"In bed" "Can you hand me my purse?" " Here." " Thanks." "Want one?" "No." "Thanks." "What was your last name again?" "My last name?" "Yes." "You know what I think?" "You don't remember my name." "No." "Why do you think that?" "People ask for your last name to get your first name." "A gracious way to ask." " To ask for the last name." " Sure." "Or like when you ask for someone's number and you hand them a paper so they'll write their name." "You're wrong there." "Let's see then." "What's my name?" "Okay..." "We just did it, and you don't know who I am?" "I know who you are." "It's your name I don't remember." " Same thing." " No, it's not." "Okay." "Then guess my name." "Constanza." "Fernanda." "Fernanda?" "No, Fernandas are like..." "Have you noticed how names describe people?" "A friend of mine Ofelia." "She's beautiful spiritual." "Another one." "Beatriz..." "Classical." "Strong women names." "Guess the name of the daughter of my building's doorman." " Tell me." " You guess." "I'm never going to guess." ""Lady Di. "" "Just like that:" ""Lady Di Carrasco. "" " Guess the son's name." " Tell me." " Guess." " Come on." "Arnold Sylvester." " What?" " I swear." "Arnold Sylvester." "They doomed that skinny bastard." "I've got a book on names." "It tells how people will turn out to be, according to their name." "What does it say about my name?" "Claudio." "It says..." "Hey." "Claudio is not my name." "Of course it is." " You're Polo Bustamante's friend." " No." " Claudio." " No." "I'm Polo Bustamante's cousin." "See?" "You don't know me, and I don't know you." "Okay, what's your name?" "My name is..." "Come on, be serious." " Jonathan." " Be serious!" "I'm serious." "My name is Jonathan." "Jonathan?" "My name's Bruno." " And you are...?" " Daniela." " Hi." " Hi." "No, shake strongly." "Don't you hate weak handshakes?" "It gives me the creeps!" "I had a teacher who shook hands like that." "Stop, it's gross!" "Don't!" "I like a woman with a firm strong handshake." "Come on." "I don't want to." "Come on, do it." "Use all your strength." "Let go of me!" "Stop." "Strange circumstances..." "You asshole!" "No, let go." "Okay, stop it!" "We should remove the quilt." "Why so?" "You know how many people come to motels?" "The number of germs on this quilt?" "I wish they were just germs." " What do you mean?" " There are other things." "What else?" "Hair, nails, skin." "Don't be disgusting!" "At least the sheets are clean." "I once went through a phase where I'd clean everything." "Everything repulsed me:" "Door knobs, forks, using a phone after somebody else." "I carried a cloth and alcohol." "I could only use my own bathroom." " Still carry that cloth?" " No." "That was before." "When my parents were going through their divorce." "I pretended to keep everything clean and neat." "In order to make amends, I guess." "About relationships?" "That sort of thing?" "As a compensation." "Your parents why did they split up?" "One day my Mom followed Dad to some apartment." "There she talked to the doorman and found out that the man who had been her husband for 32 years had a double life." "Then you started cleaning?" "Yeah." "I don't know." "I'm squeamish." "I hate germs." "In that case, you shouldn't kiss." "Do you realize that there's nothing as germ-infested as a kiss?" "Seriously." "One ml of saliva carries more germs than..." " Than what?" " I don't know." " Eating poop is less gross." " Yuck!" "Anyway, this motel is decent." "Once I thought about putting up a motel with a friend." "It's a very lucrative business." "I was wondering if anyone died on this bed." "Maybe an old man, from a heart attack." "Or lovers who killed each other for love." "In such case, there are lots of myths." "There's the condom under the bed." "Or the camera hidden in the air-conditioner." "Would you look under the bed?" " Are you serious?" " Yes." "I'll die if there's a condom there." " There's one, but it's been used." " Don't touch it." "We don't know what kind of people come here." "People holding illegal relations." "Or casual relations." "People like us." "The boss and his secretary." "Classmates after a ten-year