casi completamente ficción (vi)

He walked from his room with his steps feeling loose and free but not unsteady. If only there was a way to bottle this feeling so as you could hold onto it for as long as you wanted without getting too drunk or too sober. He figured someday someone might make a million dollars from an idea like that.

He walked out into the street and looked up to find the sky looking grey and heavy. It had rained most every day since he had been in Cuba, but the rains seemed to come strong and fast and blow over just as quick as they came in. He took his chances against the rain and walked down the hotel street, across the circle, down past the Communist park and the discoteca. He saw a couple of chicas but they were either too dark or too thin for his tastes. Then he saw another who looked a little like the “SEXY” girl from last night and he made a note of her. But by the time he had finished one circle, the drops had started to come down hard and fast and lightning and thunder came with them and he wondered if this might not be a different sort of rain from the past few days.

Once the drops got too big and started to come too fast, he hurried back to the hotel and walked up to his room. He poured himself a glass of rum and stood outside the door looking up at the rain falling into the open courtyard. He stood outside his room watching the storm and soon he saw the pretty round-faced Venezuelan girl across the open courtyard. Her room was on the same floor as his and that filled his head full of ideas about things that would never happen. She shouted something he couldn’t understand from far away and he just raised his glass of rum to her and smiled. It made him feel good to see her smile back and for her to talk to him from far away but once again he wished he had asked for her name. Especially since that was one of the few things he actually knew how to do properly in Spanish. Goddamnedest mistake.

After pouring himself another drink, he went back to the courtyard to look up and find the sky looking just about the finest color of dark blue he had ever seen. There was still rain falling into the courtyard and lightning crashing real close but he couldn’t understand how because the sky didn’t look full of clouds at all. He figured that it could just be a trick of the twilight but he was surprised just the same and decided that soon the storm would stop and the rain would taper off and he could go for another walk. Meanwhile, the latest drink had made him feel unsteady and he figured he couldn’t have walked very well anyway, so he lay on his hotel bed and let himself close his eyes.