Faustino Perez Hospital.

Matanzas, Cuba.

Photo: Girón newspaper.

Two firefighters: a married couple or boyfriends, two;

he brings her, puts her on the stretcher, kisses her, says goodbye to her and tells me to take care of her.

I ask him to go to bed:

"Go to bed, I told you, damn it!"

.

That no, that this is nothing, that I am going again, that this is ugly, that there are my brothers there.

My gaze goes elsewhere and he is lost, leaving her safe with us.

He returns to hell that burns and sets the city ablaze. 

There is no nobler soul than that of a volunteer, a rescuer, a firefighter.

They are the best patients, with discipline even to suffer, to endure the pain –from the chlorosodium that washes away, from the compress that heals–.

He doesn't answer

.

He wears a dark mask that has been impregnated to his skin.

His chest doesn't expand and we focus on him;

time stops in him, in trying to stabilize him, to reach the airway, to revive him, to transfer him to the place where he will be safe.

There are two doctors who will not attend to others.

They are, from that moment, the ones who will watch over his life during the first hours.

They know everything, they have searched for every piece of information, they have cut off his clothes, washed his wounds, calculated the dose of every medicine that keeps him alive... Damn alive

 !

They have all come.

One has walked from the beach to the kilometer, he has arrived sweaty and has put on his gloves as if he had landed in a spaceship: 

“It is where it has to be”.

They run, they shout an order, they classify, they channel veins, they transfer patients, they puncture veins for analysis,

 they sweat, their eyes water, they sigh;

they also suffer, they get back together, they become heroes, they save lives.

One hour and everyone is classified, diagnosed and treated: 

“The golden hour”

 or the golden hour for those who don't know English.

An hour that has passed as if it were ten;

we reclassify, the mild ones are cured and it is returned to the families, who desperately cross corridors.

The family, the moment that I fear, that almost all of us fear. 

How do you not empathize with them?

 The trap is in visiting them, in wanting to know what their life was like before this.

When you know you start to really suffer and, although you want to accompany them, you need to get away sometimes, because once you get involved, 

every bad news gives you that little thing in your stomach that is nothing more than the feeling of anguish and helplessness.

Solidarity:

Everyone arrives, the same in a diplomatic car, a motorcycle, a truck, a drag, a bicycle or a horse cart.

One said that he came with a modest donation and I clarify that there is no such thing, that coming and accompanying us is an injection of energy, it convinces us of the love, generosity and humanism of our people.

Hope:

Dawn is breaking and Sauron has stopped looking at us.

White smoke fills the city, good news spreads;

today it turns off or turns off.

There is a smile that does not go away, perhaps it is nervous, perhaps it is the way to survive, a defense mechanism, but it is effective for those who look at you looking for a reason that leaves sadness aside.

The bad joke, the cringing of a cigarette, the gastritis, the suspicious good appetite, the good people who don't leave, who don't abandon, 

the love or satirical message, the visits, the meetings, the little call from the baby, the watercress to the mother

 because she didn't send me the stockings or the robe that I like, the black clouds on the palms, the hug and the "I love you mom", the visit from my coconut and the little kiss.

Everything, mixed, an intense bomb of so many feelings: insomnia, recurring nightmares

... There is no coherence in what I write, I cannot be even if I want to, even if I apply myself.

I'll be like this for a few days, or a few weeks or forever;

anyway,

 what does it matter?

99 lives, 99 families, I hold on to that number.

I bleed for the 14 disappeared

;

she and he came looking for him, they said she could be here.

He is not here.

And as you say it, you feel like you won't be able to keep looking into those teary green eyes, or shift your gaze to the "we were hoping to find him here."

You feel at that moment that you want to die, disappear, look for someone to tell them, but it's up to you. 

Who sends you to be a doctor, Taymí, and director on top?

 He's not here, and I'm sorry, that's the 14;

and you tell them that you are there, to help them, but you feel useless and ridiculous.

What question is that?

 You can do nothing but accompany, feel and, when the pain feels very strong, have the courage to resist and not cry.

And that's it.