reunion." "Have you been here a lot?" "A couple of times." "Two times, considering this one?" "No." "This is the third time." "Tell me about the other two." "No way!" "Why would you want to know?" "I want to know who you are." "By knowing my sexual behavior?" "Have it your way." "The first time I came here with a guy I liked." "I was at the beach, and he called me from Santiago to invite me to the movies." "I got in my car and returned here." "We went to the movies." "Have you ever been inspired?" "When you say the right things?" "When you seem to have a script backing you, and you're in control?" "Well, that was the way I felt." "I had a nice tan." "I felt comfortable." "I had liked him for years, since we were in school." "And now there he was, in my car." "Then I fucked him." "He wasn't up to my expectations." "But then and there I reached a mile-stone." "Did you ever see him again?" "He's an obstetrician and lives in the South." "He's got five kids, so they tell me." "A world-class bore." "And your second time?" "My second time in a motel was with Rodrigo." "Your boyfriend?" "We were fighting when we got here." "We laid on the bed without even touching each other." "We argued a lot." "I ended up crying." "Then he paid, and we left." "What was the argument about?" "He lied to me." "He had an affair with a chick that worked for his dad." "He told me that nothing ever happened, but he had her number in his cell phone." "And she phoned him in the middle of our fight." "He started with his nonsense." "He's a compulsive liar." "It's like a disease." "Did you break up with him?" "No." "May I have the remote?" "Just porn channels, I'm sure." "There was another time, too." "What?" "How?" "Tell me." "He was a hitchhiker." "It happened in Chillán." "How's that?" "I had tried to break up with Rodrigo something like 20 times." "And couldn't." "Well, one day, after a huge fight, we broke up." "Seriously." "I did some thinking then." "I decided to use all my vacation time, changed my cell phone number." "I excluded him from every directory." "I had to get away from the city." "I told my grandma I was going to the beach with a girlfriend, but it was a lie." "I went South." "When my bus was near Chillán, it stopped." "I went out for a smoke." "Then a guy approached me and asked for a light." "I handed him my lighter." "He looked at me." "I looked at him." "I put out my cigarette and left with him." "Really?" "We went to a motel." "There we kissed each other." "I'm sure he noticed how nervous I was." "He asked me what was the matter." "And I told him about Rodrigo." "He did something Rodrigo never would." "He put me to bed, fixed my covers, touched my hair, and told me a story till I fell asleep." "He was a complete stranger." "Someone I had no ties with, whatsoever." "And he treated me as if I were the most important thing to him." "Can we turn down the air-conditioner?" "I'm cold." "Did you see that movie?" "No." "I've got a theory about movies." "There's a common memory implicit in the movies." "Just consider the number of aesthetic approaches and films." "Imagine we could divide them and pile them in sets." "As spectators, we too belong in one of those sets." "That's the clue." "For instance, someone who watches H¡gh F¡del¡ty and then Magnol¡a." "Or who simply likes that aesthetic." "That person belongs to Set A." "And that's okay." "Or let me see another." "Someone who watches Tax¡Dr¡ver." "Reservo¡r Dogs." "State of Grace." "Fargo." "Et cetera." "That person also belongs in a set." "Set B." "Makes sense." "It's okay." "Imagine someone who watches Almodóvar's Atame and then Dr. Dool¡ttle or Before the Ra¡n and then Naked Gun and then watches..." "What could that be?" "Something not related in any way." "That person belongs to no set at all." "There's no aesthetic identity there." "There's something wrong with that person." "Look, I used to date a girl who had seen every action film." "Stallone, Schwarzenegger." "Fine!" "But she belongs in a given set." "But one day she invited me to a Godard film, V¡vre sa V¡e." "Suspicious, to say the least." "I knew then that something was wrong." "Later, she