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e gently ran his
fingers through his hair, smoothing
down the grey hair that covered his
temples and was whitening at the
top of his head, slowly and relent-
lessly.
He had long since given up think-
ing of the amount of hair left on his
head or how many white hairs he
had. In fact, an incipient Franciscan
tonsure was taking possession of his
crown.
Running his fingers through his hair,
caressing it, was a gesture he often
repeated when he wanted to calm
himself down and understand some-
thing.
He was sitting on the floor, leaning
his back against the wall, under the
spring sun that warmed his body.
His drooping eyelids were clos-
ing eyes that were tired of seeing
absences.
A couple of birds jumped from one
branch to another on a tree that cra-
dled them with the weary movement
of breeze.
A black cover Bible well-worn from
the constant use was resting on his
lap.
In his mind, he saw himself and
thought that he was anyone who
may be seeing him a completely
pleasant and bucolic image, almost
like a picture of a parochial nap in
some lost town of rural Mexico. He
also thought that a good Mexican
hat covering his face was missing
and this idea made him laugh. His
hilarity explosion eased up and he
continued chuckling for a couple of
minutes.
He stopped laughing when he no-
ticed that his laugh had faded away
in the surrounding silence.
Nobody was around.
Nobody to see him bucolic, nobody
to listen to his laugh, nobody by him
to think of a missing hat over his
face.
There was nobody.
Nobody.
Everybody had gone away or disap-
peared or both, if this could be pos-
sible. Birds, a couple of thin dogs he
sometimes saw and some butterflies
remained. Ants, flies and mosquitoes
had also decided to stay. During the
summer nights, he heard some toads
croaking while dabbling in a lagoon
on the other side of the high walls.
From his perspective, those buildings
were huge. Mostly painted white,
they showed manifest cuts on the
painted evenness, revealing pieces
of the original mortar. Every animal
that flew or crept through caves un-
der the ground seemed to cross that
architectural obstacle without prob-
lems but he did not dare trespass
that brick barrier protecting him from
an even worse loneliness.
There is no greater loneliness that the
one in immeasurable spaces.
He was terrified when he thought
that crossing that wall would make
him feel even lonelier to the point
that his own essence would disap-
pear and fade away into nothing.
How much time had passed since
the last time he saw a fellow man?
Only specters passing him unmov-
ing, without looking at him, without
talking to him, transparent as the
smoke that blurs the images behind
it though it is still possible to see
them. They were the ghosts of peo-
ple who no longer existed, of peo-
ple who got away from him forever,
of people who disappeared leaving
a trail of absence and silence that
stunned him.
This filled him with anguish and
made him cry many times every day
despite his manliness, his brilliant
mind that had taken him to the top
of erudition.
Students at the university where he
gave classes packed the main lec-
ture hall during all of his lectures. His
brain had always been a breeding
ground where the most elaborate
philosophical and political theories,
which astonished the world at the
time, had germinated.
For months and years his deepest re-
flections caused him many sleepless
nights but one by one he was clarify-
ing those considerations until turning
them into philosophical postulates
applauded by everyone. His ideas
followed a course that allowed him
to unite faith and science to such an
extent of cohesion that, after him,
nobody dared raise the question of
an intellectual divorce between those
two issues.
He had done everything only with
his mind and the old book he had
always on his lap and which he
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