Metamorphosis
One morning they started playing hide-and-seek and came up with a safe place for her to hide. The little creature could barely speak, but she thought it was funny and felt proud and happy that they had included her in the game. Trusting, and certain that their choice was the right one, she climbed in.
It was a somewhat rickety wardrobe, yet spacious enough for her small, agile body. She was delighted by the challenge and sure she wouldn’t let anyone down.
—When we count to one hundred, we’ll call you so you can come out —they told her.
Intrigued and amused, in she went. She wedged herself as best she could among clothes that smelled of mothballs, purses, and plastic bags of different sizes hanging from hooks. At first she felt uncomfortable and a little perplexed… She was afraid, yet she trusted.
Because she didn’t know how to count, she waited for the others to call and remained motionless, with only the beating of her heart for company… She smelled the clothes and imagined a world where all those clothes, purses, and coats had moved among people and conversations… There she fell asleep.
She woke up, and it seemed no one had counted to one hundred; and since she couldn’t count either, she had no way to know how long that might be—whether a hundred was a minute or a whole lifetime.
How long she stayed she never knew. As time went by, her eyes began to pick out, in the darkness, the shape of every object… Perhaps—she thought—it was nicer to stay there. She began to settle into that cramped, narrow space. Now she could hear the beating of her own heart and felt sure that was something good and important. Soon her sense of smell sharpened, and she could distinguish fresh mothballs from old, traces of tobacco masked by attempts at airing… She discovered a world in every scent, imagining the conversation that had surrounded each garment before it was hung in the wardrobe.
In that world that was beginning to absorb her, she glimpsed a faint sliver of light; not just any light, but a white, radiant glow she hadn’t noticed before. More clearly, she realized it wasn’t light coming in but light going out. Moments later—or almost at the same time—she heard a voice saying:
—You can come out, we’ve finished counting to one hundreeeed!
But they found no one inside—only a ray of light that slipped out, lending even more form to the brightness of the day.
CARLOS. 14/07/2019. For María José.