What you can find in her wastebasket

There she is. Her boss fixes his attention on her every Thursday morning when she enters to her white roomy office with that unusual short black hair that makes her look like a man from the sixties. She’s got the whitest skin, a thin body, two thin lips, a genuine smile, two daily complains, the first one is my toes ache, the second is I’m so exhausted I cannot feel my legs, a small nose, two big dark eyes.

Every single move she makes is so rigid that female softness doesn’t seem to fit on her; every single garment she wears is perfectly ironed. She passes her old fingers through her hair every time something stresses her out, every time Julian pours coffee on the floor. She is absolutely sincere she is unquestionably prudent. All her physical aspect and her soap smell make her look meticulously clean. Her name is Odilia. Today is her birthday fifty-five. Nobody knows it. She has told everyone at work that her birthday is in December 29^th, the exact month of her vacations. She is secretly celebrating in her office with some of her favourite whisky. Today it’s the day where she remembers her tenth birthday, that birthday that nobody remembered, that birthday where her mom and dad left her with her uncle, that birthday when the days became a constant fight to get money, to live. This proud elegant counter celebrates in privet all her accomplishments, her life itself.

Life has become easier and today she wonders why she hasn’t quit this job. She’s got quite a lot of money. Her independence makes her feel alone but that is nothing new. She is actually always telling every one: “…just remember, we are all in this alone”

Her reasons to wake up were her children and her job but now she can realise her mission has come to an end. She has finished. What to do now with all this freedom? Now that she doesn’t have to work. She doesn’t have to be responsible with anybody. All she’s got to do is to do what she wants to. All she knows about herself is that she likes chicken, she likes to read and she has never gone to the sea but maybe that’s because she doesn’t like the hot weather and the black people. She likes to feel drunk and she likes to talk to her neighbour Alberto. What to do with all these possibilities? She keeps wondering...