad things I
had been through had served a purpose: I could be invisible! Now I just had to train
and train to disappear whenever I wanted, to be able to control my power.
I got home, ran up to the room and lay down on the bed.
That was one of the happiest moments of my life.
I began to dream about everything I could do with that new power, about how
everything was going to improve... And while I was thinking about all that I realized
something that was going to change my life from that moment on.
What if that wasn't the first time I made myself invisible? What if during the last days,
the last weeks, without my knowing it, I had made myself invisible many other times?
-Clear! —I shouted. That explained everything, that explained why people never helped
me, that nobody ever saw anything, that nobody did anything for me... of course, I was
invisible!
That's why, every time I went out running and MM and his friends chased me down
the street, people only saw them, surely they would only see some kids who were just
running down the street, nothing more, that's why no one ever helped me
That's why, when after classes I ran out and bumped into family members, no one said
anything, they only noticed the impact of something, they were surprised but did nothing.
That's why when they hit me in the hallways, when they took away my sandwich at recess
or when they threw me on the floor, no classmate helped me, no teacher punished them... of
course! Surely they couldn't see me!
That explained everything: it explained why no one ever helped me, people couldn't be
that bad, impossible, there had to be a reason why no one saw anything that happened to
me.
And there, on the bed, that afternoon I was happy, very happy.
It dawns on a boy who finally has a reason capable of explaining the dark part
of the human being: he is invisible.
That's why at home no one has noticed that there is no longer any illusion in his
body, that his face only draws forced smiles and that his eyes almost always look
nowhere. That's why they haven't noticed that he never leans on the back of chairs;
Nor have they realized, either, that there is more and more bread left over because
the sandwiches are getting smaller every day.
Outside, on the street, in life, no one sees a boy who slowly leaves the house
and comes running to it, who closes the door tightly to leave all his fears on the
other side; No one sees a kid waiting until the last minute—just before the school's
exterior gate closes—to come out from behind a tree or from inside a garage. Nor
has anyone noticed the chalk marks that usually appear mid-morning on his back.
No parent sees him, no student sees him, the janitor doesn't see him, not even
the police officer who gives way at the intersection in front of him. Nobody sees the
boy who enters school last and leaves first.
A boy who has forgotten how to walk because he only knows how to run: he
runs through the hallways before and after recess, between classes, through the
yard at the end of the day, down the street heading home...
A boy who has finally managed to be invisible.
What he still doesn't know is that it wasn't his fault, in fact he did it.
achieved thanks to everyone else, everyone around him.
And while all this is happening, a teacher has visited an office several times
that she does not have permission to enter. He has done it secretly, looking for
something to calm the dragon.
After rummaging through several drawers, cabinets, even the computer... he
has finally found it: a history that he should not have access to but that he has
finally seen.
He has continued looking at different sources until he has finally found out
things that he did not know: he did not know about his operation, he did not know
that there was a year in which he practically did not go to school and, of course,
he had not realized that he half a finger was missing.
The following week, something very strange happened in literature class.

The teacher entered quietly, grabbed a piece of chalk, and began to write a
word in the largest letters we had ever seen, a word that took up the entire
blackboard.
COWARD
He turned around, put down the chalk, and stood there in front of everyone.
us.
—I thought that, starting today, every day we are going to dedicate the first minutes of
class to analyzing a word. We'll start with this: coward.
We were all surprised, we all stayed silent.

—Let's see what the dictionary says. Here it is, the first meaning of coward is: "A
person without courage or spirit to face dangerous or risky situations." But there is also
another: "That harms or does harm in a covert way because it lacks value." Well, does
anyone dare to make a sentence with this word? Come on, you,” he said to a girl sitting in
the front row, “tell me a sentence.”
—Well… let's see… He was a coward because he didn't dare to go on the roller coaster.
—Well, okay, it's a phrase consistent with the meaning of the word. And does anyone
know what the antonym of coward is? You all know what an antonym is, right? Laughter
was heard. Well, who tells me?
"Brave," one of my companions shouted.
"Perfect," the teacher replied. And any phrase with the word brave?
"He was brave because he went on the roller coaster," said another and everyone
started laughing.
"Yes, yes, yes, always easy, right," he answered. Look, language is sometimes
confusing and many times we don't know where the limit is between two words, for example
between brave and coward. That's why context is always so important, everything depends
on the context.
»For example, let's imagine that there is a tall, strong warrior who has been training to
fight all his life and who has the option of finishing off a
dragon that is terrifying a town. I guess if he does, we'd all say he's brave, right?
And a general yes was heard in the class.

—But let's imagine that that warrior, upon seeing the dragon, becomes afraid
and runs away from there. However, since he has to demonstrate his strength
with someone, he decides to fight with a weaker enemy, for example a squirrel.
At that moment an "oh" was heard in the class.
—Wouldn't it be that then he wouldn't seem so brave to us?
No one answered that question. I guess because we all knew
and who was the warrior.
—Look, the world is full of warriors, the problem is that there are very few
brave people and on the other hand there are cowards everywhere: on the
street, at work, at school, we could even find them in this same class —and after
Saying that, the teacher changed the subject. Well, and now let's continue with
the book, which page were we on?
We all opened the book without saying anything, although we all knew who
the cowardly warrior was, who the squirrel was, and for a few days, we also
knew who the dragon was.
MM remains silent, he knows that, although no one dares to look at him, right now everyone
is thinking about him, about the cowardly warrior who attacks the squirrel.
He looks angrily at the back of that teacher who is making a fool of him in front of everyone
and realizes that today she is wearing a shirt open at the back, a shirt that reveals the head of
a dragon that keeps watching him.
He now notices one of the seats in front: the squirrel. So coward? When I catch you we'll
see who the coward is, he tells himself.
The other day in the park went wrong, but he knows that there are many more days, many,
to try again, to make that squirrel become small, invisible.
Kiri listens attentively to the story while drawing in his notebook the fight
between a small warrior and a giant squirrel that tries to eat him. At the
moment he is only able to fight MM like this, through drawings.
In each class he looks at the wasp boy wondering where everything they
have lost is: why they never meet again, why they no longer talk, why they
don't have contact even through their cell phone...
Sometimes he moves his mouth in silence, forming words in the air with
his lips, imagining that, somehow, they will reach that boy who is little by little
disappearing... if you only knew how much I secretly love you.
He can only see it in class, when he is in his chair, looking into nothingness,
living absently. Later, when recess comes, when classes end, it seems to him
that his friend is fading away among the people.
Nobody sees him, nobody looks at him either, nobody realizes that there
is a life that is slowly fading away.
At least now there is one person who is trying to do something, at least
that teacher is doing what she can, but what about her? What is she doing?
That's the question that always makes her look away, the one that makes all
her bracelets go silent.
That story was for me, it was clear who was the squirrel and who was
the warrior. What I wasn't so clear about was whether that was going to help me or not.
Anyway, I didn't worry anymore, I already had my superpower, now I just needed to
improve it. Every day I tried and tried, and the more I tried the better I got: each time I
was able to be invisible for longer and in front of more people.
The thing in the park happened to me two more times. It was more or less the same
as the first time: they came for me and I stayed still.
I closed my eyes, I concentrated and when I opened them they had passed me by.
In high school, everything was also improving, for example, at recess I would curl up
in a corner and manage to disappear for that half hour.
I had already gotten used to walking down the street without having to worry about
anything. As soon as I left school I would go into a nearby garage, there I would crouch
over myself, concentrate as much as I could and leave there being invisible. No one was
going to bother me until I got home.
But even so, sometimes there were mistakes, everything didn't always go well, that's
why I started to observe my classmates more carefully, I wanted to find out who was able
to see me and who wasn't. I suspected that something strange was happening with my
power, because I was not invisible to everyone at the same time: there were people who
could see me and people who couldn't. And that's what I had to find out, what was the
reason why those who wanted to hit me sometimes saw me and the others, those who
could defend me, almost never did.
One of those mistakes occurred one day in the park, I had trusted myself so much
I didn't realize that someone had been following me.
As I was walking along the main avenue of the park I noticed someone
approaching from behind. At first I didn't give it any importance, because it was
normal for people to approach me without knowing that I was there, since they couldn't
don't give
That was another of my powers, over time I had managed to sense the
presences of people without even seeing them. All the attacks, blows... had made
him develop that superpower.
But that day the presence put a hand on my shoulder. And my
heart began to beat very hard, very fast.
I spent a few seconds not knowing what to do, but in the end I turned around.
And there he was, in front of me, looking into my eyes.
-Do you have a moment? -I wonder.
"Yes, yes..." I began to tremble, "for what?"
—It will only be a moment, let's go to that bank...
-OK…
And there, in the privacy of a bank, a strange couple is going to have one of
the most important conversations of their lives.
For him because it is the first time he is going to talk about his fears with someone
other than his little sister, for her because it has been too long since she has told anyone
about hers.
After a few initial minutes in which neither of them dares to say anything, little by little
the words and feelings appear, and they open their minds, and soon so will their hearts,
because that is where they really come together. find everything you need to say to each
other.
It is after a while, after having found the necessary confidence, after having talked
about trivial topics, when he decides to ask something that has been on his mind for too
long: —Why did you change my grade?
-I? —she answers, surprised—. No, I did not change the grade, I gave the correct
grade, it was you who changed the answers, who did the exam in a different way.
He remains silent, not knowing what to say.

