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MARI' MARIIIIIII... echoes in the dark alley. A car passes by but it doesn't seem to belong to the area. In fact, it comes from outside. Cars that pass through here belong to the neighborhood, otherwise, they're cops. The market doesn't stop and the needles scratch the weakened skin.
The sun can't warm these buildings. This time it seems the sky is clear, not burnt like the grass resting between the cracks of travertine blocks chewed up by mold. You can see some satellite dishes that nobody pays for. People live on one balcony and die on the one above. Thousands of insects scurry unbothered in the city's foulest intestines. No one dares approach the sleeping monster. Cigarettes, syringes, and flying electrical wires. Forced smiles and pretentious writings on walls flaked by neglect. T-shirts drying in the cold sun, mostly Chinese. They burn the skin.
A monster devoid of soul but teeming with dark moles. The child looks at the camera, and you are considered lucky if they know what the gadget clasped in the photographer's hands is. Another stands on guard at a focal point. The market's cry is a warning. Proceed with caution but never stop the assembly line.
How many windows are here. How many blind eyes try to equally peer at that sun that produces no effect. The sails. Not even the wind can move them, can change their course toward a happy island. Years ago, the dynamite fizzled. It took several charges to cripple the concrete alligator.
What are you searching for in the converging lines of stairs nibbled by rust? What do you find in the worn-out corridors where few weddings and too many funerals are celebrated? Beware, the veil might get caught among the superfluous screws of a decomposing fridge. And that time when the plainclothes police come with the thundering voice of hidden sirens, it's better to gather some of these plastic and scrap metal breakwaters.
The grace of God costs little and must be equally shared. It's essential that the pouring be done by someone experienced. If an outsider dies, everything stops for at least a month amidst police and yet another round of newspaper headlines. Go fetch an ambulatory corpse from the area. Use them as a guinea pig. If they die, no one notices. At most, they would artificially die a few days later and still blend in among the plastic bottles forgotten on uneven floors.
What can a child with a father in prison hope for? Some money comes from outside, but a future isn't visible. What can a child with a murdered father hope for? And a mother deprived of her son by a lead overdose. That lead that melds with silver until it turns into a heavy frame that wraps around an enlarged photo in the dining room.
Caliber 7 and 65, caliber 9, 22. We test them on the hallway windows. No one passes by anyway. Do not erase that spray-painted writing on the glass. The one on the fifth floor must see it because I have to marry her, even if she's already pregnant. When the time comes, I have to go through all the floors of this beehive. An irregularly perforated sieve. Asymmetrical. Some eyes are walled up with tufa blocks. Others seem closed but see perfectly.
There is no color distinguishing the shapes. Everything’s smoke. Everything’s burnt. Here inside, people manage to survive, and I wonder how they do it. It's obvious the question remains unanswered. Someone sings without being able to forget. What's the use of trees if on the stairs they left a real carcass? What's the use of flowers if another carcass is dying of cancer in one of the many poisoned mazes of this jungle.
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