A Subtle Line

Prologue ‘I can’t. We’re not just talking about my life here’. He kept looking, over and over again, at the blank screen of his laptop. He was hoping to read something else between the lines of the message he’d just received. Something that would give a different meaning to the chilling words gripping his heart. Dr. Francisco Alvarado was a man of science. Pragmatic, concise. He looked for solutions to problems, not excuses. There was no room for "ifs" in his life, just "hows". At least, that was what he had always thought. It was then, and only then, that he realized how wrong he’d been. He realized how even a man like himself, could become incredibly fragile once he crossed the threshold of an almost invisible line. That threshold where lives are destroyed and existences changed. A line he no longer wished to cross. Sitting in the huge living room almost entirely filled with walnut furniture, he leant against the backrest of his chair. He put his hands to his face and uttered two deep sighs. He was tired. Tired of compromises, tired of hypocrisy. The last few days had, in some respects, been the worse and, at the same time, the best days of his life. They’d revealed a part of him that he’d completely blocked out: fear. He got up and headed for the drinks cabinet. He needed something strong. He poured himself a generous shot of 18 year old whisky and returned to his armchair, still with a thousand questions bombarding his mind like loose cannon. He needed to think some more. He was good at that. He let the amber liquid slip down his throat in one gulp, just as his email inbox pinged to warn him of the arrival of another message. He put his glass down on the table with a muffled thud and grabbed the mouse to check who it was from. Him again. The tip of anguish tormenting him overflowed and dug deep into his chest. Being a rational person, he chose to open the message, although he desperately didn’t want to. He immediately regretted not listening to his instinct. His eyes opened wide for several seconds and his breath died in his throat. ‘My God’, he muttered in a silent whisper that was lost somewhere in the room. ‘God Almighty’.