Miguel

     Miguel Salazar, if pressed to describe himself, would ask you to kindly leave him alone. He wasn't given over to thinking about that because there was no need to. He would be himself whether he meditated on it or not. What needed his sharp mind's attention was the world around him, which had the tendency to twitch about in a million directions at once. If he was not constantly watching, it would shake itself until the new shape was nothing like what he knew; it had happened before. Even Carolbury could be that way.

      Sitting at the bus stop and sending his eyes darting over everything, he could manage to break a sweat even in the chill of January. Every day when the bus came he chose the same seat at the back, beneath an ever-noisy air-conditioning unit which set him at ease whether humming to ward off the heat of summer or rattling along with everyone's teeth in winter.

      These bus rides were unbearable. People did not move, but everything went rushing about them nonetheless. He marveled at times that the friction of everything scraping past so many people did not light them aflame, but this marvel was short-lived. Inevitably, he would remember that they had the good fortune to have him riding in the back, watching, holding them portraits with his perspective. He would never be thanked for this work solely because people liked to frivolously ask others to describe themselves.

      Miguel heaved a great sigh of relief at the end of each trip and walked from the corner of his street up the row of same houses to his particular same house, entered and announced himself.

      'I'm home,' he said, pulling out his handkerchief and patting away a few beads of sweat.

      'Yeah,' came the inevitable response from further in. He traced it back into the kitchen where a young girl sat at the counter, her legs not quite reaching down the length of her stool. Miguel couldn't make out her expression behind her curtain of brown hair, but saw the pencil in her hand scratching rapidly away on the paper before her, the hefty textbook wide open.

      'Do you need any help?'

      'No.'

      'Right. Dinner's in the fridge.'

      'Yeah.'

      With that, he retired to his bedroom and tuned in to the local news, one final glance at the world around him to make sure it would survive a few hours while he slept. Satisfied that this was the case after an hour, he let his exhaustion overtake him.

      When he woke up, he found that Sunday had snuck up on him and set itself up in Saturday's place some time during the night. 'No one's perfect', he allowed himself to concede, after which he got up, showered, put on his Sunday semi-finest and stepped into the kitchen. There was the girl again, without papers or books this time, just herself and her white. White sandals, white dress, white hat. She sat there, kicking her feet, the other side of the same brown curtain drawn across her face.

      'Let's go,' she said matter-of-factly while Miguel looked for something worth saying. He ended up nodding mutely, watching as she slid herself from the stool and turned to face him. One wide eye studied him with the same detachment one might study a mold, while the other was shut tightly. Permanently shut. The scar tissue that reached down from the left of her face to encircle her neck had not been discolored for a few years, but it still had its snake-like shape, still seemed a snake to him. Just as abruptly as it became visible, it was shrouded again as the long strands of brown fell into their needed place.

      When he stood with her in God's house, he couldn't look at her, because everyone else already had that covered, and because if there was one portrait he didn't want to hold as it was...