told me she was back with her ex." "Get it?" "No." "Let's see." "If you were to make a movie, what would it be about?" "What would be the topic?" "I don't know." "Come on." "Play along." "A woman." "I don't know." "Make something up." "Anything." "A witch..." "Go on." "...is being visited by a teenage boy." "He tells her that he has this dream over and over." "Then she holds his hand." "She concentrates." "According to her cards..." "I don't know." "There's a guy investigating missing person's cases." "Finds the bodies of five presumptively tortured children." "But when he studies the bodies, he discovers they all have these odd wounds." "After a while, he realizes that they are autopsy marks." "And that those children are over 200 years old." "Meaning that he's facing a UFO situation." "A married couple splits." "It starts with him taking a cab outside his house." "The driver sees him crying." "He's got nowhere to go." "He goes to a friend's house." "That night he sleeps in a room full of toys." "Then, the next morning, he goes to the office, trying to go on with his life." "There's pictures of his wife and kids on his desk." "He stores them away." "Motel." "A woman wakes up at a motel." "There's a dead woman by her side." "She remembers nothing." "No, wait." "A woman makes love to her lesbian lover." "Then they quarrel because one of them has a straight lover." "Then a man comes in." "The man kills one of them." "And the same man goes and phones the police." "And?" "And the police arrives, surrounds them." "And..." "The cartoons of the '80s were the best by far." "Have you had one of those typical conversations about vintage cartoons?" "Whether you liked Anthony, or the other one in Candy." "And the Protoculture, and Galact¡ca." "And you look like Anthony." "And you look like..." "Like whom?" "Someone I met at a birthday party." "To whom I later offered a ride home." "And what happened next?" "We went to another party." "A real bummer." "So I invited her to have a drink." "And?" "And I was very nervous." "And?" "And I kissed her." "What did she do?" "She asked me to take her somewhere else." "Can I tell you something?" "I knew we would end up like this." " How?" " Like this." "In bed." "I knew it when I saw you." "I mean, you always know deep inside." "I felt the same way." "Do you believe in chemistry?" "So, what do we do?" "I don't know." "What time is it?" "OO a. m." "Too late to arrive." "Too early to leave." "Are you hungry?" "I could call room service if you want something." "Or we could ask for a movie in the meantime." "What do you mean by "in the meantime"?" "In the meantime?" "In the meantime, I recover." "You'll recover?" "I'll help you recover." "Wait a second." "Wait a second." "One, one-thousand." "Leave it there!" "Turn it up!" "I real¡zed everyth¡ng can change If there's love" "I w¡sh I could go back Perhaps th¡nk more about you" "I ask you to understand And g¡ve me some t¡me to start aga¡n" "W¡sh I could grow W¡sh I could s¡ng" "W¡sh I could roll down and fall And get on my feet aga¡n" "W¡sh I could set my fears as¡de" "So I could return to God And then return to myself" "Lost!" "What do you want me to do for me?" "Wounded!" "Wounded by a bullet" "Your love ways are k¡ll¡ng me" "Lost!" "What do you want me to do for me?" "Wounded!" "Wounded by a bullet" "Your love ways are k¡ll¡ng me" "Wounded Wounded by love" "Somet¡mes I feel sad A I¡ttle t¡red" "It's as ¡f even our love Was keep¡ng us apart" "The stages depress me L¡ghts bl¡nd me" "Do you th¡nk ¡t's easy for me?" "That I can put as¡de my lonel¡ness When I don't know ¡f I have you" "I don't th¡nk so" "I don't th¡nk so" "Lost!" "Wounded!" "Wounded by a bullet Your love ways are k¡ll¡ng me" "Wounded!" "Wounded by love" "Wounded!" "Your love ways are k¡ll¡ng me" "Wounded!" "Lost!" "What do you want me to do for me?" "Wounded!" "Wounded by a bullet" "Your love ways are k¡ll¡ng me" "Wounded!" "Wounded by love" "Okay, then." "And now?" "I'm sorry, really." "I have to wait it out." "How much time does it take?" "I don't know." "From 15 minutes up to an hour." "Men need 15 minutes to know if they fucked up." "Women, instead, they don't mind anymore." "A sexist invented that!" "Everything's full of theories now." "Do you know why people go shopping?" "No." "Sexual problems." "Women, when not satisfied by their partners." "Then a deficit of something shows up there." "An energy deficit." "There's the lack of orgasm." "You see, when women fake their orgasms, they end up not being able to tell fake from real." "Then those orgasms become real." "No, a real orgasm is different." "Do you fake your orgasms?" " Sure." "Don't you?" " Nah." "I fake my comings." "Let me go on." "A woman who fakes orgasms experiences an energy deficit." "So she needs to go shopping, because buying is like a penetration." "You get yourself something." "It's sort of sexual." "Sales, for instance, were made for frustrated women." "There's no compulsive buying after good sex." "Or have you seen it?" "No." "Truth is, I never visit the malls." "I just remembered something." "You wait." "What's that?" "Blood is supposed to go down, so that later it will return upwards with more strength." " It's a gravity phenomenon." " Does it work?" "A friend of mine told me so." "He also said that if you drink lots of water, some glands become rigid and..." "Hey." "I'm telling you men's secrets." "Men's secrets?" "Who cares about them?" "It's men who can't stand not knowing what we women think." "They find it annoying when we go to the bathroom in groups." "Sheer insecurity." "As if they were our only subject." "For me, the most interesting part is that girls indulge in lesbian relations during puberty." "A typical male fantasy." "You know why women are more evolved than men?" "Because of their intuitive thinking?" "Because men masturbate manually, and women digitally." "I had a lesbian teacher." "She used to touch us when we were upside down." "I got only C's." "We were supposed to do it gracefully." "That wasn't fair." "Boys had to play ball, while girls had to jump a bench and stand upside down." "Everything was so Nazi, so religious." "If I go into my kitchen and run into a nun, it would frighten me more than a man with a knife." " Shit." " Are you okay?" "No." "Where does it hurt?" "Here?" "Yes." " And does this hurt?" " Yes." "Have you ever had a Reiki massage?" "No." "To tell the truth I don't believe in such things." "Everything is energy." "You should believe." " You know how to do it?" " Yeah." "You're going to feel an intense heat." "Do you have a job?" "Not anymore." "Unemployed?" "I'm going to Belgium to get my doctorate." " When?" " Soon." "Soon?" "Next week." "Are you married?" "No." "Do you have a girlfriend?" "No." "Did you have one?" "Yes." "But it wouldn't have worked." "There's the distance issue." "Mail coming and going, web cameras..." "No." "So we talked it over and broke up." " Just like that?" " Yes." "Just like that." "Perhaps she had a different point of view." "And you..." "How would you have seen it?" "I guess it's better to have a relation with someone than to have nothing at all." "That's half a relation." "Half?" "Because there's no sex?" "Yep." "Half because there's no sex." "Casual sex is nothing." "Such as this?" "Yes." "Such as this." "We better leave." "Yeah." "We better." "And your back?" "Better already." "Francisca." "My name's Daniela, asshole!" "I'm sorry." "That was a short circuit." "Yeah, a short circuit." " Forgive me." " Who's Francisca?" "Your ex?" "It doesn't matter." "It does matter!" "You brought her to our bed!" "Come on, it's just a name." "And if I called you Matías?" "Or Diego?" "And if I told you, "Come on, Diego, push faster"?" " It wouldn't matter?" " Okay." "Sorry." "Who is she?" " I really don't care." " She was my ex." " Ex?" " My ex-girlfriend." "It had a hole on it." "What?" "Apparently it had a hole." "Who had a hole?" "The condom." "It was sort of slashed." "But when you took it off?" "I don't know." "Maybe." "Or it was broken from the start." "I didn't notice it." "How come you didn't notice it?" " What size was the hole?" " That's not important." "It had a hole." "I mean, I want to know if a lot came through." "Well, yes." "They went through." "Many of them did." "You're taking