Peces

I wake up in her bed, in her room. I've begun to live the most dangerous story of my life, but I don't know it yet. I don't know anything, really. The murmur of life has awakened me, an invasion of breath that is the night's answer. At the foot of the bed is a window with a corded blind on the outside and shutters pulled back on the inside. The light shards like a breeze, still soft and blue, floats over our bodies, hesitates for a moment, and with a gentle flutter settles above Victoria. I watch her as she sleeps, uncovered and naked. Without daring to touch her. I get up, open the shutters, and go back to bed. The day hangs before me, damp and shimmering. I see the terrace railing, eaten away by the ivy that grows from the patio. Victoria has told me that dragons live in the ivy, albino dragons that over the centuries have become docile and small. No matter how hard I look, I won't see any. But I see the birds fluttering among the trees, celebrating something with extraordinary warbling. I count the cypresses, still black in the immense glass of morning. Four crowns, four identical sleepers that, judging by the way they bend, are dreaming the same thing.