“You know…” she begins again delicately. I know how you
You feel, I know what's happening to you...
-You know? —he answers surprised—. How, how can you know?
"Because the same thing happened to me," he answers.
It is at that moment when the boy's facial expression changes and
a smile appears on his face.
—Did you also manage to be invisible?
-That? —answers a strange teacher who does not understand the question.
—Yes, what if you also had that power?

-That power?
—Yes, like mine.
And while a boy happily begins an explanation that will last several minutes,
there is a woman whose body begins to fall apart, as if it were made of paper and
it doesn't stop raining inside her.
He listens, and listens, and listens... until the boy vents, until he expels from
his body that great secret that he had carried inside him for so long.
-Know? —she tells him, trying to hold back her tears—, you are not the only one who
has ever been invisible, there are many people who experience the same thing as you,
what happens is that everyone keeps it a secret, no one says anything.
-Because? -The question.

—Who have you told?
-To nobody…
"Look," the teacher says as she turns around and stands up.
hair on the back of his neck. Know what it is?
—Does it look like the head of a dragon?
—Yes, it is a dragon, but this is a very special dragon.
-Because?
—Because this dragon appeared when I wanted to disappear, he came to give
me the possibility of being visible again. For years I didn't want anyone to see me
without a shirt, I didn't want to go to the pool or the beach... - for many years, she
thinks, but she doesn't tell the boy that anymore, I was terrified of being naked in
front of someone, if you ever met a boy
and we went to bed, it had to be with all the lights off, I hardly let them touch me, I almost
didn't let them hug me...—, I couldn't stand the idea of anyone seeing my back. Until one
day I gathered my courage and this dragon was born.
And at that moment, there, in the park, in front of everyone, the teacher turns around,
lifts her shirt from behind and shows him her dragon, complete.
—I want you to look at it carefully, don't stay just in the drawing, look at everything
everything that surrounds him and, above all, observes everything that he hides.
The boy remains silent, looking at someone else's back that is also his own.
And there, faced with the silence of a boy who doesn't know what to answer, she is the
one who encourages him, the one who insists that he tell her everything that has been
happening to him, the one who asks him why he hasn't said anything to anyone. …
And it is there, to the surprise of a teacher who did not expect that reaction, where a
boy answers that he does not have any problem since he is invisible, that, simply, when
something happens that he does not like, he disappears and thus the people stop watching
it.
During the following days a teacher tries, through words, to somehow stop the beatings.
The problem is that these blows are also increasingly invisible: they hurt the same but they
leave no mark.
Also try to avoid isolation that in the end can become the worst punishment, even
though the person who receives it tries to turn it into something good: a superpower.
She continues trying, in each class, with words, with ideas, with examples, even the
other day with a story, a story that left all the students silent.
The story
"Today I'm going to tell you a story," the teacher said as soon as she entered class,
and we all started laughing.
The truth is that we found it funny that they told us a story
us, at our age.
“You see,” he continued, “literature is not just novels, or theater, or poetry… a
very important part of literature is stories.
In the past, when no one knew how to read or write, many stories were transmitted
through stories. For example, stories were used to give lessons to people, to teach...
At that moment he picked up a small book and looked for a page.

—This book is titled Stories to understand the world 2 and although we may
never fully understand the world, the story that I am going to tell you today can help
you, at least, try to understand the institute a little better, or even this class. This
story is called "It's Not My Problem" and it is a version of a popular story.
And it began.
A mouse who lived on a farm was looking for food when,

suddenly, through a hole, he observed that the farmer and his wife
were opening a package they had just bought. As soon as they took
out what was inside, the little rodent was shocked, because it was
nothing more than a mouse trap.
Scared, he ran to warn the rest of the farm animals.
—They bought a mousetrap! They bought a mousetrap! —he

shouted.
The two cows, which at that time were grazing
calmly, they answered:
—Wow, mouse, we're very sorry, I know it can be a big problem for
you, but as you understand, that doesn't affect us in the least.
The mouse, disappointed, approached the dog to

tell you the bad news:
-Dog Dog! You have to help me! The farmers just bought a mousetrap,
you have to help me remove it!
The dog, who was resting peacefully in

a corner of the stable, he answered without much interest.
—Wow, mouse, I'm so sorry for you, but since
You will understand, that mousetrap affects me very little.
The mouse, indignant, approached the three pigs on the farm to see
if they could help him in any way.
—Pigs, pigs! I just saw that the farmers have bought a mousetrap.
Help me find it so I don't get trapped in it.
The pigs, who at that moment were bathing peacefully in a mud

puddle, looked at him with reluctance.
—Wow, poor mouse, you'll have to be very careful...
—But you have to help me, it's horrible that there is a mousetrap on
the farm.
—Are we in danger? It may be horrible for you, I don't doubt it, but I
don't think a mousetrap can do us any harm.
And the pigs continued lying in the mud.

And so, one by one, the animals began to ignore that problem, since
it was something that, in principle, only affected the mouse.
Several days passed in which the mouse walked very carefully,

because it knew that at any moment it could encounter the mousetrap
and get trapped in it.
He had not been able to convince any animal to help him find it and
disable it, or at least to help him find it.
hide it.
But one night, suddenly, a noise was heard, as if the
mousetrap would have caught something.
The farmer ran out to discover that the mousetrap had
caught a snake that looked dead, but when she tried to
release it, the snake jerked and bit the woman on the arm.
The farmer, alerted by his wife's screams, ran out and

when he saw what had happened, he quickly put her in
his car to take her to the hospital, with such bad luck that
when he started he ran over the dog that was sleeping
right below.
During the following days many relatives came to see
the woman and, in order to give food to all those people,
the farmer decided to kill the three pigs he had.
Finally, when the woman was already cured, the
hospital bill arrived and the farmers could only cover it by
selling the two cows they owned to the slaughterhouse.
The story finished and we remained silent, we all knew that the teacher
had read that story for something, for someone. I was the mouse, that's
for sure.
After the story, a boy with a small scar on his eyebrow is left wondering what animal
he is: the dog, the cow or maybe the pig... Yes, it's probably the pig, it's the pig that has
abandoned his friend. It's been so long since you asked him how he is, you haven't talked
to him, you haven't sent messages, you haven't met in the afternoons, after class, to have
those endless conversations...
"Friends?"... think about the meaning of that word, perhaps it will be the next one the
teacher analyzes in class. «Friends», what kind of friend is he. A friend would not leave
the other stranded like this, he would be the first to help him, to defend him... but what
about him? What will happen to him if he enters that war? Where is the line between
helping and putting yourself in danger? Maybe these are too big questions for someone
so small.
And now, from his table, he looks at it, looks at that mouse boy who is getting smaller
and smaller, who has stumbled into so many mousetraps during the last few weeks that
he is as if missing. He realizes that he has failed him in everything, since the first day,
since he decided to stay in the background, since he decided to leave his side.
Yes, without a doubt he is the pig, one of many.

Because he is not the only one who feels this way in a class that has long since
abandoned the mouse. Some feel like cows, others like dogs, others like pigs... but
everyone makes up a thousand excuses in their heads to justify themselves, the best of
all is that at least they are not the mousetrap.
Yes, he is the mousetrap, that is clear to him.

A boy who only has nine and a half fingers has been leaving school for days with his
anger hidden between his teeth. Everything that is happening in literature class bothers
him more and more, he doesn't really know how to stop it, how to fight against the words,
because he only knows how to use his fists.
Coward, brave, sneak, warriors, squirrels, dragons... and now that one
story, everything has something to do with him.
He has thought that, for the moment, he is going to be smarter, he is no longer going to
physically attack him, because that is becoming more and more complicated, he is going to
focus now on ridiculing him through the networks, isolating him from his colleagues, he is going
to try that no one talks to him, that he does not exist.
But that plan has a small problem: it is late.
During the last days before the accident they almost never hit me anymore, and there was
only one explanation for that: I was winning, my power was getting stronger.
It is true that every day, at home, I rehearsed and rehearsed, I concentrated and imagined
myself walking anywhere without anyone seeing me. He did the same thing in class, at school,
on the street, he always tried to go as unnoticed as possible.
Every day I saw fewer people when I went to school, I passed as quickly as I could next
to the students, and the fathers, and the mothers... no one realized I existed anymore. For
example, the school janitor didn't even raise his head when he arrived. I closed the door and
that was it, as if I had never been there.
In the hallway no one turned to look at me anymore, as if I didn't exist.
In class it was more difficult to be invisible, because even if they didn't see me, everyone
knew where I sat, but even so sometimes I managed to do it, there were whole days in which
no one spoke to me, no one addressed me, it was as if no one was talking to me. I would have
gone to class.
When I went out to recess I stayed in a corner, next to a tree, and most days no one spoke
to me, no one approached me, neither MM nor his friends did anything to me. I had finally done
it, it had worked, they couldn't see me.
The good thing about being invisible is that no one did anything to me anymore, they didn't
hit me, they didn't spit on me, they didn't laugh at me, I could finally leave school and go home
calmly without having to constantly look behind me.
The bad thing about being invisible is that whoever you want to see you doesn't see you either.
Kiri didn't see me anymore.
The last Monday arrives before everything happens.

—Good morning, today I thought that we are going to dedicate the entire class to
“A single word,” says the literature teacher as she picks up the chalk.
He turns around and starts writing big letters on the board. First the giant E, then
a giant M, then a P... and so on until everyone has a word in front of them that they
know very well.
A word that affects a boy who begins to get nervous, he knows that those letters,
when put together, will make him more visible than ever, because there, on the
blackboard, is the word that reminds him of his great defect.
Three tables away, in the penultimate row, a boy with nine and a half fingers also gets
nervous when reading it, even more than the invisible boy because he knows that this word is
related to his main deficiency.
NERD
That was the word he wrote on the blackboard, but that day there was no
laughter, only silence.
—Let's see, does anyone dare to define this word? - the teacher asked.
But nobody said anything.

—Come on, Sara, tell me a sentence yourself.
"Well... well... He got the highest grade because he was a nerd," he said.
—Okay, well… it might be worth a few more, let's see… —

He never went out on weekends because he was a nerd.
—Okay, let's see, another one over
there. —He always approves everything without trying because he's a nerd.
There, in the third sentence I realized that they all began with a he, not a she,
and I knew that he was me.
"Well," the teacher answered, "that last sentence is not entirely correct, there we have
a problem of meaning," she said as she picked up the dictionary.
—Look, I'm going to read you the definition, to see if you can detect where the
error is. Nerd: "A person who studies a lot and is distinguished more by application
than by talent."
"I mean," he continued, "a nerd is not someone who is smart by nature, but
someone who tries very hard to be smart, and that's very different." What do you
think is more important: effort or talent? Let's see, raise your hands. Effort?
»And now, talent?

The vote was more or less equal, I did not raise my hand in
neither case.
"You see," the teacher continued, "if I had to choose, I would choose a
person who works hard, because I know many people who are talented but
who are lazier than a broomstick. On the other hand, most people who work
hard usually achieve always good results.
»But let's not deviate from the topic, we are going to work on this word,
and, above all, we are going to analyze how we use it, because it is generally
in a derogatory way, right?
—Let's see, how many here have a cell phone?

And when faced with that question, almost the entire class raises their hands.
—Well, what kind of people do you think have developed the technology
necessary for all of you to be spending money on those devices? Who do
you think has gotten rich while you are begging your parents for money to
increase the balance? Who makes money while you waste time taking selfies?
»Who uses Google? Who uses WhatsApp? Who has a bike, a tablet, a computer...?
Who has ever gotten on a train, a plane or an elevator?
»We have all these things thanks to the fact that there were nerds who
made it possible, people who, with or without talent, made an effort to study,
to investigate, to learn, to go one step further than others...
When you take a motorcycle, a bike, when you cross a bridge, when you buy
something online, when you turn on a light bulb, when you use the GPS to
guide you, when you play the console, when you take a photo... all of this is
possible thanks to the What we call “nerds”, in fact your whole life depends
on them.
At that moment the teacher pauses and only silence is heard,
Very rarely has a class had its students so focused.
—I suppose many of you have been on a plane, right?
Surely you wouldn't like it very much if the pilot was one of those who got the
worst grades in high school, who didn't know how to do anything, who didn't
care about everything... wouldn't you? You would like the pilot to be very
prepared, and if he is the best prepared in his promotion, the better, right?
Well, every time you meet a nerd, think the same about him, who will surely
be the one who will guide your life in the future.
»And then there is the rest, the flock of sheep, the consumers, those who now laugh at
the nerds when they are young but who later will spend fifteen hours a day working in a
pizzeria or a hamburger restaurant for a shitty salary.
»Well, and there are also the others, those who think that without doing absolutely
anything they will be famous and rich; those whose greatest aspiration is simply to be
famous, or those who believe that their future is to be a YouTuber because it is fashionable.
And at that moment the teacher starts laughing.

—Has any of those thought about what will happen the day YouTube says it is going to
reduce what it pays per visit, or directly reduce it to zero? What will all those people do who,
without having a clue about anything, comment on everything? Will they talk to the mirror?
There he stops talking and looks at the entire class.

