The oblong streets of Sr. Lopez

   
And there came the last days of May, and there came that Sr. Lopez (without accent on the "o"), after shaving in the morning, and before going to work, he felt an inexplicable compulsion, and opened the small doors of this godforsaken wardrobe of his room, which was calling him with magnetic attraction, and here also came that, passing throug it, like an intruder who penetrates into a forbidden zone, Sr. Lopez flowed into a rare pais that maybe he didn't know, or maybe he knew and forgot somewhere along the road.

And the hour was 7:33 a.m. when Lopez entered that -apparently- magical kingdom, and he felt both, the fascination of the inauguration, and a feel of familiar deja vu, and still was 7:33 a.m. in the morning of his new world.

And his new world was not an enchanted distant land infested by fairies flying through the unreal air and golden palace with princess on the hazy hill, but a vernacular, ordinary and unwashed world, as grey and routinary as the real world he just left behind, the real world, his world, which now stayed behind the small doors of that prodigiously bog-standard wardrobe.

And astonished with this brand new sameness Lopez (without accent on the "o") walked through those irregular and municipally unattended sidewalks all covered with litter, dry spits and -every now and again- a little, tumular and isolated flan of dog feces, which was more or less like his own street in the real world, and Lopez walked during that whole morning, and as he walked he saw the neighbors of that strange zone passing by, with the unimpressed gesture of the quotidian tedium of bakery, supermarket, job, club and pub, and they were like the neighbors of his world, but different at the same time; and here came that the noon came, and Lopez still walked toward other near vicinities, and he felt a sudden hunger and especially thirst palpitating in his stomach and palatal arch, and ascending to his brain, and the streets were like the streets of his real life, but the names were slightly different.

Sr. Lopez (without accent on the "o") suddenly saw in the distance a jaw-dropping cartel that froze the blood of his veins:



 
"Citadella, pizza x metro"

 

it was the same pizzeria of his neighborhood. Sr. Lopez ran toward that alarming commercial establishment, and entered like a desperado

to his surprise, there were people eating inside, it was the same pizzeria of the real life, exact. Lopez sat down

-"Please, half a metre of pizza and a bottle of Teem." -He said with hesitating voice

the waiter annotated the order, and stayed looking at him for some seconds:

-"Something else, sir?"

Sr. Lopez indicated that it was all with a gesture, the waiter walked away.
It was the same waiter of the "Citadella, pizza x metro" of the real life, but different at the same time.
The same pizzeria he visited sometimes, because they sold rectangular pizza "by metre"
the same decoration
the same tables

a short while later the waiter returned with a smokey fraction of pizza x metro, a glass, plate, cuttlery and a small bottle of Teem, all skilfully transported on a circular tray of opaque aluminium...

-"Thanks" -Lopez said, while the waiter served with that agile grace of the experienced garçon

Sr. Lopez was about to open his mouth again and ask the waiter a stupid -and crucial- question, but he repressed this compulsion and stayed silent. The waiter walked away with the empty tray in vertical position, like the rifle of an infantryman on parade.

The pizza was the same of the real life Citadella, Lopez knew that taste perfectly, it was unmistakable: crispy, thin, with abundant, slightly gumy and delicious mozzarella, topped with thin slices of fresh tomato, jamón y morrones.

Sr. Lopez (without accent on the "o") chewed the hot food with his eyes globulously open. The pores of his forehead, and the top of his head started emitting pearly and microscopic drops of sweat, as his right hand served some Teem into the glass with nervousness... he knew he was at the pizzeria Citadella, and he knew he was not at the pizzeria Citadella.

The chronometrical perfection of the minute passed by and Lopez still was seated there... where? Where, such a familiar and unfamiliar territory at once..?

Grasping the glass full of cold Teem like a Hun in nuptial banquet, Lopez downloaded the transparent and gassy beverage in his mouth, when, come from nowhere, Sr. Lopez saw Sr. Lopez entering through the doors of the pizzeria.

Sr. Lopez stayed petrified with the empty glass on his lips as if it still was full
his eyes, fixed on the other Sr. Lopez, were those eyes of the bovine in the slaughterhouse when it's knocked out with a captive bolt pistol before being butchered

because Lopez saw Lopez sitting there, and Lopez was Lopez, although his manners and airs and clothes were others, clothes that he never, ever wore or saw before

he? Que él?


Because at the incontestable chronometrical perfection, when all the courses of action, systems and plans burn and succumb to the unexpected minute, Lopez saw himself in the nauseating ordinariness of the real life, beyond mirrors, myths or dreams

reality, like the pulsatile vein under your skin right now.




Sr. Lopez paid his meal and walked slowly toward the door, exit to... the world, with his ocular muscles tensely focused on Sr. Lopez... and certainly an irrational and invincible panic prevented him from saying a word to that apparition, the other Sr. Lopez, who ignored him completely

exit

and in his perplexity and confusion Lopez didn't note that the silken spider web he used to see stuck on a corner of the ceiling of the pizzeria, still was there, 50 cm misplaced to the left.


Out on the streets, while his human facsimile still was at the pizzeria, Sr. Lopez (without accent on the "o"), stretching his steps on the litter of the known-unknown sidewalks, he returned to the point of entry from which he appeared in that vulgar world, and penetrating it, disappeared.