Page 5

A few hours more, station, deserted, a dirt road for inside the town, mud, mud, blankets outside, mouldering houses of tin, the shattered pylon further behind, not even a car, rubbish, two children setting fire to a heap, two or three other fires on the horizon, houses, the acid smell stronger, pieces and pieces of asphalt, houses of cement blocks, few people, half-open doors, half-light, the mattress as if it were soaked, that milk, the cramp in the stomach and dizziness, when I awoke, I hurried to make it before it got dark, a bit by chance and from what I remembered, asked questions, the other side back to the bridge, the murmur of water, the trees blackening but I could still see, it was in front of me almost as soon as I entered. What are you doing here, sit for a while beside you, if you could also back then, if someone bent down, heard you while still you could be heard, your eyes that were gleaming the eyes growing dim, the pain growing dim, with how many more did they bring you, the bell, silence as they lowered you down, stifled song and a pause, the murmur of water. I am cold, I leave among other names, photos that look at you yet do not see, the sun now again at its end. On the road back, on the plain, a breath, tepid, as a last breath, and a gleam, the river falling behind, the town mute as before, with some wine on the end of a table, the Bible being erased, between its pages the words of a stranger, between him I write wherever I find a no-man's land.