—You know something, guys? This high school thing is only four years, maybe more
for some—and that's when MM shifts in his chair—but then you have the rest of your life,
and that's a long, long, long time, what will you do next?
Silence again.
—Then you have your whole life, and that is many years, to choose whether you want
to spend it working for others for a shitty salary or not. I assure you that even if you laugh at
the nerds now, it will be nothing compared to what they will laugh at you in a few years.
»You should be wondering who the richest people on the planet tend to be. They are
not the ones who spend the day lying on the grass, or the ones who spend all day looking
in the mirror to see how their nails or new highlights turned out, nor the ones who waste
hours hooked on their cell phone, not even the ones who have talent and they waste it, no,
those are not the ones who get rich.
»Therefore, before laughing at a person who studies, who wants to be something, who
wants to contribute something to society, think about who will cure you when you are sick,
who will save your life when a birth is complicated, when you have an accident. …
And it is at that moment when, without seeing it, MM knows that the dragon is going to go
Go for him, he's going to attack him without mercy.
And it is at that moment when the teacher notices that something moves behind her back, she knows
that she is going to take control of the conversation.
And both, MM and the teacher, tremble because they don't know what the dragon is going
to say, how far will he be able to go with all the information he has?
—For example, Sara—asks the dragon—when you fell and broke your leg, who cured
you, who operated on you, who designed the device with which you had the MRI...? Or you,
Marcos, when your little sister was born almost weightless, who helped your mother give
birth, who invented the incubator that has made your sister alive and healthy? Or you,
Sandra...
And MM at that moment realizes that the dragon is flying over all the students but with
a clear objective: him.
In just a few minutes his fears come true, there is no name, just a story, his story. And
that's when MM wonders how the dragon knows that, how he found out about what
happened so long ago.
"Or imagine," the dragon continues, "that one day you are driving with
your parents and the car goes off the road in the middle of the night...
"The car came off for something," thinks MM.
—… And you have an accident, one of the serious ones, one of those that can
cost your life, yours or that of everyone in the car.
“Not everyone's, just mine,” MM tells himself.
—And the accident is so serious that they take you to the hospital for life-or-death
surgery, because a piece of the car has stuck somewhere in your body...
"Not anywhere, in the chest, right above the heart."

—And fortunately the operation goes well, but you have to stay in a hospital for a long
time where they do all kinds of tests.
«A long long time, two months it was, remembers the boy with nine and a half fingers.
Two months admitted to the hospital without knowing why he was
I was there, without having done anything, without…». And that's when he notices for the
first time that his eyes are getting wet.
—Can you imagine that the doctor who has to operate on you was not there because
when you were little they kept calling him a nerd? Can you imagine that you get the laziest
doctor in his class? Or what would be total, but that could happen one day... can you
imagine that the doctor who is going to save you is the same one whom you insulted as
children for studying too much?
»Never underestimate destiny and, above all, never laugh at someone who can save
your life tomorrow.
And at that moment MM is no longer there, his mind has flown to the past, to all those
days in which a seven-year-old boy remained day after day in bed without understanding
anything...
Many years ago, also in a hospital, a seven-year-old

boy wakes up every morning without knowing why he has to breathe
through a tube, why they give him so many pills and, above all, without
knowing why his hand is bandaged. . That's why he asks his mother.
"Mom," he says, barely able to move his body, "why am I here?"
And it is at that moment when the woman can't take it anymore and
begins to cry, there, in front of him. When you would like to disappear,
when the pain is so intense that you would like to die right there if with that
you could go back to the past, if with that you could fix what happened...
MM recognizes that he has lost, that the dragon has played dirty, that there are things that
should not be known. That there are memories that should remain private.
He gets up and, without saying anything to anyone, leaves class.