care of yourself?" "You're on the pill or something?" "No." "Is this your fertility period?" "Yes." "Moderately fertile or very fertile?" "What size was the hole?" "Where is it?" "I don't know." "I flushed it." " But we had to make sure." " Of what?" "It had a hole." "I'm sorry, I didn't measure it." "I never carry a ruler every time I wash my dick." "Don't be rude!" "I'm just trying to let you know that a few thousand sperms got through." " That are inside me now." " Of course they are." "We were making love." "Having sex." "Fucking." "That basically means that parts of me go into you." "No one ever told you that?" "How come you didn't notice?" "Hold it." "Are you blaming me?" "You are not going to get pregnant." "Even if we have the worst of luck and you are at the peak of your fertility, we'll go to a drugstore and settle it for good with a couple of pills." "Just like that?" "No!" "I mean, yes." "Just like that." "Or you want to start a moral discussion?" "I don't want a moral discussion, but everything means shit to you." " Just like all the guys." " Right." "Well, you want to discuss abortion?" "The day-after pill?" "Extraterrestrials?" "Telethons, perhaps?" "I don't want to be with you." "Let's leave." "Yeah, let's." "You'd freak out if I ended up pregnant." "The floor would shake under your feet." "You'd stop fooling around with your dick all over Santiago." "Did I have to bring you here at gun point?" "Right, you didn't want to come." "Well, 'cause I'm stupid, the only reason." "Fucking a stranger." "How do I know you don't have AIDS or any venereal disease?" "How do I know you're not a psycho after me forever?" "I'm nervous, sorry." "Look, nothing will happen." "Maybe I broke it when I took it off." "And had the impression..." "That's more likely." "Nothing will happen." "Let's go." "Let's go." "Have you seen my bra?" "No." "Look under the bed, please." "Not there." "The truth is that I'm a bra collector." "You moron." "I'm just trying not to end this in a bad mood." "Here." "There you are." "Ever played "Step on the floor end of the world"?" "With my brother we used to play that we had to step on cushions, pillows, clothes, 'cause touching the floor meant the end of the world." "Enough, stop." "Cheater!" "Stop." "What are you doing tomorrow?" "I'll sleep late." "Till noon at least." "And you?" "I have to go to Viña." "I must take my grandmother to a funeral." "Who died?" "My grandmother's last surviving brother." "He had cancer." "Everyone's dying of cancer." "Nobody dies of old age anymore." "Do you believe in God?" "No." " Do you?" " Yes." "I mean, I don't believe in the old man in a garment." "But I do believe in an energy based on love." "What about wars?" "What about missing children?" "What about planes crashing?" "Boy, God's got to be quite violent." "Maybe he's a child who's just learning." "In some sort of rehearsal and mistaking." "But he is there." "You can feel his order in every small event." "In synchronies." "Look." "You saw me." "We both left at the same time." "My taxi got late." "You were in the hallway." "That was just so." "If you had been in the kitchen." "If my taxi had been on time, or further back." "If my sister hadn't borrowed my car..." "If I hadn't gone to the party..." "Too many things brought us here together." "Are you going to call me?" "What do you think?" "That you won't." "Hey." "Are you asleep?" " Are you asleep?" " No." "Did you hear that?" "A friend of mine went with a guy to a motel." "There they asked them if they wanted a video or not." "They said they wanted a video." "Once in the room, they saw there wasn't a TV set nor a video recorder." "As they left the next morning, the room maid handed them a tape." "They had been taped." "Courtesy of the house." "If I had a motel, it would have hidden cameras." "Wouldn't you pay to see how real people fuck?" "Wouldn't you pay to see what really goes on with two people locked at a motel room?" "No." "Hello?" "Carla." "Where are you?" "But are you okay?" "Who's going to drive you?" "You can't go on like this." "No." "No." "You guess." "Yes." "Okay, bye." "Yes." "I'll tell you." "Right." "Bye." "Who