Little Footsteps

A new home a new beginning:

When she received the fresh air of the morning in the face, Paula thought about the freedom, that abstract concept that nobody understands until one is deprived of it. How much she needed that freedom! And although a little of freedom was granted to her, that breeze was the life's elixir, a life that gives to her a new opportunity.

The car was moving slowly down the road and the trip had been going on for more than two hours. Paula rubbed her neck because she had pain and she couldn't sleep. She sensed that she could not do it, even though there were still two more hours of travel. A glass panel separated her from the driver. He was a grim man with a cold gaze, but he kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

At first, the presence of woman had caused him fear but as time went by, he recovered his courage. He was the usual driver who moved patients to their new homes when their relatives couldn't go for them. He had to take her far away. The woman had heard when he complained to her doctor but the discussion ended when she appeared with her little bag, ready for the trip.

Suddenly her gaze was lost again in the distance of the landscape, but she did not see anything, memories invaded her mind. She remembered her arrived to the psychiatric hospital Santa Ana. What had been her diagnosis?... Post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative amnesia, but there it had not finished everything. In her clinic history (that she had been able to read from the corner of her eye) there were another words... Strangest words for her, almost incomprehensible. She couldn't forgive those words... Paranoid personality disorder, paranoid psychosis, delirium. What did those words mean? Was she crazy? The only thing she was sure of, was that everything had been the result of the accident.

The car crossed a closed curve, stepped on the sidewalk and she woke up with a start. Paula didn't understand how could she fall asleep and when.

"Where are we?" asked to the driver.

"Soon we will arrive to «San Fernando," answered the man.

The town of San Fernando was three kilometers from their destination, so, very soon she will arrive to her new home. She settled on the seat to adopt a more comfortable posture, thinking about the accident, but the problem was that she didn't remember anything. The only thing that she remember when she tried to think about that was that light that dazzled her, and also remembered the baby's cry. That memory caused pain into her heart, so she tried to concentrate on the landscape to, in that way, stop feeling, or rather, stop hearing that scream into her head.

When Paula tried to remember the accident or the days before it, she found deep lagoons where she didn't remember anything. Her doctor had told her that she would soon recover her memory, that she had lost it because traumatic events that she suffered.

"We are arriving to the town!" said the driver, taking her out of her reverie.

Then he turned down a dusty street until they arrived to a gas station. The car needed gas. When they stopped in the middle of a lot of dust, Paula got down from the car to stretch the legs.

The place was almost empty because there was just one car filling the tank beside them.

The middle-aged blond man who attended the station, look them up and down with all impudence, causing the woman to feel uncomfortable. He had long and dirty hair, an incipient beard and a pair of broken jeans.

"I go to the bathroom, 'll be back soon," Paula said to the driver who watched her with concern.

The girl almost ran to the place where there was a faded door with a sign: «Public bathrooms» She got into there

"Don't delay!" the driver shouted while watch her until she arrived to the bathrooms. Nervously he felt his pockets of his pants and took out a small box from there. He tried to light a cigarette with trembling fingers.