The dragon sees it, the teacher sees it, the invisible boy sees it, all his classmates see
it... but no one says anything.
A boy with nine and a half fingers enters the bathroom furiously and begins to hit
everything: the door, the wall, the mirror... and it is within that fury that he notices that something
has crunched in his hand: blood is coming out of one of his knuckles.
He puts his hand under the tap water and starts crying. It is a mix between rage,
helplessness and hatred.
The accident occurred many years ago, when he was very little, but he remembers
absolutely everything, it is as if his mind burned some memories. Her parents' argument even
before getting into the car: she, her mother, insisting that in her condition she should not drive;
He, his father, assured that nothing was going to happen for four drinks.
And so, between screams, a child of just seven years old is placed on the
from behind the car without anyone giving him the option to comment.
And the car starts, and the argument continues: her tears, his screams. And among that
hurricane of emotions, a child who is afraid but does not know what he is crying about in a
situation that he does not understand, because at that age he still cannot understand what
relationship the words drinks and car have.
A few minutes later, a swerve warns that the worst is yet to come: the car invades the
opposite lane, another one coming from the front flashes its lights and manages to avoid it.
Screams from his mother, screams from his father, tears from a child who would like to get out
of there but who, being such a small life, realizes that he does not have the ability to make
decisions.
And after a while it calms down, that silence that always precedes misfortune.
Another swerve, the one that takes them off the road.
And a child who cannot be held in his seat by anything notices how he begins to fly inside
a car. His small eyes watch how everything around him spins.
And it is in that flight without an anchor when he suddenly feels a small pain in his
hand, but that will not be the worst pain he suffers, no, it will be the one that comes next,
that of a piece of metal that sticks into his chest. , right next to the heart.
And silence.
And screams of a desperate mother when she saw the blood coming out of her little
one's chest.
And the sinking of a father who remains kneeling on the ground, holding in his arms
the life of a child that is slipping through his fingers.
No one had any hope that such a small body with so much damage would make it
through, no one except the doctor who operated on him, who took control of everything,
one of the best they told him later, one of those people who had done nothing else in your
life to study and prepare for that... to save lives.
And the boy survived, with a large scar on his chest and half a finger
less, but he survived.
And he survived, he thinks about it now, thanks to someone like Tomato Boy.
It was from that moment on that his parents, to compensate for the
feeling guilty, they began to give him everything he wanted.
It was also from then on that his father distanced himself from him. They played
together less and less, there were fewer hugs, fewer kisses, fewer stories at night...
Something that the child never understood, because at seven years old you can't have
a grudge, at seven years old you love your parents even if they don't take care of you, even
if they aren't the best parents in the world... even if they almost killed you with the car. This
is what children who are so young have: they continually create love without conditions.
Over time his father has become so distant from him that there are days when
those who seem to live in different universes.
"Why?" he has asked himself so many times. Maybe because of shame, maybe
because he has never forgiven himself for what he did, maybe because every time
he looks at his son he only sees guilt.
And MM cries in privacy what she would never dare to cry in public, and sits on
the floor, under the sink, and lets her head fall between her legs; It is now that that
boy wishes the dragon would come into the bathroom and hug him, even if it burned
him, even if it dug its nails into his skin... because even villains need a hug from
time to time.
It's at that moment when something moves under that scar on his chest.
That day of the word nerd I realized that my defect wasn't that serious, that the teacher
was right, that maybe being a nerd wasn't so bad.
Something strange also happened that day with MM. He left class to go to the bathroom
and did not return, neither to that class nor the entire day, nor the next day, nor the day after
that. They said that he had hit his hand very hard and that something was broken.
So the next few days were quiet. In any case, I had already perfected my power so
much that I could spend the entire day without anyone speaking to me, without anyone
touching me, without anyone seeing me.
I had done it! I was happy. He was able to control when he wanted to be invisible, and
it always worked.
That's why what happened a few days later was so strange...
A boy with nine and a half fingers, and now one of them broken, is at home thinking about
the right moment to do what he has never dared to do.
It's complicated, that's why it's so hard for him, because something like that can only
make him brave and maybe, deep down, he is a coward.
On the third day of being at home he can't take it anymore and goes outside, he knows
that at about that time he will cross back through the park, that he will be alone.
Better this way, he doesn't want witnesses.
He waits hidden behind a tree, he knows that if he sees him he will start running, for
That's what he wants to do by surprise.
A few minutes later he sees it: the wasp boy arrives with his head looking at the ground,
as if he were counting his own steps, as if he were living in another world.
He lets him pass and stands behind him, about ten meters away. And then he calls her:
—
Sheee.
That sheee comes like a hurricane of memories to a boy who relives everything he suffered
since that first day when he said NO.
And trembles again.
And he is afraid again.
And he doesn't understand what went wrong, why exactly at that moment he became
visible again? What he did wrong? At what moment he lost concentration.
He notices, thanks to his powers, a presence behind him, barely five meters away, he
estimates.
He hesitates whether to turn or run.
He decides for once to face him and turns around, and they stand there, hero and villain
face to face.
And his mind is filled with memories: the pushing, the tripping when entering and leaving
class, the spitting on his back, his head inside the toilet, the dog poop that was put in his
backpack, the video of the wasp. , his photos flying around social media, Kiri's face calling him
a coward, the sleepless nights, the mornings in which he wet the bed... and it is that last
memory that makes all the fear come together right now. into his body and, unintentionally, it
escapes in the form of liquid: he pees on himself.
The villain stares as a dark stain grows on the tomato boy's pants, a stain that makes
visible all the suffering that the hero carries inside.
A hero who, suddenly, instinctively looks everywhere. He suspects that MM's friends will
be out there, hiding, recording everything.
Recording the moment when a boy just peed on himself without anyone having done anything
to him.
He looks at MM again and runs out of there.
MM stood for several minutes in the park, watching how the wasp boy ran away for no
reason, without knowing what had happened. He hasn't done anything to him, he hasn't
touched him, he hasn't even spoken to him.
He does not understand what has happened, perhaps because he is still too young to
understand that you cannot remove the holes from an arrow that has pierced a body so
many times.
He turns around, looks everywhere, no one has seen anything, better that way.
A boy comes home carrying a defeat so long in time that it weighs more on him than his own
body. He knows that he can take the pain without problems, he has become so filled that in the end he
has become immune, but the shame… that is something else. That has always made him shipwreck.
And now, just now that he seemed to have managed to be invisible, he thinks that he is going to
be more visible than ever.
He imagines that in a few minutes, perhaps right now, all his high school classmates will be
watching that video. A video that, imagine, will not just stay there, that will also reach the friends of its
colleagues and the friends of the friends, and the friends of the friends of the friends... and so on to
infinity. There will be thousands and thousands of people who will see how he has peed on himself.
He goes up to his room, throws down his backpack and throws himself on the bed. And there a
body cries on which there is no more room for punishment. He has been around precipices for too long,
doing everything possible to maintain his balance in a world full of enemies, with his feet ever further
from the ground... with his feet ever closer to the abyss.
He thinks about the video again, he can't stop doing it, and he imagines it also reaching a very
special cell phone, the cell phone of a girl with many bracelets. And he also imagines her lying on her
bed, opening a link that just arrived. He imagines her watching him pee on himself, for no apparent
reason, just out of fear. And he imagines her laughing, laughing at him, he imagines her laugh of
contempt, he imagines... This is what the mind has, which can cause infinite pain based on nothing.
He is very clear that he is not going to return to school, he does not know very well how he will do
it, but he is not going to return.
He wake up.
Go into the bathroom without turning on the light.
He takes off his clothes.
He showers, letting the drops fall on his back.

It dries slowly, in the dark, so you won't have the chance to look at your naked body
in the mirror.
Hide the pants among the dirty clothes so you don't have to answer any questions.
A few minutes later his parents and his sister arrive, a girl who the first thing she does
every day as soon as she enters the house is runs up to see him.
—Come on, have dinner! —is heard after a while from the kitchen.
They go down the stairs slowly, she holding his hand, he watching carefully.
all the details of a house that who knows if you may forget tomorrow.
While they are having dinner, distant thunder is heard.
—Mom, what is that? —asks his sister.
"It's a storm, but nothing's wrong, don't worry," the mother answers.
They finish dinner, put on their pajamas, brush their teeth and, while he is cleaning up
his room, his sister arrives with a small stuffed sheep in her hand.
—Can I sleep with you tonight? The storm scares me.

"Yes, of course," answers a boy who is still thinking about the video,
in Kiri, in shame...
"Okay," he answers with a smile that's worth a world.
They both get into bed. And that's when our boy gets ready
to start one of the most difficult conversations of your life.
—What story are you going to tell me today? —His sister asks him as she snuggles
into his chest.
"The one about the child that no one loved," he answers while his eyes tremble.
eyes. He thinks that with the light off, she won't notice the tears.
—No one wanted it?
—No, Luna, no one wanted him…
And there comes that moment when the tower wobbles, when you already know that
it won't even take the wind to knock it down because it will fall alone.
—But I would love it, I'm sure they do...

—You yes, Luna, you yes…
—How can you not love someone? —Asks a girl from that age in which innocence still
survives.
Silence.
—Luna, do you know that I love you very much? —he tells her as he squeezes her in
his arms.
"Me too, I also love you very, very, very much," she answers, slowly getting into the
fetal position.
"I will always love you, Luna, always, you are the most beautiful thing that has ever
happened to me, I wish life were this, I wish life were you," the boy tells her as he buries
his head in his sister's small arms.
-Why are you crying? —she asks him.
—Because maybe one day I won't be here with you anymore.
"But I don't want you to leave, I want you to always be with me..." he whispers to her
in that fight against the sleep that little by little he begins to lose.
—I know, don't worry, I will always be with you, I will always

love you...
—I don't want you to leave, I don't want you to... —And finally the girl closes her eyes
without letting go of her brother's finger. Sleep.
"But if I'm of no use," he whispers, "I'm just a nuisance, everyone laughs at me, I don't
understand why I was born..."
And hugs her.
And so, together, face to face, they disappear.
She feeling happy, safe, loved. Him feeling
nothing.
The next morning I woke up early, and she was still there, next to me,
with her hand holding my arm. I got up carefully so as not to wake her, turned
on the light on the table and looked out the window: it was still raining and it
seemed like it would not stop all day.
I started looking at the posters I had on the walls, the shelves full of
comics, the closet with so many photos... I don't know why I somehow wanted
to memorize everything... just in case I never saw it again.
After a while my parents' alarm clock rang.
That morning, while Luna and I were having breakfast, I realized that at
least at home I was still invisible, I had not lost my power.
It is his father who, as almost always, says goodbye in a hurry, with a

see you later that reaches no one. He doesn't even realize that he's spent
more time looking for his car keys than talking to his son.
It's curious how important these types of details can be later, when it's
too late, when you return home and realize that you can't remember your
face. We almost always act as if everything around us will always be there,
instead of living each moment as if we were going to lose everything the
next day.
When his father is no longer around is when he begins to observe his
mother carefully. A woman who goes from here to there, preparing
everything for her sister, looking for her bag for work, trying to leave the
kitchen as tidy as possible...
A mother who, after picking up Luna, leaves the house without paying
much attention to her, without realizing that there is a body in front of her
that is disappearing among the furniture. And so begins a morning that will
be very different from all the others.
Everyone had already left, I was alone at home.

