DAY 0
What does the number zero and the parcheesi have in common, well, you will see a lot. This is day zero, because until now the mandatory quarantine simulation begins in Bogotá, D.C., tomorrow will be day one. The extraordinary number zero is very important, it was born in India and it gave all the power to arithmetic.
I do not hear the man who sells paisa porridge, warm, white and attractive, on a tricycle with a platform. I have never bought it because I belong to an aseptic house, and consequently antibacterial, although I asked unsuspectingly, — if this apocalypse spreads … would we buy from that porridge? — And they answered me … “Well, yes … what are we going to do?”
Nor do I listen to the one who buys books. They pass by almost every day, it must be that around here where I live they find a good market. Once to the one who buys books, I sold him a stack of repeated and previous editions, such as the “Research Methodology” by Hernández, Fernández and Baptista. I still have many, although I have given half to my former students and teachers. I want to give another half, but now I am not going to move that mole because it gives off a lot of dust and I am very reactive to it.
It rains slowly. Little, but stubborn. As if to say, — if for some absurd reason you even think to lower the garbage to the deposit, better stay where you are — . Nobody calls. Few WhatsApp messages. But it is early, later everything is going to get congested and perhaps we are not so alone, in self-company, and we can’t go to look in the mirror to verify that we are still alive.
For the moment, it is better to put music, “Liveforever”, and remember that novel by Andrés Caicedo, from 1977, so close to those of us who live in Kali, with K, not with C. There behind me I have many CDs. Also at the Imac.
I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I was in my previous job, where I was confined for many years. I had my desk in a collective room. Many things about him. Suddenly my mother appeared, who was not my mother, nor did I say who she was, and I told her to come see where I worked. I still wanted to introduce her to a co-worker, adjacent to my site. Then the room was filled with other officials and we hardly fit. Then it cleared up and there were very few of us left. The co-worker who I wanted to meet my mother also disappeared. I began to wake up, asleep, with the vivid feeling of surprise with what was happening.
I’ve already done the crucial jobs that our great contributor does weekly. Overall, at this time and on this day I am a little more free. They don’t pay me for those trades. She will get the money deposited to her Davivienda account. She always leaves me instructions. — … please don’t buy me this bleach, buy me “Clorox” … why did you buy so much panela … can I tell you something …? — I don’t know, she knows that they can’t tell me anything … well, I go back and think, I have a restricted weekend, but I am aware that I have been like this for a long time. At this time I like to go out for one reason or another. I see many old men with their dogs in the street. That’s why I don’t stop going to the Alma Mater, to the academy, which I like so much, and I don’t know for what reason, I dreamed of the previous job. Oh, I know, because the dream has another logic, that of symbolization, displacement, condensation, and projection.
Now I’m going to make rice with chicken. I am not saying that ajiaco because I lack some ingredients to make it classic and I am not going out, I can hold the urge. I also have to pick up the article I’m on. I showed it to an editor and they criticized it a lot. I found him at the entrance to the Faculty of Sciences and took advantage of it. I sat on a small bench in front of him, who was already sitting on a larger bench. And I, there quiet as a kitten with my head down a little, but waiting to give him a good and unexpected strike.
He reviewed the article from title to references. In the end he twisted his mouth in sign of expiration date as a relentless evaluator and said he liked it. I calculated that it would take me another month to make all these corrections. And now that I’m here in front of the keyboard, I have good ideas to fix it. I still need to include one more case, I already have as a candidate the daughter of my friend, the “Jewish chemist” from the Toberín neighborhood. The study from which the article is derived is qualitative, but the freaking engineer, dear colleague, has not fixed a programming problem and the software that builds the data online does not run on Apple, and I am Apple full time . I am stranded. What am I going to do? I like rare and different pods.
The research contemplates a modeling with “finite automata”. There are deterministic and indeterministic. An artifact that calculates and graphs cognitive behavior. It is a nice artificial intelligence tool that epidemiologists also use and that rulers with brains and hearts full of sawdust will never understand, or even contemplate in their stupid pseudo-scientific, absurd and regrettable reasoning. In the hands of whom we have fallen.
I liked the word that Ricardo Silva Romero invented yesterday, “esperancia” in spanish, and that means hopeful patience. Patience with everything. Many times I don’t have enough, for the crazy weather, the lack of empathy, the corruption, the folly, the illiterate with power, the hearts without seal of love and kindness.
Lina yesterday built a gigantic and multicolored parcheesi, to play with the Colombians, who along with her are “parked” on a “Carnival Cruise Lines” ship, in the port of San Pedro in Long Beach, California. Parqués, old “parcheesi”, for “parchar” in spanish a word that means jung out, a very ours game, which also has its origin together with the number zero, in India. So the number zero and the parcheesi, have a lot in common.
