There are 8122 kilometers up here. How could this box have gone so far from an anonymous sender?
Only one address: No. 116 on Louis Lepoutre Avenue in Ixelles. A mysterious box has reached Angie's door, addressed to her, but she does not know who sent it. A voracious curiosity prompts her to open it. But, there are only loose sheets with unintelligible writings, and also there is a piece of reddish yellow alloy inside. When taking the piece of metal she remains attentive to the light that begins to emit that small piece in her hand, it looked like stars shine. The pages come out of the box, and begin to swirl slowly around the woman, they envelop her, and gradually begin to fly very fast, in a second of light they turn around seven times, and form an axis that pushes her to the edge of the door. She tries to maintain balance, but the speed is inconceivable, it would be impossible to go any faster. Angie is now in a kind of cosmic web made up of a mesh of filaments that are interconnected in an apparently chaotic way. A stillness made her bow and now she can read what is written on the pages. The letters seemed very funny and moved across the paper surface, forming beautiful words, and, when she tried to touch them, they became tiny blue glass points. Her fingers absorbed the blueness and they rose through her body making her look like a nebula. The atmosphere was calm. Those moving images escaped from the frozen scene. All the words penetrated her, passed through her aorta and then lodged in her brain. At that moment, she felt a sharp pain that left her immobile for a few minutes. This event occurs once every year. On this occasion, it was the turn of the young writer to see how a star explodes and fragments into millions of glitters across the galaxy. She flew into the dark interior of the box that still rested by her side. The cold was immense, she felt the weight of her body a million times greater than usual, when she opened her eyes, that had been extinguished for a moment due to the fear of the unknown, she found herself again in the living room. Her skin was pale now. An hour later, Angie could sit down, and write down everything that had happened to her. Every day and every night she created wonderful stories so easily that she could not believe it. She decided to scrutinize the box to see the address in it. She took a plane and arrived in the Belgian city, just in front of the Brugmann square, where a bronze bust lies. She opened her purse and took out that piece of metal that arrived in the mysterious parcel, she approached the huge head with beard, and placed it where it fit perfectly ... There is no doubt, the box was sent by him. Angie smiled as she looked at the sculpted face of Julio and letters that said: Enormísimo Cronopio.
Julio Cortázar was an Argentine writer (born in Brussels) who influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.
Photo by José Manuel Vargas
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