That day I wasn't in a hurry, I wasn't going to go to school, I was never going to come back.
All night I had been thinking about all the options, the first one that came to mind
was to burn the books and notes. That way at least I had a reason not to go.
I went up to my room, took my wallet and put everything from school in it.
I also took my cell phone and a lighter.
I don't know why but I went to Luna's room, I spent a while looking at her bed,
her dolls, her books... and suddenly I saw her, on the table. I grabbed it and put it
as best I could in my wallet.
I went down to the kitchen, turned off the lights and went out to the street, it was still raining.
I was about to go back inside to get the umbrella but I thought how absurd it
would be to see an umbrella flying alone down the street, with no one underneath
to hold it.
As I walked I thought about my options again. I was in a mess. I knew that what
happened with MM had been a mistake, probably a mistake in concentration. It is
true that during the last few weeks I had been visible at some times of the day: in
class, at home having dinner with my parents, the day I went to the store to buy...
but in all those moments I had been visible because I had wanted to be. And it is
also true that during the last weeks whenever I had wanted to be invisible I had also
succeeded. I was clear that the only person that power didn't work with was my
sister, but what if now it didn't work with MM either?
What if I was starting to lose my power? What if the wasp poison was wearing off?
Although there was also another explanation. I had realized that the only person
who could always see me was my sister, precisely the one
person I loved the most, then... by that same rule, perhaps the person I hated the most,
MM, could also see me.
I had to find out if MM had just been my mistake, for not being focused, or if I was
really losing my power... because if it was the latter...
It started to rain harder and I ran faster, until I reached the wall. I jumped over it and
kept running until I got into the tunnel as fast as I could.
I took off my backpack and took out everything that was inside.
I left my sister's stuffed sheep on a small shelf next to the other things, I didn't really
know why I had taken it, it was like having a little piece of her there.
I took the lighter and thought that the best way not to go back to class
It was burning everything: the books, the notebooks, the notes, the wallet...
At first it was a little difficult because the backpack was wet, but not the books, so I put
all the papers back inside and set them on fire. The backpack began to melt in front of me.
I also looked at the wall of the tunnel, at everything that was there: the papers, the list,
the drawings... everything that I had been collecting over the last few years.
months.
And now that?

Well, now I had to find out if it was just this one time or if I was really losing my power
to be invisible. And there was a way to find out, I just had to wait.
The bell rings at school and all the students run in, without order or control... this is what
happens when it rains, it seems like the world is ending.
Once inside the building, everyone goes to their class waiting for another day to begin.
In one of them, the second one on the right on the upper floor, a teacher enters and greets
everyone without paying too much attention to the absences.
He grabs the chalk and is about to write the word of the day big when the dragon notices that
there is an empty chair in the classroom. And that's why he moves, and that's why a teacher's
back hurts when she turns around to discover the absence.
—Does anyone know why he hasn't come?

But nobody says anything.
She turns around strangely and starts writing the word again.
He writes the I, the N, the V, the I... and just when he is going to write the next letter the dragon
moves again. He is restless, nervous.
He puts down the chalk, turns and looks at the empty chair again.
"I'm going to talk to the director for a moment, I'll be right back," he says while leaving
there, on the blackboard, a word that he won't finish writing.
A boy who no longer knows whether people can see him or not leaves the protection
of the tunnel towards the answer he is looking for.
He walks like a tightrope walker in the rain, trying not to slip on two parallel wires. He
advances a few meters and chooses a clearly visible place, right where the infinite line
ends, to prove to himself that he is still invisible.
And it will stay there, visible to everyone, waiting for the answer to its question to come
and pick it up.
The dragon storms into the principal's office to ask about the invisible boy, but
she doesn't know anything, no one has called to say that he wasn't going to go to
class.
"We have to tell the parents," says a teacher who is increasingly nervous.
—Well, I don't think it would be necessary, if we had to call the parents every
time…
"But it's protocol, it has to be done," she insists.
-Well, do what you want...
Find the phone, and call.
A cell phone rings several kilometers away that no one picks up. Hanging.
Call the other phone now. One tone, two, three... and this time there is
luck. The mother takes it.
But the conversation does not solve the situation, quite the opposite:
He doesn't know anything either, he doesn't understand why his son hasn't gone to class today.
And from that moment on come the fears, the questions and the rush.
It is then that the dragon decides to take charge of the situation, taking control of
a body that has been blocked.
"I'm going to look for it," he says without waiting for a response.
-That? —Protests the director—. But where are you going? You are crazy?
What you have to do is stay in class, with your students, now we will take the
appropriate measures, but you have to...
But the teacher is no longer there to listen to anything, she knows that she can
make mistakes, she does, but the dragon doesn't, the dragon never makes mistakes.
He takes out the keys, opens the car door and starts driving through the rain
and fear.
He knows perfectly well where he has to go, he knows the boy's refuge, the
same place that could now be his grave. It's not the first time
who has followed him, has been doing it for a long time even though he has not realized it.
He's been doing it since that first day in the park, when MM and his friends caught him
sitting on a bench and were going to hit him. He still remembers the poor boy's reaction.
All he did was squeeze his eyes shut and crouch over himself, he put his head between
his legs just waiting for the blows.
Some blows that never came thanks to the fact that she appeared on the other side
and locked eyes with her attackers. It was at that moment when MM and his friends
decided to continue walking as if nothing was happening, as if the invisible boy was really
invisible.
They tried several more days, and each time she was there.
Since then he has followed him almost always, which is why he now knows
where can you find it.
It continues to rain on a body that remains motionless. He knows that there is little left,
very little; He doesn't see it yet but he can already feel the breath of the response under
his feet: a small tremor that becomes more intense second by second.
He is convinced that he is still invisible, perhaps because that is the only

