madhouse
maru delgado
Because my eyes were young
and my heart
just another button on my straitjacket
Carlos Oquendo de Amat
When I returned to the hotel, I noticed the silence from the hallway. It made me a little nervous, the corridor seemed an endless tunnel and the carpet as dry as sand. I was scared. When I saw him, my body shook for several seconds; I hesitated before taking another step.
I started looking for her, nobody else could have done it. She was the only one who had been with him in the morning. I went to my room, it was intact. I looked under the bed, in the closet, drawers and suitcases. I went to the bathroom but did not find her. I looked in the black bags where he kept his card game, his backpack, the curtains, behind doors, under the small tables, in the larger vases... I assumed that she had escaped and it made me more anxious. Anger was overcoming my body. I have never felt so much hatred and pain. I had to find her.
I avoided walking by the little body lying at the entrance multiple times; his eyes wide open screamed pain and fear, his little fists were clenched shut.
I went violently into the street; his little legs could not have taken her away. I walked the entire block, through the park several times. I looked up in landfills, including trees and shrubs, in drains and mailboxes; there was no sign of her. I returned to the hotel with the fear of facing the same scene, the same fear, the same body, the same pain. I covered my eyes but the smell of blood, which inevitably seeped between my skin, warned that the body stretched outside the door, pale, cold and completely terrified, had not moved. I sank heavily into one of the armchairs, the sound of a sharp scream made me move immediately. I looked under the blue seat cushion and there she was, with huge gray eyes, big as two tennis balls. She stood up immediately, the small plump body jumped in multiple directions. I took her by the neck, pressed it with all my strength but she stretched out so easily and slipped from my hands. So I took the same nail file and embedded it into her eyes. She cried so hard I had to let go; she wallowed for a few minutes then laid face down next to the other body.
That morning the clouds covered it all. My skin received millions of very fine needles of icy wind. The walls stopped talking and all the shadows had completely disappeared. They took my white straitjacket away, just for a few minutes. Lunch was served.
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