the farewell micro-story

 When Clara left the house, she tried to send a text message to let them know she was on her way to the cemetery, but at that moment, the internet was moving at a snail's pace, as if an invisible hand were strangling the airwaves. When she looked up, the reason became clear: on the street, on the dark gray asphalt, three little birds lay dead. One of them, a sparrow with ruffled feathers, was stuck against a car tire. *A bad omen,* she thought, as she walked toward the bus stop without taking her eyes off the screen.

The bus arrived and stopped. Clara held her pass up to the reader, which took three seconds to light up green—an eternity—then she slumped into a seat by the window. The city passed by, gray and damp, in front of her, but she wasn't looking.

Then her phone vibrated.

—Lucía —she saw on the screen.

Clara frowned. She swiped left. Decline. And she started typing: *I'm on the bus, in five...*

But the phone vibrated again. Lucía again.

—Oh, for fuck's sake, what's with the calling —Clara muttered, and this time she answered the call.

—Yes? —her voice sounded flat, almost metallic—. Yes, I'm on my way. No. I saw the PDF in the email. Lucía, I swear, I already printed it and I have it with me… No, it's just that this thing is so slow… Okay. Fine. Yes. See you in a bit.

She hung up and let the phone fall onto her lap, as if it weighed more than it did.

—I can't stand it —she said quietly, but loud enough for the woman in the next seat to glance at her sideways—. I don't know anymore what it is about hearing people on the phone. It's a nuisance. Is it so hard to send a message, a WhatsApp, an email? But calling, what for?

The woman said nothing. Clara hadn't expected an answer anyway.

She looked out the window. The internet is slow. Bad omen, she thought.

The cemetery smelled of damp earth and wilted chrysanthemums. The air, cold and dense, clung to the wool of their coats. Lucía was waiting for them by the black marble tombstone, her eyes wet and shiny.

They hugged when they met.

—Thank you —Lucía said, pressing the paper against her chest. It was a farewell prepared for the moment, written by her the night before.

Clara nodded. She didn't mention that when she printed it, she had run out of black ink and had to change the cartridge. She didn't mention that Lucía's message had taken seven minutes to arrive, stuck in that shitty internet…

She just said:

—You're welcome.

Lucía cleared her throat and began to read:

—… She was a woman of few words, but when she spoke, people listened… She had a clarity and integrity that carried more weight than any rule… We only want to thank her for her example, for her strength, and for the mark she leaves on each one of us who were fortunate enough to work by her side…

—Rest in peace.

—Amen!

When the moment came—that awkward, silence-laden instant—to place the bouquet of scrawny daisies on the damp stone slab, Clara noticed something strange. She leaned forward slightly, frowning.

—Don't they look a bit… feeble? —she murmured, her voice barely a whisper laden with doubt.

Marcos approached her; the gravel crunched under his shoes as he stopped in front of the flowers. Clara was right: the flowers in the bouquet, almost wilted, resembled thin stems like wires and seemed to have fewer petals than usual, as if someone had tried to economize, cheapening the cost of the offering.

It was precisely that mixture of poverty and neglect that sprang the lock of memory. The contrast was so brutal that the recollection assaulted her mind all at once, physical and vibrant: the last dinner at the company party. The restaurant hall with colored lights, the murmur of glasses, the air thick with perfume and cheap alcohol. And Her, that woman both feared and admired, with her rough character and boundless energy, telling such a bad joke, so terribly absurd, that it drew laughter from her sycophants.

That laughter back then was not this sepulchral remorse. It was a wild rubber ball, bouncing over their heads, careening off the walls and onto the tables with white tablecloths; one of those balls that break things—a glass, a plate, solemnity—and nobody cared, because the hypocrisy of the moment overlooked everything.

In that awkward silence, under a leaden sky and with the internet still useless in her pocket, Clara understood that the hypocrisy wasn't just Lucía's. It was theirs, all of them, pretending to mourn, honoring with withered flowers a life which, in their time, they hadn't had the courage to confront, tolerating her tyrannies, turning a blind eye and keeping their mouths shut.

—God rest her soul, but she was full of herself —Clara thought as a tremulous smile tightened her lips. At that moment, the silence let them feel the cold of the withered leaves on the trees surrounding them. And all of them, deep down, were glad when she retired and we were left alone. Death had now brought the memory in the silence of the cemetery afternoon.

And the dead birds she had seen upon leaving the house, on the street, seemed to foreshadow that time forgets everything.

 

mvf