Ecos en la nieve

It is winter. A woman has been staying for days in an abandoned mountain shack. In the distance, the murmur of a stream can be heard. It is cold, and the rain falls ceaselessly. The woman lies on a mat, barely able to glimpse the top of a cedar tree through the window. Her only visitors are animals and insects: a cat, a lizard, a wasp, some ants, a thrush. Her existence has been reduced to its barest essentials; it is simply a matter of survival. Outside the shack, echoes of voices can sometimes be heard—mountaineers, a drunkard. The woman is pregnant and tells her baby the story of her life, sensing that people are made of stories—secrets and stories. And hers is defined by silence.