Other circles

     Dear Fran,

     Today I have realized how little we value the people around us; that are our neighbours and whom we crossed the street for years and years with and that, suddenly, one day we miss.

     This usually happens when you stop to think, after a while  —something that can take you months—. Then you find out that this or that couple has separated and that is why you have not seen the man or the woman for a long time. Then you say: it's true; I did not even remember that they used tapear in the little tavern at the end of the street on Saturdays.

     Or much worse, when one day you enter the bakery and are talking about the man who suffered from alcoholism, which you often heard arguing with their parents (already elderly), that at dawn he vomited what his organism had not been able to digest after of a day touring tascas.

     The neighbour of the ground floor left, who has died; says the baker, looking at me, making me a participant in the conversation. And you fall into the account and a poor thing escapes from you.

          It is not that we do not value them, it is that we all have our occupations and worries and each of the twenty-four hours of the day is assigned to something or someone and our brain has no space for those who are neither our family nor our closest friends. Those other people belong to another circle, larger but more distant from your heart.

     Y. a.

     Mary