WELCOME TO MY JUNGLE

Crestfallen and head elsewhere, she started to go down the stairs. Her feet seemed to know already the way and they walked slowly each step, brushing slightly, while her hand slid down the black railing. She thought about the walls. They -the same as her life- needed a new coat of paint and maybe it would be even better a more cheerful colour. Little by little, the routine is subtracting colour from our lifes, as if they were curtains imperceptibly faded from the sun. And without realizing it, her right hand had brushed aside a strand of hair and it had slowly turned the street doorknob. Supprinsingly, her feet were already touching the sidewalk. -I should wash my sneakers now. They looked beautiful, with a so pure white, when I bought them, and now they are camouflaged with the grey asphalt ­- she said aloud without realizing it. Although she always had the habit of crossing anywhere, avoiding cars, she forced herself again to go through the zebra crossing. Her street had more and more traffic. Nothing to do when she got there as a child with her parents. At that time it was possible to play anywhere, and drivers passed by very occasionally, because few people had got one car at home. She did it like this to avoid being run over. So absorbed she was!  She told herself she had to pay attention to what she was doing. Her head was in chaos. Sometimes she didn't even remember what she was wearing and she surprised herself wearing baggy black pants, when she thought she had taken the blue skinny jeans she had hanging in her bedroom closet . She kept thinking, but never really focused on anything. Bubbly and hot ideas of all kinds came to her, like coming out of a geyser, and they got to dull her head. Some time ago a friend told her thoughts are just that: thoughts.   "You can accept them or not," she told her. You don't have to listen to your head and playing along. The function of your head is thinking, and it does that too well, extremely well, but you have to be impartial. You are the one who has to look at those thoughts from a distance and you should only accept them if you agree with them. Don't let them dominate you.   Now, that game of metacognition seemed to her it was far beyond her capabilities. It was as if she was being asked to pick up a pole and jump to break the last Olympic height record. Even thinking about it seemed unattainable.   She thought it was best to focus. So she thought about where she was headed and what she was going to buy: to the local Chinese grocery store, to buy fruit. It had to be fruit that lasted at least a week, and which had no seeds, so she told herself apples, oranges or tangerines would be the most appropriate choice. Nothing with seeds, because her mother could choke. Upon entering the store, she greeted Cheng, the owner, with a slight shake of her head and hand, because she was busy serving a commercial she was placing an order with. She was a small and kind woman, and her face always seemed to smile at him. She has to be a few years older than her, but Natalia thought in case she dressed in a different way she could even also pass for a person ten years younger. She was very calm, but she had enough nerve to tell the man in a suit on the last order of potato chips she had received, the expiration dates were very close, and that she had had to sell the last bags at a discount. From the face she made, the commercial knew the woman wasn't lying, and he put down her folder to straighten her dark suit as he swallowed and apologized for it. He seemed to be quite an honest man. Another man in his situation could have played dumb, but he nodded down and he made a couple of notations in his notebook so it wouldn't happen again. - I'm writing it down, Cheng, so we can take it into account in the next order. I will try to compensate you by bringing some samples of a new brand of nuts we have launched, so that you can give them to your customers. We believe that especially among young people they will have a good market. Look, I leave you a brochure, so you can see it and you will tell me what you think.   -Hey Nata! What's up? How's your mother? -  A voice was heard in the background. She couldn't make out who she was, because there was a couple of young boys who looked like rappers and spoke louder, and they couldn't quite decide which appetizers they were going to have. The dark side-cropped haired boy pushed back his fringe at the same time he said that the food with ketchup was bad for him. It was impossible for that fringe to stay out of his eyes. It was precisely that fall what gave him that different touch. And maybe also having to push it away from time to time is what made the kid have style.   -You are very bland, bro – he said his friend in the black and gold tracksuit to match the embroidered cap. -These two, the ketchup ones. If not, they will not taste anything. And we have already three pizzas for them. I think with three we will have plenty enough. Yours, do you want it with four cheeses or with ham? - He commented on to him. If there are left over, bro, it doesn't matter, because we will eat them the next day, and that's it. -Nata, how is your mother? That background voice was that from her neighbour’s, Martha, a very sociable twenty-year-old with whom she had always gotten along very well. It could almost be said that she was her like her little cousin, because they had grown up together.   -They have told me that the tumor is not operable, and my mother is getting worse every day. I am making a great effort so that she does not notice she is losing mobility by leaps and bounds, but I think she does. I'm exhausted – Nata confessed I don't know if it is more mentally than physically, or both at the same time. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to hold out like this, because between shift work, which is quite heavy, and studying, buff … -And wouldn't it make up for you to leave your studies on hold for the moment? - asked the neighbour. -But they are very good for me. Everything I learn I apply it immediately, and it will surely help me to get promoted, because my boss has already my name in mind for some more special jobs. The truth is that I like it a lot, Marta. In addition, I paid the tuition and the entire course at the beginning because it was cheaper than doing it in installments, and if I unsubscribe now, at the end I will lose all the money, and it does not compensate me ... You know that I do not like to leave things just in the middle, even if I go overwhelmed ... -she made a tired face. -I still can't help it, right? She arched her eyebrows ironically.   - Make way, watch out, I'm loaded! - Yang, the owner's husband, warned he was balancing with a tower of wooden boxes with vegetables he was carrying. It seemed incredible that such a thin man could be so strong. Sure he could have been a circus performer. And he seemed to be a juggler on top of a unicycle pedaling around the track.   "Pure fiber," Natalia thought, her eyes resting on the sweat stains on the back and under the armpits the man in the gray T-shirt was wearing.   Martha took her by the forearm gently, and pulled her to one side to get her out of the way, and not disturb him. He turned carefully to get to the side of the glass counter on which he was going to support the tower.   -Well, don't be overwhelmed, Nata, you'll be seeing it calmly -she was always very positive and Natalia liked that. Now more than ever that was what she needed to hear. Right now, I feel like I'm tangled in a skein that I can't undo. I don't know where the tip is, or where the end is, and I can't untangle it, Martha, but I hope I can continue, little by little, with patience.   And before finishing the sentence, Natalia found Martha's arms surrounding her, to give her comfort.   She thanked him very much because she stayed relaxed, looking at the street, where the streetlights were beginning to be turned on. And she was staying like that, half asleep, inhaling Martha's jasmine perfume, which brought back good memories to her, when, as they were children, they played hide-and-seek, happy, among the trees in the garden ... And amid her childish laughter, which sounded like an echo in her head and made her smile, a loud sneak in: "All of you, get on your knees!"   Natalia was surprised that this was part of her daydreaming, but she kept her eyes closed. Then a few resounding footsteps sounded inside the store, and they already seemed more real to him.   As she opened her eyes, she heard the owner stammering, trying to say that was her store and that they could not enter like that, with those bad manners. She saw the commercial's eyes were wide open, and although she tried, she could not close the folder properly, so the delivery notes began to fall to the ground one by one, as if they were autumn leaves. They were both gesturing a lot, but a hooded man stopped them with a wave of his arm.   For Natalia everything happened in slow motion, with a choreography and a movie tempo, but the reality was being quite different. Everything happened very fast.   "Come on, let's go," another urged them, while he gestured with his weapon to them to duck.   Yang dropped half of the boxes on the ground. When the cauliflowers hit each other, they began to roll across the room, landing at the feet of those closest to each other, and they all began to look at each other with a mixture of surprise and bewilderment that would last for quite some time.   The boy with the bangs began to put the bags of snacks in his pockets, to free his hands and be able to react, but he did not even have time to move, because immediately they yelled at him: -Get to the ground! And his friend quickly turned his cap over so that he could see better, and tried to mediate, babbling a: - Easy, man. Take it easy ..   But he received a resounding: -Get down, but nooow!   Martha, visibly trembling, released her arms, and raised her hands slightly upward in a gesture of peace, which allowed Natalia to turn slowly towards those men.   She expected to see the police, but those six dark men - black masks, black sweaters, and black pants and boots - did not display any logos on their clothes. In vain she tried to turn to find out some name on their clothes.