was that?" "A friend of mine." "At this hour of night?" "She's not well." "She has an affair with a married psycho." "They went out on a date, he got drunk and put on his recurrent pathetic show, and then he left." "She stayed there by herself crying." "It takes a real fool." "That man ruined her life and will never leave his wife." "It's your friend's fault." "But she's in love." "Did she ask you whom you were with?" "She asked if I had left with you and if I was still with you." "What did you tell her?" " That I did." " What did she say?" "She laughed." "She already knew." " How come?" " Because I told her." "Told her what?" "I told her," ""Look." "See that guy with a bird face in a green shirt?" "I'm going to fuck him. "" "You said that?" "Yes." "Bird face?" "Yes." "What about the synchrony, God, the taxi that got late?" "Just bullshit?" "You said, "I'll fuck the bird face guy. "" "Yes." " And it was you who fucked me?" " Yes." "Sure." "I never fucked you." "No." "I mean, the world revolves around you." " Yep." " Huh, shit!" "And if I told you I asked a friend," ""Man, who's the babe with the big tits"?" " Big tits?" " Yeah." ""I'm going to fuck her. "" "What would you say?" "That you were a typical man." "Did you see my scar?" "My appendicitis operation." "I was on a high school trip to Bariloche." "I started feeling terrible, but nobody cared." "They took me to the hospital." "It's sort of heavy at a hospital when it's not your country." "I made friends with an Argentine girl my age." "She had had an abortion." "They had removed her womb." "While my classmates were dancing and having fun," "I was talking with that girl about her rapist father." "See the scar here?" "A car crash, with my dad." "The brakes got broken." "It was an old car." "Once dad knew that the car wouldn't stop, he protected me with his arm and crashed the car against the sidewalk." "We hit a pillar." "But he saved me." "I never felt that he loved me." "But then I knew." "I always thought that he loved my brother best." "Why so?" "I don't know." "Maybe because he had all his attention." "And you visit your old man often?" "No." "Is he like you?" "I guess so." "He's cute then." "He doesn't have a bird face." "You are cute." "You don't have a bird face." "My old man has this heart condition." "Something's blocked over there." "He'll die any minute." "I'm always saying, "This weekend I'll visit him. "" "But somehow I never go." "It's unavoidable." "All I hope for is that when the moment comes, he will go swiftly, at once." "With no pain, no agony, no intensive care unit." "Dad dreads hospitals." "It's telephone time." "Hello." "Yeah." "No." "No, I'm not alone." "With some friends." "Yes." "Okay, tomorrow at lunch time." "Try to sleep." "Yes, you can." "Try to." "No, you don't know them." "From the masters." "Yeah, okay." "Bye." "Want one?" "Thanks." "Don't you want to know who that was?" "No." "Okay, who was it?" "That was my ex." "In a panic rush." "She doesn't want me to leave." "That's why she called?" "She wanted to know whom I was with." "And whom were you with?" "Friends." "She's got problems." "Sure, she calls you at 5:" "OO a. m." "She's got an obsession with calories." "Every time she eats something she counts calories." "She even thinks we ended because she was fat." "Did she throw up in the shower?" "What?" "Did you catch her vomiting?" "No." "Why?" "You do that?" "I had bulimia once." "At least I think so." "About three years ago." " What did you do?" " Vomit." "Vomit." "You eat something, then you throw up." "My boyfriend used to take me to fast food places." "Hamburgers, pizza and such." "And I threw up later." "I must have puked in every bathroom of every mall." "And every bathroom in every friend's house." "I was an expert at vomiting." "The best way is in the shower." "She doesn't vomit, but counts calories compulsively." " And she's fat?" " Yes." "No." "I don't know." " That's not the point." " What's the point?" "That I can't stop feeling responsible for her situation." "But you're not." "Sounds hard, but she's not your problem anymore." "She is." "So are you." "Everyone that's