PENUMBRA

Shadows

Night had already abandoned the half-open window, the morning breeze served as an alarm clock for the man who saw his wife still asleep, perhaps dreaming of another life, with other routines, streets, and kisses from another era, another time. He got up to make himself another coffee, God knows how many. The roasted smell slowly woke his wife. With her eyes already open, she stayed for a few minutes, between two and three, then got up, walked to the man, took a cup, and waited for him to serve her. At the same time, he kissed her on the forehead and went out to the garden to sit on that old metal bench, where she stayed, accompanied by her thoughts, her awakenings, and her coffee. He went out to the garden to say goodbye with a light kiss on the mouth and squeezed her shoulder, "Wish me a good day, wife, I love you," he would say every morning before heading to work. In that distance that was created as he left, their freedoms to be themselves emerged. She would open a notebook and simply let the words flow, without rhyme or reason, only at the top of the page she would write, "TODAY I AM." Everything else was pure uncertainty. That notebook was so intimate that not even her man knew it, only she, it belonged to her and no one else. After work, he would go into an old coffee shop where he would talk for an hour with the bartender, a very lonely coffee. He would simply talk, the bartender would ask, "How was today? How's your wife?" And he would simply talk, non-stop. She never heard any of these words; it was his moment alone, no one else's. She would always return from her workday at seven in the evening, he at seven-thirty, always. They would make dinner together, usually cooking three dishes. They would talk about their routine, about what they did, about what happened at work, their daily life. They went to bed at nine o'clock, made love, they were them and only them. He would slightly open the window, and they would sleep, and only sleep.