Alabaster

Akidiko

It was 9 o'clock at night. The constantly resonating smashes seemed to have become routine in Molinos. The 2100's have had left disastrous outcomes after the dictatorship took power. Victoria's imagination seemed to come alive when thinking about the past of the soil the overpopulated building she lived in was planted in. Her sixteen years allowed her adequately balance the real and surreal, the abstract and concise. Her mind seemed to work with particular velocity and precision when she was reviving the environment in which Margarita, her 84 year old friend that lived in the local retirement home, grew in. She worked mandatorily in Margarita's house as part of her social contribution to the government, just like every other teenager that chose to use their free time obeying government rules and avoid any kind of direct issues between the dictatorship and their families.
The cotton in the littoral, the coffee in the mountains and the happiness in the visages appeared to be impossible realities with the experience of Victoria's short life. Margarita's mouth used to dry out after hours and hours of wonderful, colorful and intense anecdotes. Her peculiar way of describing every detail with poetic eloquence and the channeled vividness of her eyes represented undeniable victories contrasted with her age.
Old melodies took her to the rainy afternoons of past years. She had no option; music, television and any kind of mass entertainment had been forbidden because of its alleged uselessness. Margarita still cherished her CD's, which with her brilliant memory were the only traces of the past that were being dimly and gradually overshadowed by the new national orders.
"One more and I'll stop insisting today, Margarita. Nights are boring and my tired glances to the ceiling have no purpose when I'm not dreaming about that life," supplicated Victoria, even though the limited infinity of stories had been told to her more than once. Each repetition represented a collection of diminutive images that had been ignored in past occasions, due to their captivating effect.
And since there is no better way of convincing someone whose purpose on earth has culminated -or seems to have, lost in the immensity of past experiences​- is to reflect through the eyes the interest of an inexpert spirit; Margarita took a sit and in a ritual, immaculate, cologned with calm and clement colors in the habitual instant at dusk, she cleared her throat with a prolonged and low-pitched sound and began.

Alabaster.

"The Blanco family had been for decades prestigious due to its economic condition. They were the owners of the biggest cotton plantations in the country and represented the main employment source for the mostly poor inhabitants of the south of Molinos. The holder, creator and manager of this colossal empire was Rosa Blanco.
Her character was molded and polished by the adversities she faced throughout her life. When she was 24 years old and with four kids, her husband drowned in the embittered waters of the Roldan River. The cotton fields she once owned diffused drafts of demur and nostalgia. The whiteness of the landscape reminded her of the pale cadaver of her only love, glowing like a light source with the reflecting on his skin at the riverside. Cotton was in its apogee, it was the most profitable business during that time. Rosa took the decision that brought opulence to her life, although day by day she avoided to witness the perturbing sight her property's landscape offered.
It had been more that forty years after the death of Rosas husband, but she still hadn't conquered the loss. Although she lived surrounded by workers and having every material object she could have wished for, loneliness started to weigh like marble on her chest. Her sons and daughters lived in other countries, building their lives far away from their roots. On her birthday, Rosa cried pining the pink and pinging epoch of her prime, when children ran around the yard and her life had a purpose. That afternoon, Rosa blamed her money and cursed the cotton fields with the fury of the sun in her eyes.