jueves, 28 de febrero de 2008

Stormy Weather



It was raining cats and dogs in Buenos Aires. Literally. It always rains cats and dogs in Buenos Aires, and it inundates the streets. Especially the one I happen to live in, so its fun to see how cats and dogs fall over the edges of the road at first, covering the drains systematically. Its then turn for the rain to fall, heavily, like it doesn't fall anywhere else, almost like someone with giant buckets of water was throwing them at us with anger. It is fun until I realize that I have to be part of that apocalyptic scenery to start the day. At first I felt reluctant to leave my shelter. I schemed excuses in my head. But everyone else was facing their responsibilities, I had no special excuse to be exempt from swimming to work.
I turned to open my "rain closet", where I keep an umbrella, a pair of rubber boots, a diving suit, goggles, an inflatable boat and an inflatable vest that I stole once from a plane. I didn't take the boat that day, I figured that everyone at work would take one too and the closet to store them would be full. The last time this happened, we all got them confused and many of us couldn't find our own. I dressed myself in normal clothes, and wore the diving suit on top. I also decided to wear the goggles.
Leaving the apartment building was hard, again. I couldn't open the door because the water pushed it back inside. All the tenants had agreed to change the direction in which to open it but none of us ever got to it. So every time it rains it takes a long time to struggle against the door until it is possible to open it. When it actually is, water runs inside the building's hall, dragging along some cats and dogs.
This time I couldn't open the door and no one seemed to be around to help me. I kept pushing it but almost a meter of water had already accumulated. I was too late for work and frustrated, so I decided to stop pushing and wait for someone to help me. I saw a family rowing to school and work, lots of people swimming, a woman making her way around by jumping from bus roof to bus roof and a man sitting peacefully high up on a tree contemplating the whole scene. I wished I could just sit like this man, to watch the whole world go crazy and waterlogged.
When the old woman from the 2nd floor joined me in the struggle to open the door I was already two hours late for work, so I dived into the watery street and swam as fast as I could. This was made difficult by the vast amount of boats blocking my way.
No one at the office seemed to care that I was horribly late, they were all concerned with their own issues. Rainy days posed an inconvenience for all of us, and especially this day water kept falling uncontrollably from the sky.
Everyone at the office made me fuzzy, so I left, deciding to make the best of the city under water. I swam along the most crowded streets, witnessing various discussions between people that didn´t even seem to know each other. I got to the bridge next to Facultad de Medicina and sat. Avenida del Libertador was a proper river by now and cars looked rather picturesque floating around, smashing tree tops and buildings.
The rain stopped and the whole city was beautifully quiet.

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