Ángel Ripa – Homeland (Excerpt)

Ángel Ripa – Cloud service manager. IE University.

Reading:

Homeland (Patria) (Excerpt)  by Fernando Aramburu (1941).

He was gone, and he would never be there again. Yet, his presence lingered: his scent on the clothes, his handwriting in the notes he had left around the house, his favorite cup in the kitchen. Death had not erased him in an instant. He remained in everyone’s memories, in the gestures they unconsciously imitated.
But the worst part was the silence. Absence is a hollow noise, an empty space that no one can fill. They knew they had to move on, but how do you continue when someone who was a pillar has collapsed?

—

No estaba, no estaría nunca más. Sin embargo, ahí seguía su rastro: su olor en la ropa, su letra en las notas que dejaba en la casa, su taza favorita en la cocina. La muerte no lo había borrado de un golpe. Estaba en los recuerdos de cada uno, en los gestos que sin darse cuenta imitaban.
Pero lo peor era el silencio. La ausencia es un ruido hueco, un espacio vacío que nadie puede llenar. Sabían que debían seguir, pero, ¿cómo se sigue cuando alguien que era un pilar se ha derrumbado?