THE STORY OF RAFA AND DANI 16 ANCHOR TIK TOK 1

One thirty. Four hours and thirty minutes.

You went to your room. You lay down. You stared at the ceiling. The damp stains. Africa. The claw. A new one you hadn't seen before, smaller, in the corner where the wall met the ceiling, a stain that looked like a tear or a drop or the silhouette of a fetus curled up, depending on how twisted your brain was at that moment, and your brain was quite twisted.

You tried to sleep. You couldn't. Your body was too awake. Every cell in your body was on high alert, vibrating at a frequency that wasn't anxiety or excitement but something in between, something that has no name in Spanish or probably in any language because it's a state that only those who are waiting for something they desire and fear in equal measure know, those who count the hours until an event that will destroy and rebuild them simultaneously, like an earthquake that demolishes an old building so a new one can be built on top, even if the new one is just as shoddy as the previous one.

Two o'clock. Two thirty. Three o'clock. A ray of sunlight came through the patio window, punctual as a civil servant, illuminating a strip of floor in your room for exactly forty-seven minutes and then left, leaving the usual twilight, the comfortable darkness of a semi-basement that doesn't know anything else.

Three forty-seven. Two hours and thirteen minutes.

You got up. You got in the shower. The cold water, because the water heater was still on strike, hit your body like a thousand tiny needles, like brutal acupuncture administered by a sadist with a hose. You endured it. You clenched your teeth. You soaped yourself all over, twice, with the gel that smelled like plastic and intention. You washed your hair. You rubbed behind your ears, under your arms, between your legs, in all the folds and crevices where your body stores its secrets and smells. You rinsed off. You got out shivering. You dried yourself with the rough towel that scratched like sandpaper because it had been washed too many times and had no fabric softener, because fabric softener was a luxury and luxuries in the semi-basement were like unicorns: everyone knew what they were but no one had seen one in person.

You looked at yourself in the broken mirror. Clean. Your wet hair stuck to your forehead. Your skin was covered in goosebumps from the cold. Your eyes were dark, large, with those long eyelashes your mother said you had inherited from your father, from Marcos from Badajoz, the ghost, the deserter, the man who left you his eyelashes and took everything else.

Four fifteen. One hour and forty-five minutes.

You got dressed. The clean tracksuit, the other one, the black one, the one you saved for important days, which until two weeks ago were none and now were Fridays. A white t-shirt underneath. Sneakers. The same fake Nike sneakers as always because you didn't have any others, but you had cleaned the soles with a damp clo...