La Tieta

The wind will wake her up suddenly at the windows. The bed is so long and wide... And the sheets are cold... With half-closed eyes, she will search for another hand without finding anyone, like yesterday, like tomorrow. Her loneliness is the faithful lover who knows her body fold by fold, inch by inch... She will listen to the meow of an old castrated cat that sleeps on her knees the long winter evenings. There is a sleepy missal on the nightstand and a half-empty glass of water when Aunt wakes up. A cracked mirror will tell her: 'You're getting old. How time has passed! How the years have flown by! How dreams of youth have been lost in the streets! How the skin wrinkles, how their eyes droop!...' The concierge, as she passes by, will draw a smile: It's the pride of someone who has someone to warm their bed. Every day the same: take the bus to work at the lazy lawyer's office, with whom she used to flirt in the past. That was so long ago... Aunt doesn't remember. The one who always has a plate when Christmas comes. The one who nobody wants if one day she falls ill. The one who has no children other than her siblings' children. The one who says: 'Everything is fine'. The one who says: 'It doesn't matter'. And on Palm Sunday, she will buy her godson a long white palm branch and a pair of socks, and in the church, they will both do as the priest does and praise Jesus entering Jerusalem... She will give him twenty coins to open a savings account: saving money is necessary, as Aunt has always done. And one day she will die, more or less like everyone else. A flu will take her to the deep hole. By then, she will have paid for the niche and the coffin, the priests' psalms, the funeral masses, and the flowers that will follow her burial; things that people often forget, and the flowers look nice with black drapes hanging and behind them some friends, uncovered just a moment ago, and an obituary that says... 'Miss... has passed away... ...rest in peace. AMEN'... And we will forget Aunt.