María

Through the window of her house, a warm light entered, caressing her cheek. With the melody of dawn as a soundtrack, the young girl timidly opened her eyelids, as if fearful of leaving the realm of dreams. Bathed in light, her green eyes glistened, moist after a long night of vivid imagination.​

Calmed by the weight of a night filled with fantasies, the girl shed the veil of her sheets and finally raised her hands to her eyes to remove the bothersome sleep crusts born of her fatigue. To the chorus of the morning breeze were added the songs of a family of doves nesting in front of a laurel tree that, years ago, she had planted outside her window. With the doves' song, the young woman let out a liberating yawn that made her stretch her arms to the sky and arch her back as much as she could.​

After stretching, the girl looked toward the laurel that had accompanied her every morning since she could remember and, wearing a serene smile, left the room toward the bathroom. Mornings in María's house were always slow. The rush was left in bed when night fell, and María always woke up before it did. Upon entering the bathroom, she encountered her reflection, returning her gaze and displaying the same smile that had accompanied her from her room. Slowly, she released a hair tie that held her messy bun, allowing her hair to spill over her shoulders. As her mane revealed itself in its freedom, María noticed a small flaw in the image that had been part of her all her life; a face as familiar as her mother's, mainly because both women shared the same bushy eyebrows and freckled nose. Above her upper lip, carved into her flesh, a light-colored scar broke the homogeneous brown of her skin. María had lived with that scar for years. However, on days like this, melancholy took hold of her when she saw it, and with it came forgetfulness to return what it had stolen. With a childlike hesitation, the girl caressed her scar with her right hand. Looking at it, the exiled memories returned in a cascade, immersing her in a sea of longing.​

For María, her emotions had always felt foreign, separated by an infinite void that concealed them. When she remembered, that void disappeared and gave way to her more human side. The truth is, she couldn't recall any memory before her seventeenth birthday. By then, loneliness had already settled into her life. However, occasionally, a window to the past would timidly open and offer her a brief glimpse back. These images were, for her, like a completely new film; something she had never seen before. She didn't recognize any of the actors in her memories, but a curious familiarity tightened her chest when she saw them. Especially when she saw Sebastián.​

Sebastián was a secondary actor in her memories; he never played a leading role. However, every time he entered the scene, the world seemed to breathe to his rhythm. Colors shone brighter, the day's melodies were more lively, and the smells became much more intense. From her imaginary seat, María watched him with a curiosity that sighed in tune with desire. She never knew what intrigued her so much about him. Maybe it was his silky golden hair that covered his forehead down to his eyes or perhaps his shy smile, untouched by malice. Sometimes, the young man looked at the camera, as if he were looking directly at María. For a moment, María returned his gaze with curiosity, and the next, a warm nostalgia invaded her body. Unfortunately, those moments lasted a second, and as soon as they arrived, they left without leaving a single trace.​

Among those images filled with beauty and nostalgia, María became intoxicated with sensations that were foreign to her. Some were good and made her feel happy and calm. Others made her feel bad, and sadness and anxiety visited her. But María didn't mind because swimming in that sea of lost memories allowed her to feel with her heart more than with her body, a privilege she had forgotten many years ago.​

With her face washed and her hair tied in a modest ponytail, María walked to the kitchen. The morning was cold, and the wind cut through the shelter of the walls to make its way through the cracks. On the kitchen table, there was an old coffee maker. The metal, which had once been a shiny gray color, was now marked by black stains brought by the passage of years. Mixed with the cold, a slight aroma of rosemary and cinnamon welcomed the small kitchen. After a slight sigh, María entered through the door and began to prepare the coffee maker. To the sound of the squeak escaping from the coffee maker, the girl returned from a thoughtful journey; a chimera that had presented itself before her through the portal that was her window to her Laurel. While María enjoyed her coffee; bitter and dark, her mind rested on the whisper of a memory. Ten years had passed, but time had not stolen the vividness of the memory. Thinking about it, María still felt a pressure in her chest that suffocated her at times when she remembered. María turned her face toward the window to find her reflection. Slowly she let herself go, and the memory distorted, becoming a strange but familiar scene.​

With a tear in her eyes, María found herself on the edge of a rooftop in a nameless city. Some marks on her left wrist shone with the bright red of freshly cut skin, and the palms of her hands bore a pink blush. Back then, her hair had been black, dyed by a friend and clearly damaged by that ill-advised chemical makeup. Young María didn't look much different from how she would look ten years later; she was still young and beautiful, with her wavy hair, despite lacking the glossy shine of healthy hair. Her gaze still resembled a door that opened to the soul, and her hands still trembled, eager to feel the world. However, in her memory, María couldn’t see something that was crucial for her, as if her mind had worked tirelessly to block that memory. The reality was that, more than the skin of her freshly cut wrists, the bulge in her belly, where a baby was growing, stood out.

It’s curious how the mind plays its cruel tricks. For María, this was just a recurrent memory that transported her to a painful moment in her life. However, the essence of the memory, the very reason for its existence, had been censored under martial law by her mind. For this reason, María couldn’t remember the cold on the soles of her feet, the breeze that slapped her face, or the humidity that had broken her hair’s curls. In her mind, she only saw a teenager standing at the edge of a fall. She couldn’t see the pain that had brought her there, only that she was there. María looked at her younger self with intrigue. She recognized herself faintly, but she couldn’t match the colors of her skin to the young woman in front of her. Slowly, the teenager turned to face María, or at least where she thought María was. The eyes of the two girls held each other's gaze, one wearing curiosity, the other carrying an indescribable sorrow. María remained like that for several minutes, studying herself, but understanding nothing.

A smile appeared on the face of the young María, and the adult woman extended her hands toward the girl as she saw a tear sliding down her cheek. They looked at each other, and a fraternal warmth grew in María's chest that even the fierce howling breeze couldn’t extinguish. The breeze. Like a sigh, a last breath before death, the young María disappeared before María, leaving a trace of her floating hair as she fell into the void. María tried to reach herself, sliding on the floor while trying to grab whatever could allow her to hold the girl. Nothing. The impact wasn’t a sound, but a void. A dense silence slipped between her ribs, as if it were trying to remind her that she was still alive. María blinked. Before her, the steam from the coffee had already dissipated. On the table, the cup trembled slightly from the wind that slipped through the window. Around her, the kitchen felt too small to contain the vastness of what she had just revived. She lowered her gaze to the cup, and upon seeing that the coffee was cold, she offered a faint, almost grateful smile.

She rose gently, as if her body still remembered the edge of the rooftop, and placed the cup on the table. There was nothing more to do there. She left the kitchen in silence, leaving behind the aroma of cinnamon and the echo of the memory that still floated in the air. She went to her room and, inside it, dressed herself in a yellow lemon dress that highlighted her emerald eyes. Her hair had been freed, and it flowed freely around her face. On her shoulders, María had placed a light blue cardigan that accentuated her shoulders and outlined the lines of her neck down to her clavicle. A composed and feminine María emerged from the room, the kind of woman who could spark a fire in the most chaste man. With a light trot, María left her house and, after getting into her car, headed toward her office.