27

DURING ONE OF THOSE insomnias, one of those interminable nights, I called M and said I’ve gotta get out of here, it’s urgent, and he said come for as long as you need, I have a little house in Bustarviejo where I’m locked up writing my thesis. We can work things out here. I bought a ticket a few days later, paying for it in installments on my mom’s card, put a few things in boxes, found someone to look after the cat and house, and stopped by the job I’d already quit to pick up a severance check that wasn’t too bad. Having stepped out of that office that I’d so frequently wanted to leave for the last time, I sat down at a neighboring café to drink a ginger lemonade, and a conversation drifted over that I eavesdropped on to escape from the pregnancy; it was about airplanes, one of the diners was studying to be a pilot. He was talking about all the tests they had to take to graduate, and questions surged in me, almost all of them about the possibilities of an accident. I understood it as a sign: I shouldn’t fly on any airplane. I think they realized I was listening to their conversation because they lowered their voices, and I had to return to myself or to my thoughts or to the world that in that moment was dissolving and would soon collapse. Watching the street and the cars and the mall and the people, it felt like everything was vaporizing. Things crashed together and flew off, leaving me alone, and my hands started sweating. I overcame that wave of panic and hurried up, I could deposit the check at the bank, pack my bags, and spend the night staring into the darkness and empty apartment, catch a bus the next day, visit my sister in Guayaquil, that way I’d at least save myself a takeoff and landing, the moments I most suffered when flying. I’d fly from there.