Emiliano Mancilla

The morbid figure didn’t say a thing for a while, he was so skinny that his arms looked like winter branches, and the mix with the clothes he was wearing, which seemed to be made at least a century before than the ones I was using, made him resemble a tall baleful scarecrow. 

The tension in my muscles begged me to leave but there was something in the air that made me unable to make any movement, not sure if it was curiosity per se or some kind of magic. 

“I suppose I’m good… been here too long to feel bad anyways” Replied the fella while he was turning his body in order to see me

Then he limped until reaching the closest bed and sat down. 

“The lady told me that you’re staying here for a while, and that you’ve been flirting with her” 

“Me? I haven’t been flirting with anybody” I replied with a trembling voice. 

“Well, so it seem’s like either you’re lying or I am, and people might call me crazy but definitely not a liar” 

His skin not only looked pale, but yellowish, as if it was reaching certain point where the putrefaction process began its journey. 

And I tried to remember in the middle of all distress, about anything happening in the few days that I had been in the place, but the only thing I could think that could be interpreted as a flirtation was my conversation with Lina. 

“Well maybe a little bit, but I didn’t think she would think of it as a flirtation” I said 

“Well, one never knows the effects the words we say get on people. Now, you give me this strange feeling of familiarity, let’s go for a drink” 

I got the feeling that bad things could happen if I didn’t do as he said, I got up, put my pants on, and followed him with cautious steps with my eyes wide open. 

When we got out of the room, I could notice the place felt different… in a way. The picture on the wall was still there, but it looked much brighter, as if it had been recently painted. The lady gleamed a beauty that illuminated the building, and the mystery in her smile was suddenly changed for a sense of warmness. 

We went downstairs, and when we got to reception, the computers had disappeared, and the lockers on the back had been changed for wooden shelves, lifting suspicious alcohol bottles branded with names I wasn’t aware they existed. 

“Pascual, give us something strong” 

And the fella, dressed in what seemed Mexican revolutionary clothes gave us each a glass of a mysterious whiskey. 

“What happened to reception?”

“There’s no need for such thing, right now we are having a drink” My pale companion answered

“Why are you here?” He continued

“I just quit my job, I want to be an artist, a musician more specifically, I’m going to London in 2 months and want to absorb as much of the Californian culture as I can, being that I like a lot the music coming from here” I replied

“So that’s why you gave me that feeling. The life of an artist is hard, most of the times they end up giving up and changing profession, or if they are real, they either kill themselves or get sucked by an agonizing depression, trying to cure their soul by the means of their senses,  and all for what? Some fame and some nickels? Do you think you have the guts to be one?” He said

“The only thing that I know is that I will die if I don’t try it at least, there is this flame in my chest that burns my muscles every time I play a song, every time I write a story, that makes feel as if it was the only oxygen I could breathe, and makes me wanna cry in desperation when I think about working as a normal person would.”

The skinny fella smiled 

“I suppose that by “absorbing the Californian culture” you mean partying as hard as you can as well right?” He told me

I chucked. 

“Well, it wouldn’t be terrible to have some fun, a little party never killed nobody” I replied

“It doesn’t until it does. All right, I’ll leave you with Pascual, I have some things to do, but I’ll be certainly seeing you during your stay, welcome home” 

I stayed looking at my drink for a long time, Pascual didn’t seem like he wanted to have any type of conversation, and just when I had just finished, I heard a girl singing a curious melody that had this reverberations that made me feel dizzy. My senses started to get blurred until everything was black and silent.