The buses calibrator

Some believe I work with a transportation or survey company. Others, that I give the lucky number to the drivers. But no. I am a bus calibrator. Let me explain: For those who do not live in a metropolis such as Bogotá, a chaotic city where the fight for the penny reigns, and thus do not confuse me with the street children who stand on the corners of the avenues, and they hit with sticks the tires to check their pressure. No. My job is a new profession in this city. We are still few. Once I began to think that it would be a good business to tell each bus driver how long it took him another bus on the same route, or just tell him if he was going ahead and very close. Among this guild they themselves spoke of the fight for the penny. Well, one day I made up my mind. I got myself a notebook and a pencil and I started to write down the numbers of the bus routes and the bus companies in an organized way. It was not easy. Although not all do it, I have tabulated the tracking of buses and routes on average every quarter of an hour. I'm not too bad in this business. Drivers already know me and believe me I live on this. There are already many like me, doing the same. This is my business. Ah!

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The female shoplifters

 

They tell me female shoplifter. Since I was a little girl I have been like this. I accompanied my mother in this trade. While I was asking the owner of an establishment for an item, I wrapped it  up with thousands of tricks to entertain him, while very sneakily I went inside, rummaged in the windows and took out what I could, and especially the money. Without further ado we sneak away. Many times they caught us, but what could they do if I was a restless little girl. It seems that previously these were dedicated to stealing clothes. That was his specialty. While one was deceiving a merchant, the other hid some garment under the naguas and carried it between her legs. But no, now we take everything we can, even if it is a jewel, a radio, anything of value. We usually work in a group since we cannot do it alone. Sometimes my colleagues do theater, while one asks the owner for any merchandise, another grabs the other's face to mislead the customers, and thus sneak away with something. At the end of the day we celebrated how well we had done. Or if not, how about it? Here I am. Many know, but what. I risk everything, even my life, if that's the case. What else can I do. Truth?

The female

Standing in a challenging position, her hands on her waist, she angrily watches the woman who from the window of an old building reveals a dark and smelly room. It gives her the same nausea that she got when one of her mother's clients raped her. She listened to the advice of her friends who explain the importance of having sex without feeling the pleasure of surrender. She does it as a revenge for the mother who banded her and scratched her for trying to do the same as her. Therefore, wear makeup. She wants to feel more female than the mother herself. It doesn't matter if they notice her girlish face.

The old

 

Tired of navigating uncertain paths, he slowly strikes the soul and takes a deep breath to endure the mystery of death. Very slowly it breaks away the sweat of dreams. The ether splashes the room and flutters tremulously the environment caressing the universe that beats its stars between explosions of atoms and traveling lights. Quickly drains the sip of life eager to meet its destination after a hectic past. He haggles over the little that remains of his own, ready to indulge his feelings on the shore of the stars. This urges him towards the future without pause, leading him to look at his image in the reflection of the shower of stars that move in rhythm towards infinity. It is seen in another time without future or space. Cultivate the land with the dew of tears shed on beards weary from the rigor of yesteryear. It is progressively repeated in diffuse instants, as if death were the one suffering on the carriage of life. It has never been the same throughout history. His image goes into eternity covered with different faces and different customs. Sadness overwhelms him again and predicts the death that comes amid the laughter of his accomplices as one life withers, while another germinates. In return, we enjoy seeing him lying on the sidewalks of the streets with his straw hat and threadbare clothes, perhaps tired of living what others began to do. We see him smelling of the gunpowder that his body will consume when we embrace and celebrate his final premonitory. He eagerly awaits the farewell, proud to be in all hearts amidst the blissful looks of the kisses and hugs, and the toasts to the year that will give birth to a new future during the crazy running of time on the calendar. Then it explodes in thunderous sounds and beams of multicolored lights between the celebration of men and women celebrating the end of one, and the beginning of another. The old man manages to cough his last breath. His memory is scarcely engraved on us as we learn to live in a moment the endless passage of the universe.

The other

The other looks at me silently. I look at him with the same look. There is no handshake or talk that breaks the silence. We both recognize each other after knowing our existence for a long time. We have many things in common. But even so, friends get confused with our attitudes. They think it's me, but no, it's the other. Rather, it seems that we are playing hide and seek, as we have never met before. They hate me when they see me serious, and they hate my attachment to vain things. They like to see me as the other. We cross our eyes without saying anything, and they reflect the animosity we have for each other. I break that reflection into a thousand splinters wanting to end that chance encounter. I turn around and leave the room in a daze thinking about the common things that tie up our lives. I manage to hear the noise that the other makes reconstructing the mirror, in order to look at myself again and detest with equal or greater force everything that I represent.

The other looks at me from afar, from the mirror that imprisons our features.

Cassandra

Cassandra, the fortune teller, took to the streets and found a world different from the one she had thought. He decided that since the future was not very rosy for men, to sink his thousands of eyes into televisions. Since then, children and adults have left their imaginations in the hands of these devices. Cassandra, now, forecast the present.

The trap

The men closed the doors and windows to all renovation. They preferred to look through the slits at the witches who fled desperately on their brooms on full moon nights followed by heavy clouds, cursing cloaks of oaths and imprecations, and incantations, to exorcise the evils of the new winds. Toads, snakes, mice and other vermin were expelled from the mouths of heretics in the long night of the inquisition, which not even Goya with his paintings could against the wrath of God's judgments, which turned the just into sinners. . Many stories were woven around the men and women of that time. Some historians say that most of them surreptitiously set about making them fall into their traps, and that each one sought his own for himself. 

They proceeded as follows: 

"They left a glass of water in the middle of the edges of the blades of open scissors and thrown on the floor where he wanted to take them. In the middle of the night they entered delighted traps, and appeared eager before the hunter furtive who was waiting for them to make love ". 

Now the way of catch them has changed. If you want to take them, follow my advice. Lie down comfortably, on your back, on the roof of your house or in a special part for the occasion. Make it the day when the sun is perpendicular overhead, and the moon is horizontal in the sky. Close your eyes. Please wait a few minutes. You will see them in your imagination dance on the celestial vault. Don't panic. From the sun they will come resolute towards you. They will arrive slowly. Take the one you want, and enjoy. 

If you are a woman, do the same. The difference is that the sun must be horizontal and the moon vertical at your head. Relax. Wait calm. He will see us go lustful.