Voyassitude

“Would you play for me once more?”

It was impossible to deny his wish given the circumstances. I nodded briefly but struggled to stand up, anguish threatening to petrify me as I looked at him, fearing that he wouldn’t be there by the time I came back. I turned around and started walking through the debris. Paintings and furniture lay all over the place, creating a labyrinth of rubber with no exit in sight. I squinted in the shadows, trying to locate the closet, a half-broken wardrobe whose wood pieces created the shape of wild jaws in the darkness. As I extended my arm to remove the torn fragments of the closet door, I felt another aftershock vibrating under my feet.

It lasted just as long as the tear that ran down my face till it hit the cracked floor. My temples were throbbing and I almost ran back to him, but I awaited motionless, in silence. When the tremor was over, I extended my arm once again and searched inside the closet until I felt the guitar neck. After picking it up and starting to make my way back, I shuddered at the sight before me. Despite having seen the same scene for the last several minutes, I couldn’t avoid the waves of pain and despair drowning with lethal fury any trace of joyful memories I possessed.

There weren’t walls or a window in front of me anymore. The tranquil view of a city of delicate beauty that I used to relish so much had been replaced by a giant black hole through which my hometown appeared plunged into darkness, sorrow, and desolation. The few lights adorning Santiago came from brutal fires continuing the destruction initiated by a cowardly earthquake that chose to strike at midnight. I was able to perceive the silhouette of houses and skyscrapers barely standing, sinking structures rising to the sky as if begging for some mercy that didn’t arrive. There was no longer a wall to complete my little apartment, just a dark and sinister orifice, the wound of a building crumbling with each passing second. I returned to Matías with the guitar in hand and sat beside him, looking once again at his face and chest, the only parts of his body the collapsed ceiling hadn’t buried. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began to play.

The notes that ascended from the strings created a barrier between the apocalyptic world extending beyond our home and ourselves. Sirens and sobs were quieted by a melody rising in the midst of a tragedy. The feelings Matías had stirred inside me since we met began to flow freely as I sang. Each whispered word was loaded with memories and smiles, hugs and caresses, confessions and silences. The lyrics had nothing to do with our life, but with the tone of my voice and in the intimacy of the moment, my heart opened up like it had never done to show Matías, mi Matías, that he was my everything. I put into the melody all the emotions I’d never been able to describe to him, singing with the passion of someone who will never sing another song. I showed him with my voice how he had shaped this instrument that now produced the most sublime and painful of hymns.

Then, his voice arose as well, blending with mine. It was in that union that our souls greeted and bid farewell to each other at once, not before dancing one last piece under the turbid, dreary Santiago sky. My ears detected in his tone the curious, capricious love he’d cast my way like a spell to never let me go. Trapped as he was under the rubble, he smiled at me just as his hand, bathed in blood, emerged from beneath the rocks to caress my leg. It was in that touch, while still singing, that he presented to me the last gesture of love left inside him. The sweet harmony embroidered with our whispers expanded and embraced us like an invisible shield that not even God could shatter. And just like that, we stole from destiny a last shred of pure love and joy amid the devastation.

The song ended. The strumming of the guitar stopped just as mi Matías closed his eyes and my existence.

Outside, in a street heaped with debris, a group of people looks up at the partially collapsed building. They listen to a solemn anthem that prevails over grief, loss, hopelessness. Some policemen, trying to contain the endless emergencies, stop by to listen as well, forgetting the mayhem around. Kids and grown-ups running through the Lastarria, Yungay, and Bellavista neighborhoods, all of them searching for life through the mountains of bricks around, find themselves absorbed by a melody that both heals and hurts. They long to stay there eternally, just as much as they wish to run away from such a melancholic sound. Suddenly, they all think they see emerging from the decaying building a beam of red light, a minuscule ray overcoming the funereal veil wrapping the city. It isn’t a light of courage or strength. Not even of hope. It is a spark of love. A remnant of red luminescence that, like a phoenix, hovers over Santiago, sneaking into the heart of a defeated nation for a few seconds. Then, absolute silence.

I put the guitar aside and slowly snuggled next to him.

I thought I heard an ominous, clattering noise rapidly approaching from nowhere in particular. I knew then that She had arrived. The otherworldly freeze that shook me confirmed it. She was there with her scythe to take his essence and leave me with an empty body. But even Death herself was surprised, doubtful and moved, because I didn’t curse, I didn’t cry. I didn’t hold onto Matías’ body, nor did I yell his name. I merely caressed his cheek trying to capture the last vestige of his warmth.

Once Death was gone, I closed my eyes and rested my head on his chest. We both fell asleep. He, in an eternal sleep in the afterworld, awaiting my arrival. I, in a short nap preceding a new life I wasn’t going to live. The start of an existence in which I wouldn’t exist. The beginning of a fate without fate because you were my fate, mi Matías.