casi completamente ficción (iii)

During the afternoon, he noticed that the “Pssssss” was not only practiced by the chicas on the streets. It was just how people got your attention here. He started noticing people “Pssssss”ing people in the hallways. It wasn’t a short sharp “Pst!” like someone might use in the US. It was an explosive “P” followed by a loud “SSSSSSSS” that lasted a little longer than it seemed was necessary. It still sounded rude to him, but he tried to write it off as a cultural thing. He realized the true importance of the “Psssssss” that afternoon when he opened a can of Coca-Cola with a hiss and the person in front of him turned around.

The sun was high in the sky now and when he looked out the window, the shadows of the trees made perfect circles around the trunks, and the breeze through the open louvers began to lose its cooling qualities. It became harder and harder to think about work or to listen to the talks in Spanish and he felt like a kid in school looking out of the window at the trees and waiting for the day to end. Only instead of running home to play video games or ride his bike, he would be running home to change into a cleanish shirt and drink some rum from the mini-fridge and walk in the same circles looking at the same chicas, or maybe some new ones, and try to make the hard decision to do something illegal and irresistible in a country where he really had no business being anyway.