By Milena Silva
We met when I was in high school and she was studying in Pre. I had already lived in that neighborhood for several months, and although his house was 2 blocks from mine, we had never seen each other. Appealing to memory, I think we began to coincide in the morning at the bus stop, both dressed in uniforms and with the relaxation marked on the face of someone who knows that the same would be there for 10 minutes or 2 hours.
The day to day in the same situation made us approach logically, and I think we do not need even ten words to fall into the subject that later made us friends and united us for many years … the ball.
Of course we were both fans of Industriales. We handled the names and numbers of the players with the same naturalness that we did with the school subjects or the musical groups of the moment.
Valley, The Duke, German, Vargas, Javier, Padilla, Cabrejas, Ferreiro, Colina, Euclides, Arocha or De la Torre… any of those names lived in our mouths.
What if we went to the Latino together? Well of course. And not once, but several times. We had days of returning with laughter and others of returning very sad. Yes, although some may not believe it, he used to leave the ballparks in Cuba sad. Sad, in silence and even that sadness lasted for days.
I remember in 92 that bitter final of Selectiva … the innings passed and the scoreboard did not change. 10 × 1 we lost that day and we didn’t even think about leaving because of that … on the contrary, we almost got “bruised” at both of us in the row that was formed afterwards … all for wanting to be among those who wanted to share the pain.
What a day that!
How many passions!
That’s how it was before.
Then life separated us. I moved back, she too, work, children … well.
About a year ago he wrote to me on Messenger because he found me on Facebook and there we caught up. We talk about everything as before, but we no longer talk about the ball … Not anymore.
When it came to that topic, the many and many hours those were reduced to a single sentence:
“It’s just that that doesn’t work anymore, Mile.”