Page 27 - Contrast2016

CONTRAST - 25

EMPTINESS

BY JIMMY CALDERON

The flash of lighting roams the clouded night sky. As you ride in the front seat
of a taxi to a restaurant you've only heard of, you can't help but to notice the
houses at your side of the road. You observe how each house is distanced from the
next, creating a certain, inexplicable void between houses. The taxi accelerates and
slows down, allowing you to smell the moist in the air-the scent of the soil just
after the rain-and to hear the sounds of the population just waking up from the
sudden slumber the rain had brought.

You can hear lots of people, but your eyes only perceive a few individuals here
and there, roaming the desolated streets of these caserios. Each house you pass,
you notice the unfinished structures that go upwards aimlessly, trying to reach for
an unattainable, ever-so-distant sky. In the few houses that are fully built you see
lights coming from the inside through the big windows, open doors, and big spaces
between walls and roofs-this space created by the way houses are built in Peru,
where wooden beams are placed in the walls to lift and support the roofs.

As you continue on your journey to this mystery restaurant, a feeling of
unexplainable eeriness creeps up your spine, making the hairs on the back of your
neck stand up. The lightning still illuminates the dark sky. The sounds weaken as
the smell of the rain permeates the atmosphere. The storm has passed, but anoth-
er one is coming.

At first you think the sky is creating the uneasiness, but you soon realize it's
not just the sky but also the voices coming from what seems to be abandoned
houses. You ride for a bit more, and as the chatting in the back seat becomes
meager and dwindle, you ponder on a single fact, a strike of sudden realization; and
soon you don't know what's more eerie: the obscured night with voices coming out
of abandoned houses or the bright day with empty spaces.