dove

I was sitting at the dining table, buried among several papers, next to a small bedside lamp stolen from my sister’s empty room, which was pointing at the watercolor I was painting. It was lit, even at that hour, just before lunch. From there, I saw my father’s car pull up, and I heard the sound of the gate and the door as he entered, just like when I lived there with my parents.

“I found something for you to paint,” he said proudly as he entered the house.

I stepped out of the house into a bright and clear day: The light in Punta Arenas is crisp, as pure as the wind. I went out with slippers on my feet and the camera in hand, to the coordinates my father had recited to me from the entrance.

I stopped next to the square at the street crossing where the dove lay, so dignified and conspicuous in its death, that I couldn’t help but agree with my father… I photographed it, days before the new year, looking at the ground I adjusted the camera, days before 2020, I focused and clicked. I had just read about a virus in Wuhan and here I was taking this photo for a painting I would surely paint next year, thinking about today I made plans for tomorrow, without really thinking about tomorrow, tomorrow had already thought about me, and click I took another photo of the dead dove.