related to us is our problem." "I mean, if you call me tomorrow asking for help," "I would have to give it to you." "Wouldn't you do the same?" "That could drive you crazy." "We relate with lots of people every day." "You can't take responsibility for everything." "You have to know when to cut ties." "I'm also a calorie expert." "Do you know what's the most caloric snack?" "An ice cream." "A Swiss Chocolate ice cream." "That's 550 calories." "You know how many calories a banana has?" "No." "You know how many calories are burnt when you make love?" " No." " 550 calories." "You mean, then, you eat an ice cream..." "And fuck right after." "How many ice creams did you have today?" "Four." "We better do something about that." " Otherwise you'll get fat." " Yep." "You'll have to give me your e-mail." "...inviting you to the wedding ceremony of Daniela and Rodrigo on Friday the 23rd." " I haven't lost yet." " What?" "I haven't stepped on the floor." "The world hasn't come to an end." "So you don't have a boyfriend." "No." "Why are we doing this?" "What?" "Talking." "As if we wanted to know each other." "As if there was a future." "And if I told you I like you a lot and asked you to come with me?" "You'd never say that." "And if I did?" "Don't do this." "It's not funny." "Are you happy, Daniela?" "I really don't want to go into that." " I want to know." " What for?" "Just to know." "To know what?" "To know who you are." "And what would we get?" "You're leaving." "I'm staying." "What would you get by knowing my grandmother's name or if I never felt lonely, or if someone gave me a watch?" "What for?" "We are not knowing each other." "We're not dating." "We're not going anywhere." "I can't tell you the story of my life in an hour." "We came here." "I don't know why, but we did." "We had a good time." "Now we'll leave." "You were a break before the rest of my life." "And I was the adventure before your trip." "We are nothing to each other." "We were nothing." "And we'll never be more." "So stop asking if I'm happy." "That's really none of your business." "I don't want to know anything else about you." "When I was seven, my brother got lost." "I don't want to know." "He got lost in a supermarket." "My Mom went frantic looking for him." "A lot of people gathered by." "I saw an increasing number of people searching." "He was never found." "For years I woke up believing he'd be outside the house." "That he would be back." "I'll tell you something that nobody knows." "While I was surrounded by chaos, in that crowd of people searching everywhere," "I saw him." "He was outside." "On the street." "Alone." "And I froze." "I knew I had to say," ""There he is!" "He's outside!" "Over there!"" "For everything to come back to normal." "For God to exist." "So Mom would smile again." "So the episode would turn into a supermarket anecdote, instead of a threshold to darkness." "But I didn't." "I remained silent." "I closed my eyes." "And never said a word to anyone." "It's okay." "Why do you tell me this?" "Because I won't ever see you again." "I'm getting married." "This Friday." "Tomorrow's my bachelorette party." "Don't drink too much." "Want to know the presents that I got?" "The most useless:" "A machine to make ravioli." "The most useful..." "Luchita, the maid of the house, gave me a set of kitchen cloths." "She embroidered them herself." "She's been by my side since I was born." "Why are you getting married?" "He loves me." "I love him." "We have plans." "And the bad side?" "He's got a bad temper." "How bad?" "Very bad." "What?" "Does he...?" "A couple of times." "Within five years." "What happened?" "The first time, he broke my rib." "We broke up." "After that, he started treatment." "I thought that everything was fine, under control." "And the second time?" "The second time was an accident." "What accident?" "He was nervous, and I fell down a stairway." "I got an injury, that's all." "I know, it sounds much worse than what it really was." "But I don't see myself as a beaten woman or something." "It's just that I sometimes fear." "Where's he now?" "Traveling." "Business trip." "He'll be back on Tuesday."