No cerrar nunca los ojos
_Me da un paquete de harina y cien de queso rallado - expresó Wilita poniendo un billete arrugado en el mostrador de madera. Armando miró el billete y luego miró a Wilita, con perspicacia, con asco: "Seguro había robado aquel billete", pensó Armando y acarició su pistola. "Si pudiera acabar con esas ratas definitivamente", pensó nuevamente recordando que Wilita pertenecía a una familia de delincuentes.
Por su parte, con el paquete de harina y una bolsita de queso, Wilita salió de la bodega pensando: "Seguro cree que yo me robé ese dinero, pero que va. Yo no quiero ser como mi familia. Yo quiero trabajar para ganarme lo mío, tener lo mío pues", y sus pasos rápidos y sigilosos, su mirada hacia cada lado, con los ojos bien abiertos, hablaban de costumbres heredadas, de lazos invisibles y ecos eternos: "Abre bien los ojos para que no nos atrapen", le decía su papá a él y a sus hermanos para que pudieran sobrevivir en aquel bosque de asfalto.
En la noche, luego de la comida, Wilita bajó del cerro. En casa de la Aurora era el encuentro. Wilita quería decirle que había encontrado trabajo, que comenzaría a reunir para comprarle una cartera y darle para que se hiciera las uñas. Allá estarían el Brayan y Carlito, esperándolo para comprar una botella: "Esta noche brindo yo. Me pagaron", les había dicho por mensaje de texto.
Con las manos en la chaqueta, Wilita se deslizaba entre los callejones del barrio como si nada le pesara sobre sus tenis nuevos:
_Yo no quiero ser como mi familia. Yo quiero ser diferente - pensaba y se detuvo a contar los billetes que llevaba en el bolsillo. No vio la sombra detrás, no escuchó las pisadas de las botas de policía, cuando volteó, miró la furia en el rostro de Armando: era demasiado tarde.
_Así quería encontrarte: con lo robado en las manos - masticó las palabras y luego se escucharon los disparos. Primero uno, luego dos y ya después, nadie sabe.
En el suelo, Wilita intentó mantener los ojos abiertos, como siempre le había dicho su padre: "Abre bien los ojos para que no nos atrapen". Y Wilita buscaba mantener los ojos abiertos, pero se le cerraban.
HASTA UNA PRÓXIMA OPORTUNIDAD, AMIGOS
La imagen principal es de libre uso y editada en Canva, y el texto fue traducido con Deepl Translate
Versión en inglés
In the afternoon, when Wilita entered the grocery store, the first person to see him was Armando, the police officer, who stood in front of him, alert and defiant, as if the boy's presence were a splinter in his finger. Then Ana and Sebastián, the owners of the grocery store, who were behind the counter, saw him.
“Give me a bag of flour and a hundred grams of grated cheese,” said Wilita, placing a crumpled bill on the wooden counter. Armando looked at the bill and then looked at Wilita, with insight, with disgust: “He must have stolen that bill,” Armando thought, and he caressed his gun. “If only I could get rid of those rats for good,” he thought again, remembering that Wilita belonged to a family of criminals.
For her part, with the bag of flour and a small bag of cheese, Wilita left the store thinking, "He probably thinks I stole that money, but no way. I don't want to be like my family. I want to work to earn my own money, to have my own things,“ and her quick, stealthy steps, her gaze darting from side to side, her eyes wide open, spoke of inherited customs, invisible ties, and eternal echoes: ”Keep your eyes open so they don't catch us," her father would say to her and her siblings so they could survive in that concrete jungle.
In the evening, after dinner, Wilita came down from the hill. The meeting was at Aurora's house. Wilita wanted to tell her that she had found a job, that she would start saving up to buy her a purse and give her money to get her nails done. Brayan and Carlito would be there, waiting to buy a bottle: “Tonight I'm buying. I got paid,” she had told them in a text message.
With her hands in her jacket pockets, Wilita slipped through the alleys of the neighborhood as if nothing weighed on her new sneakers:
"I don't want to be like my family. I want to be different," she thought, stopping to count the bills in her pocket. She didn't see the shadow behind her, didn't hear the footsteps of the police boots. When she turned around, she saw the fury on Armando's face: it was too late.
“This is how I wanted to find you: with stolen goods in your hands,” he spat out the words, and then the shots rang out. First one, then two, and after that, no one knows.
On the ground, Wilita tried to keep her eyes open, as her father had always told her: “Open your eyes wide so they don't catch us.” And Wilita tried to keep her eyes open, but they closed.