hope that encourages him to continue in a world that does not love him.
It is there, still at a great distance but you are already able to see it: a small dot that
grows as you get closer.
For now silence, that's a good sign.
It continues to get closer, it continues to grow, and the silence continues.
Smile.
A smile that suddenly disappears when you hear the sound of a horn. A giant horn
that occupies the entire surrounding area, a beep so loud it seems as if a needle was
piercing your head from side to side.
"I don't understand it, I don't understand it, I don't understand it," he says to himself.
"It just can't be…".
A car goes too fast through streets blurred by the rain. The woman driving it
can't lean on it because her back burns as if there were fire on the backrest. For a
moment she thinks the dragon is going to leave her body.
He arrives at the place but doesn't know where to park, there is no space. "It doesn't
matter!" shouts a dragon that is more prominent than ever. "Leave the car there, on the
sidewalk!"
And he leaves it.
And both—woman and dragon—get out of the car towards the wall. She
running, he flying.
A horn continues screaming about a boy who can't believe what's happening.
A body that has remained blocked, motionless under a rain that seems to want to
bury it right there.
A speaker that shows two realities: his, the one he has
imagined in his head, and the other, the one that everyone else knows.
The first is the one that makes him believe that after months of being invisible,
for some reason he has lost his power. A hard reality because that would mean
going back to the beginning again: to the insults, the beatings, the laughter, the
violence...
And then there is the other reality, the one that we all know but he does not
even contemplate: perhaps it is visible now because it always has been. But of
course, that would be admitting something too harsh for such a fragile body: it
would mean admitting that during the last few months everyone has seen what
was happening to him and no one has done anything to help him. No, that option
is not even contemplated.
Ten seconds.
The horn continues to sound—louder each time, closer each time
— about a boy who doesn't move.
It is the mind that has decided to take control in the hope of unblocking a body that
has become inert. He begins by sending small memories of that time when fear barely
existed: his childhood.
The smell of firewood from the town house; the coins that his grandfather took out of
his ears at any time; the Parcheesi games that he mysteriously almost always won; the
candy that his grandmother always gave him secretly... Lying on top of his father on the
sofa, making his head coincide with his heartbeat until sleep came; the taste of those
macaroni that mom made on Fridays; the sand castles that the water always ended up
washing away; the kite that got stuck in the tree; the first days in the pool; the care his
mother gave him that time he caught the flu so badly that he was in bed for a week; that
mouse who, after losing a tooth, always brought him gifts too big to carry; the feeling of
floating in his father's arms when they came home late and he had fallen asleep in the
car...
The problem is that, among all those distant memories, the mind is not able to filter out
other closer, more painful ones: the feeling of helplessness in the face of that first push; the
laughter of his companions after any attack, after any insult; all the sandwiches that ended
up destroyed on the floor; those marks on your back that you have tried to hide from
everyone; the smell of one's own urine on the body... it is those memories that keep the
body in the rain, with no intention of moving.
Eight seconds.
The mind tries again, it knows that there is less and less time left to survive the impact
of despair. Therefore, seeing that the above has not worked, he searches in another part
of the memories until he believes he has found the solution: love.
And images return to a body that continues blocked in a limbo of noise: the sound of
the bracelets when it moved its arms; that afternoon when, unintentionally, they touched
their hands; the first kiss on the cheek; the freckles moving across her face when she
smiled; the messages with smiles and violet hearts; the looks before saying goodbye;
happiness when you fall asleep thinking about her; the wish he made on his last birthday;
those drawings that are now on the wall of the tunnel: the one of the giant squirrel fighting
with the warrior, the one of that gun that points at two initials MM... and there, suddenly,
other thoughts enter: the word cowardly that she said to him a day after school; the
conversations they no longer had; watching her from afar talking to other boys... and, above
all, that stain on his pants that right now he thinks she must have already seen, which she
must have already laughed at.
Six seconds.
He can already feel it under his feet, everything is shaking, it is death coming to pick
him up.
A dragon that has just flown over a small wall continues to rise into the air to get a
better perspective of what is happening.
And suddenly he sees it: in the rain a body remains motionless on the tracks of a train
that is about to take him by.
He knows that he will never arrive in time, and yet he spreads his giant wings to fly as
fast as possible, and screams, and spits fire, and rage, and fear...
He also knows that it is not the train that is going to take that boy's life, it is not even
MM that is to blame; No, those who are going to end a life that has barely been able to
begin are all those who have looked but have preferred not to see; Also all those people
who didn't even want to look.
He knows that one is not invisible if others do not help him to be.
And yet, even knowing that he will not arrive in time, the dragon continues
flying as fast as he can.
Five seconds.
The mind knows that it has one last chance.
Five seconds is the time limit to introduce the right thoughts, you can't fail
anymore.
Four seconds.
The mind has one idea, well, two. The first is to introduce a lie into the
body, a credible lie among all that universe of powers that the boy has invented.
A lie that gives you hope.
And then, instantly, fill your memories with love, but with the other love, the
one that never ends.
And the lie comes...

The lie
I don't remember very well what I was thinking at that moment, I just remember
that I was there, still, under the rain, watching a black spot approaching that was
getting bigger and bigger.
Oh, and I also remember that unbearable beeping of the train horn, a noise
that went through my head, the same one that doesn't let me sleep at night.
And suddenly, I don't know why, an idea came to mind, a hope... What if the
train had seen me because of the rain? It was possible, that could be the
explanation. Maybe it was invisible, but being in the rain the train driver had seen
a silhouette on the track and that's why he whistled, of course! That was! The
only thing the driver could see was my silhouette in the rain, but not me.
That idea cheered me up a little, but I still felt so tired... so tired of everything:
tired of people not seeing me, tired of living in isolation, tired of Kiri not paying
attention to me, tired of running every day , tired of living like this...
Three seconds.
Me too,
I also love you very, very,
very much.
Love
And suddenly she entered my mind.
And when I looked straight ahead I didn't see a train, I saw Luna coming towards me with her
open arms, like he did every day when he came home.
I saw her as a child, in her crib, sleeping, when my parents told me: "Now you have to
help us take care of her"; I also saw her when she gave me her hand to help her walk, I
saw my fear every time she fell and my joy when she got up again with a smile; I saw her
holding my hand every time we were going to cross a street, every time we went up or down
a staircase...
I also saw her on her small bicycle, trying to keep her balance without the training
wheels, pedaling while my father helped her not to fall and I encouraged her to get up.
I saw his smile when he asked me if he could sleep with me and I said yes, when I
secretly gave him cookies; when, on any birthday, when I got home, I would give him some
candy that I had kept in my pocket; I saw her putting the fake thermometer on me, giving
me her fake medicines and sticking her real plasters on my body.
I saw that that stain that was going to swallow me grew at the same rate as Luna did.
He was already there, in front of me, telling me that he loved me very, very, very much;
telling me not to go.
At that moment I saw how she extended her hand for me to give it to her, how she
asked me to accompany her, how she told me that she was afraid, that she didn't want to
be there, that she wanted to return home, to our room, to our bed... so that I told him a
story, but not the one about the boy no one loved, no, not that one, another one, another
one... "make up another one, another nice one, another one that has a happy ending..."
I also extended my hand and gave it to him.

And a dragon that is already about to arrive has just been left speechless
when it sees that the boy has extended an arm - as if he were shaking hands
with someone -, he has moved slowly and just at the moment in which he
was getting off. the train has taken him off the tracks.
It did not hit him directly, it was the speed of death that made him fly, it moved him so far
that right now the dragon does not know where it has fallen. A dragon that violently gains
momentum upwards to try to locate it.
And he sees him, several meters away, lying on a huge puddle, motionless.
He comes down with all his strength from the sky, going through the rain, fear and
regrets. He carefully picks it up in his claws and flies again to take it into the tunnel.
He lands and sets it gently on the ground. She hugs him with her big wings to try to give
him back all the heat she has lost. That's when he realizes that a trickle of blood is coming
out of the boy's head, and that's also when when he moves him he realizes that he's not
breathing.
And the lips of a dragon join those of the boy to try to give him all the fire he has inside.
And it blows, and blows, and blows... trying to catch the breath of someone who is almost
gone.
And it blows, and blows, and blows... air, fire and, above all, hopes.
And it blows...
And finally, the boy notices the dragon's fire and breathes.
And coughs.
And it moves.
And he instinctively hugs the dragon like a castaway hugs a life preserver.
And the dragon cries.

And while she waits—with the boy on her lap—for the ambulance she called herself to
arrive, the teacher begins to observe everything around her. It is when he realizes that that
place is a kind of refuge where the boy tried to compensate for the evil of the world with
memories.
She notices several drawings taped to the wall, drawings made by a little girl—her
sister, she assumes—in which two people always appear: a girl in a dress and a slightly
taller boy in long pants and a T-shirt. The two on the swings, the two playing in a kind of
park, the two on what looks like a beach, the two holding hands...
He also discovers other drawings, made by someone older, perhaps the same age as
the boy: one in which a warrior is seen fighting what appears to be a giant squirrel; another
in which there is a gun pointing at two initials MM; another in which a boy is shooting a pen-
shaped arrow at some kind of monster; another in which a wasp in war clothing occupies
the entire page... some drawings that right now the teacher doesn't know who made them.
She also discovers several objects on a shelf on the wall: a pile of comics, a Batman
mask, several superhero dolls, some children's toy, a frame with a photo of a girl the teacher
also knows, a small ball, a stuffed sheep...
He sighs, unable to hold back his tears.

