My phone alarm goes off and says «Do the laundry.” It’s funny, even it has a magic touch, because doing laundry is putting the dirty laundry (which isn’t quite dirty either) in a drum, pouring a little soap powder on it, then turning a knob and that’s it. Magic grace because in the countryside the clothes do get dirty, and there is a difficult skill to get at using coconut soap on bread and the stones by the stream so that everything is really clean. What would Ña Segunda think if she saw me washing my clothes in this thing?
Obviously, after the process is over, I remember that I have to check my pockets. And it’s remarkable, once I open the lid the first thing I see is a bill. It’s not unusual that I remember what will happen, it’s not unusual the dejavu, either, and yet as intense, as real as it is absurd, as homemade matrix for a near-sighted Neo who hates glasses and who doesn’t have a girl dressed in leather in love because he’s the chosen one.
I take the clothes out of the drum and put them in the dryer. Its night time, ñaSegunda, but I can dry my clothes without hanging them out and without the need for sun. Ña Segunda, with the poguazú cigar in her mouth, looks at me smiling, amused with my city boy’s witticisms. She looks at me in Guarani, from hwe long, jet-black hair, of which I do not allow myself to see her grey hair. The secret is to spread out the clothes, don’t put them on a roll, see? I put the jeans, the shirt, the underwear, the t-shirts and the socks on. I turn a knob and press a button. The machine roars quietly and shakes a little. Ña Segunda gives me a laugh, spits on the side.
Then I go to the fridge and take the ice bucket out of the fridge. I carry 12 buckets in the cooler while I look at her sideways. The ice was always a spectacle for her, perhaps because of her husband, who told her about the ice when it came out of the refrigerator with gas, in disorderly pieces, chopped with a knife, and which cooled the mint cane. Seeing me do it, now it seems like a girl, for a moment, finally, I look older to her.
I take two ice cubes out of the cooler and pour them into the glass, cover the two cubes with whiskey, sit on the cutlery sink counter and open the window. With my ears ready for the cello I control the operation of the dryer. I feel like I’m looking at the floor, so I light up a cigarette and for a moment I sink into the smoke. I deliberately close my eyes and turn my head until the window is in front of me. I lower it down and look at the moon; full, completely full. I drink a sip of whiskey, I take a whistle at it, and I know Ña Segunda is no longer where she was.
I remember the dimensions, sometimes I remember the things that will happen. Dejavu is usually intense. So I turn my gaze and look at his absence and no, it doesn’t hurt, but you ask yourself questions, especially when it doesn’t hurt. When it doesn’t hurt, no, I correct myself, when it stops hurting, the answers usually appear, or maybe the other way around. The truth is that the answers are always there when it stops hurting, and vice versa. Like that quasi-simultaneousness of the dejavu.
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