Joining in the dance of words is always a pleasure, but doing so in the shadow of a mystery is a fascinating challenge. Responding to the inspiring invitation from the @es-literatos community in their competition ‘The Weight of a Secret’, and inspired by the impeccable and sensitive contribution from my dear friend ** @issymarie2** in her entry ‘Angélica: Guilty Before the Mirror’, today I have decided to lay bare a searing truth. Through creative non-fiction, I bring to life a man caught between the opulence of his possessions and the emptiness of his conscience. In this monologue, everyday objects find their voice and a parrot, acting as a witness, becomes the executioner of a remorse that has waited thirty years to be shouted out into the open. Welcome to this corner where the silence is, at last, broken.

‘Shut up already, Lorenzo! Shut that mouth of yours once and for all, you damned devilish beast!’

You look at me with those marble-like eyes, like old glass, as if you knew that behind this cold sweat a man is falling apart. You swing on the cage’s swing, mocking me with that garish green that reminds me of the jungle, of the dampness of those days when my friend… my brother… still believed the world could be fixed with marches and leaflets.

What are you looking at me for? Huh? Don’t repeat that phrase to me. Don’t say it! If you utter that ‘Help me, mate’ again, I swear I’ll drag you out into the courtyard for the cats to eat you. But you don’t. You just stay there, motionless, like a feathered judge, watching me drink this bitter coffee that the cooker spits out at me with contempt.

Because even you, old coffee pot, are giving me the evil eye. I hear you boiling, and it sounds as if you’re shouting at me: ‘Coward, coward’. And you, kitchen, don’t even say a word to me. Don’t make the atmosphere any hotter for me; I’ve got enough to deal with from the steam coming from my own lungs. I told the bed that this morning, when the sheets weighed me down as if they were made of lead: it’s not that I didn’t want to help Óscar. It’s just that fear is a creature that bites your shins and won’t let you walk.

Pérez… my brother, the warrior, the parish’s martyr. “Just a bit, brother, just what the old man gave you before he died – for the lads’ medicines, for the co-operative, and the rest for the cause of Venezuela…”, he’d tell me. And I, with my hands clenched over my chest, feeling the bulge of the banknotes, told him I didn’t have a penny to my name. That the crisis, that inflation, that the mother who gave birth to us all in this land of oblivion…

A lie. A lie bigger than the Amazon.

Look at me now, Lorenzo. Look at this seventy-inch telly shining in the living room like a pagan altar. Sometimes I switch it on just to avoid hearing the silence of the house, but even it turns against me. The images flicker, and I think I can see Óscar’s face in every report from the neighbourhoods, in every dead body they pick up on the news. The telly spits out vivid colours to mask the greyness of my conscience, but it can’t. It’s a silent accomplice that laughs at my loneliness in high definition.

—‘Óscar, Óscar!’ you shout now, you bloody bird.

Shut up, I tell you! You give me the creeps when you imitate his voice. You make me feel as though he’s here, sitting at the table, waiting for the plate of rice I never served him because I was too busy hiding ‘the lettuce’ under the mattress. A mattress that now has golden springs, but which stabs my back with its spikes every night. There is no rest for those who betray their own flesh and blood for a handful of coloured mirrors.

People on the street greet me: ‘Sir, it’s great to see you’re doing well; you deserve it for being such a hard worker.’ If only they knew that this prosperity reeks of medicine that wasn’t bought, of a strike that ended in bloodshed, of a brother who wasted away waiting for a helping hand that I kept tucked away in my pocket, clutching the money with the grip of a miser.

Thirty years, Lorenzo. Twenty years without going to the cemetery. It’s not for lack of time; it’s for lack of nerve. What am I going to say to the gravestone? That the telly’s brilliant? That my bed is soft whilst his grave is hard and cold?

Stop looking at me like that, you bloody parrot. Don’t ask me for ‘my blessing’. I’m no saint. I’m a man surrounded by things bought with the silence of a dead man. I’m the owner of a house where even the walls are sick of me.

Say his name again, Lorenzo. Come on, say it one more time, to see if hearing it so often will finally break my heart completely, and I’ll dare, at last, to open the window and let you go—and, with any luck, let go of this weight that’s dragging my soul down onto the porcelain floor.

If you’d like to take part, I think there’s still time. Follow the link to the initiative, where you’ll find all the relevant information, and remember to follow the rules.

Concurso: “The weight of a secret.”

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You can also check out the latest posts on the #Literatos community page; you’re sure to find something enjoyable to read.

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