Now look to the other side, towards the opposite wall and that's when
a surprise is found.
He sees what looks like a list written in chalk on the wall, a huge list,
with many names. Start reading at the top, on the left: The social sciences
teacher who didn't see me when they threw me to the ground at recess.
The woman in the red dress and the man with the briefcase who were in the park when they emptied my wallet.
David and Liliana.

The older woman who was carrying a shopping cart when I ran out of the open field.
The school janitor every time I run in or out.
The history teacher.
My colleagues Nico, Sara, Chloe and Carlos.
The policeman at the door when we enter.
The policeman at the door when we leave.
The math teacher.
My mates Javi, Iker, Juanjo and Vero.
Dad.
Two third graders who didn't see me come out of the bathroom.
Zara.
The director.
The mothers and fathers who stay inside the cars when leaving school.
Mother.
My colleagues Esther, Pedro and María.
Esther's father.
Marina and Marina's mother.
The women who stay having a drink on the terrace of the cafeteria when they leave the institute.
Skin.
Kiri's mother.
The woman who walked past me on my way home with stained pants.
My colleagues Sandra, Patricia, Silvia, Ana, Héctor…
The teacher just understood the meaning of that list. It is the list of shame, the list of all
those who have made the boy she now holds in her arms invisible. She caresses his face and
squeezes him with all her strength.
It is there, looking at that list, when you ask yourself, what kind of society have we built?
When did we become monsters?
VISIBLE
A few minutes later, when the surrounding area is filled with the sound of an
ambulance, the boy opens his eyes slightly and, with a small smile, says a single
word: "Luna...".
It will be from that moment on that it will be visible to everyone again.
It will be visible to all the people who will come to see – and record with their cell
phones – what has happened on the train tracks after hearing the horn, the
brakes and the sirens.
It will be visible to the doctors who will treat you as soon as you enter the
hospital, through the emergency door.
It will be visible again to their parents, who will leave their jobs more scared
than they have ever been, because there is no worse fear than the uncertainty of
not knowing what has happened to a child.
It will also be visible to all the teachers at the institute, some teachers who,
with a worried expression, will pretend that they do not know how something like
this could have happened. It will finally be visible to the director of the center.
A director who will be worried about the boy's health and, of course, how that will
affect the reputation and income of the institute.
It will be visible to all your colleagues. For those who did not even know him
and for those who, knowing what was happening, never took a step to prevent it.
For all those colleagues who do work, projects, murals... about "world peace",
"helping the weak", "the harmony of civilizations...", but who have not known how
to help those next to them.
And it will also be visible to the parents of those classmates who, upon
hearing the news, will lament what happened: "Poor boy, I hope he is okay, how
did something like this happen?...", parents who will never relate to that boy with
the one that appeared in that video of the wasps that made them so funny.
It will be visible, of course, from now on to all journalists who, after

hearing the news, will have something to fill the headlines with, even if
only for a few days.
He will be visible again to Zaro, his best friend, a Zaro who, from that
moment on, will carry his own punishment inside. That he will spend his
days thinking about what he could have done, when he could have acted,
how to fix the past...
And of course, it will also be visible to her, to a girl who, despite having
tried to help her through the drawings, knows that it has not been enough.
A girl who has been crying in her room for days, out of rage, helplessness,
love... A girl who continues writing a letter that, perhaps, one day she will
dare to deliver.
And perhaps, although we will never know, it will once again be visible
to all of us, to all of us who have ever looked but did not want to see, for
those of us who have preferred to turn our heads the other way, for those
of us who have done the WHILE DON'T TOUCH ME, THAT'S NOT MY
PROBLEM our philosophy of life.
This novel is dedicated to all those people who,

regardless of their age, have
ever felt invisible.
For you, for us.
So that you never ever

never stop looking for your Moon.
Not even your dragon.
Thank you.
Eloy Moreno (Castellón). His great passion for writing led him to embark on the adventure
of self-publishing his first novel The Green Gel Pen, which has sold more than 200,000
copies worldwide.
He won the 2011 Onda Cero Castellón Award for the effort made in disseminating the novel
and was a finalist for the 2012 Valencian Critics Awards in the narrative section for the same
work.
His second novel, What I Found Under the Sofa (2013), once again connected with the
sensitivity of tens of thousands of readers, many of whom accompany him on the numerous
routes he takes through Toledo, reliving the book's plot. At the beginning of 2015 he returned
to self-publish a small personal project, Stories to understand the world, a work that currently
has 23 editions.
In 2015 he also published his third novel El Regalo, receiving great recognition both in sales
and critics, being immediately translated into Italian and subsequently awarded by the
educational community with the I Benjamín de Tudela Novel Prize.

Invisible. (Inglés) Eloy Moreno

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Emotional, moving, different... Invisible tells, through the eyes of a child,

Eloy Moreno, 2017

Editor digital: Titivillus ePub

A hero can be anyone, even someone doing something as simple as putting

And as soon as he walks in, he sees it.

"Let's start," he listens.

The same thing has already happened to me again.

I just woke up shaking, with my heart pounding against my ribs, as if it wanted to

One, two, three... I breathe in and out.

One, two, three, I breathe in and out...

One, two, three… I inhale and…

Four, five, six... I breathe in and out.

The hand of a hundred bracelets

Oh, and of course, many journalists have also come, including TV

The face with a scar on the eyebrow

He leaves the bathroom and goes back to bed.

that have built this damn moment.

The girl with a hundred bracelets

And suddenly his hand stops grabbing my leg.

My mother, like every morning, accompanies me to the bathroom and that is

The damn visit.

The boy with the scar on his eyebrow

It was more than ten minutes of uncomfortable conversation, of silences

Nobody talked about it.

No, I hadn't forgotten, how could I forget that visit.

And so an uncomfortable conversation ended, we no longer talked about it.

Well, in the end it wasn't him, but her.

We have both remained silent, a silence that seemed to never end.

He looked at me intently and suddenly started laughing.

"Well then I'm normal," I replied.

—Until you started what?

The boy with nine and a half fingers

While an ex-invisible child receives a visit from a psychologist, in a room in an apartment

The girl with a hundred bracelets

The bracelets don't stop moving on her arm.

There are fewer hours left, it will be this afternoon.

And as soon as he walked out the door I really wanted to cry.

I heard my parents talking to the psychologist outside, although I didn't

And I can't take it anymore, I can't go on like this anymore.

—I have lost my little sheep…

"Well, it's late, we have to go," my father interrupted.

—Mom, what's wrong?

"Look who's come to see you..." my mother said.

—Ok, well now we'll come back, okay?

-Me too? —he whispered, very slowly, I barely heard him.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and started moving me while

He punched the bed, wiped his tears with his hands.

At that moment my mother entered.

"Listen, don't give me nonsense," he insisted.

And I have continued screaming.

The boy with the scar on his eyebrow

The night comes over a boy who continues sleeping inside a

I woke up, again this damn beeping going through my head.

I look at the clock, 05:14.

And I have started to talk.

She sighed and wrote something down in a small notebook.

—Like the ones you have gotten?

—What was that power?

—Could you do it now? -I've been asked.

"Wow..." he told me as he began to get up. Well,