For the last hour, for exactly the last hour

a million people have been about to leave their homes.

For the last hour, since half past seven this morning,

a million people have been about to leave their homes.

She’d noted down those lines years ago, while they were being recited by a host on Radio 3 during a program on urban poetry. She was surprised that the presenter hadn’t chosen anything involving Huesca. After all, Huesca is a city, she told herself. That’s when she started writing down the poems. When she took the job at the hotel, it seemed as if the view from her window was indeed present in those lines. A million people left their homes every morning at a particular time. And at that moment, under the white bridge, with the esplanade like a long tongue stretching out into infinity, she was absolutely certain that the number of people going to their offices or construction sites was much larger. There were so many that if you added them up, the figure would be astronomical. It was time to go back to work, but she was incapable of taking her eyes off the distant people, on the balconies of condos and in the street. She was also waiting for someone to cross the esplanade. Time passed, but the expanse of concrete remained empty, as though the inhabitants of the nearby apartments avoided setting foot in it. Not even the people walking their dogs strayed from the narrow stretch of yellowing grass along the perimeter. She knew she’d be unable to leave until someone crossed the center of the circle.