A Matter of Curtains

Only yesterday I was finally able to remember the last name of that “boyfriend” I had in sixth grade and I quickly looked him up on Facebook.

I had been trying for a while to remember the full name of the person who said I was his girlfriend, and I said he was my boyfriend, even though we had never talked about it, much less even held hands.

But that platonic love was so beautiful that I never forgot that skinny, hyperactive and freckled boy, who spoke so fast, that we never understood anything he said, as we knew nothing about what love as a couple was.

I had typed in his first name and last names, so the search outcome couldn't be wrong, but...

I remained looking at the photo, studying every detail and, yes, there, at the end of that look, he was there.

But he was a huge fat man with a good-natured expression surrounded by children and grandchildren that I would never have identified if I ran into him on the street.

Looking at the image, the excerpt of José María Vitier's verse I had read a while before echoed in my mind:

The morning always

raises its curtain

loaded with future or past.

Whether it's a threadbare curtain or it's gold.

The show begins anyway.

Anyway, with the curtains about to rise next, I still crossed my fingers that he would never remember my full name.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff