Breathe. Weep. Exhale

Breathe. I feel her presence in the dark. Then I see her pale profile perforate the shadows. Her dress blends with the background of the high-ceiling room. One thought her to be ethereal but the painful echo of the wood that her needle-point heels produces give her an earthly nature. A soft sob reveals the pain knotting in her chest and lets this guides her to the center of the room—the special point her soul chose to leave its body and rise into an unknown direction. Six steps and she elevates over a steel stool, closer to her final destiny. Weep. The memory strangles her soul and, in vengeance, the rope strangles her neck. The metal stool that once held her body falls defeated against the wooden floor. The air becomes infinitely heavy. The air is too dense and rough for her satin-red throat that, during her last moments of eternity, encloses the minimal space of life. Her sharp eyes point to a roof of a color white. Her eyes, during her last breath, protested against He who makes use of roofs of all rooms, of all prisons, of all hospitals, of all the asylums of the world, in order to avoid the saddened eyes of the beings He made of clay and that now seek His breath; those beings who now claim a speck of hope or a divine hand to scare away the haunting specters forever, the insatiable demons. This never happens and she knows that. The last air held in her lungs can be heard rushing out of her beautiful body. She disappears into the dark. Everything that exists on Earth does shares the same fate. Her death was the strongest and most applauded. The spectators, her witnesses, did not know. By this last act she would be remembered. She, a long time ago, had already known. Exhale.

J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)

San Diego

11.21.09