At the end, we're late.

Spanish

We leave early to deal with the heat of each day, because mornings are as heavy as the desire to move on. We got into the car, we reached the highway, that street built to move from one side to the other, designed to charge you every time you walk along it. There we were, trapped like every morning in traffic congestion, next to another "congested" people, self-absorbed, people who tried to subsist among the shared selfishness of who first enters the lane. No one gives way, everyone wants to be first. We are in line, lined up in anticipation of the anxiety that begins to be felt in the car. The children play in the back seat, they hit my back. I scold them. The copilot looks at me, I know she thinks I'm being hard on the kids, but I'm not. We're late for school and it's not our fault. I try to leave my mind blank between the squeaking of the horns, but in the rearview mirror I see a truck approaching. I accelerate a little, there's a car nearby, the truck doesn't stop. The truck driver, unaware of what is going on inside our car, honks his horn and leaves it stuck to break our eardrums. The children start crying, screaming, getting restless. That's what's happened to them since the accident. It also happens to me, with the difference that I don't shout, instead, I sing. I sing to calm them down, so that they feel calm while the truck lunges and crosses in front of us. As a bull, he makes his way through the crowd. My children are still scared, but they breathe, they calm down. Now the siren sounds, the anxious song of a mythical creature that comes out of the sea to take the weak sailors to the disaster. I must let the ambulance pass - move over here. I can't do it, there are cars everywhere. The ambulance makes some space, I'm almost on another car, almost inside, along with another family that's not mine. I try to return to my lane, to incorporate my blood flow to the arteries, they cross me. A line of cars goes after the ambulance, in bad faith, with the pettiness necessary to press the accelerator. The ambulance parked after passing the toll. From the miles they left me behind, I see them. They have a coffee, maybe a freshly squeezed chocolate by the machine, I suppose the big emergency was that they had to go to the bathroom, although I think they didn't have time and they shit us all on the way. There are two exits left to reach our destination, I have a hoarse voice, today the trucks are on a walkway. I turn to take the exit, we almost arrived. Now we have the obstacle course on the road that has not seen new asphalt since they made it. Yes, for next week I will have to buy new tires. I leave everyone in their place, in the afternoon it will be the same route, the other way around. Now I can only think of one thing, the only thing that corrupts me. How do I explain to my children that, because the car needs new tires, we won't be able to go to the cinema as I had promised them?

F. JaBieR