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Nothing about any theft of equipment. Only a cursory review of what appears to have been a well recieved show by Killswitch Engage at Luna Park. I slide the cursor over an article about Lauredo, Coderre´s ex-CEO. He won´t have to testify after all it seems. And interestingly enough Obama´s administration seems to be softening their stance towards Argentina lately. Well, at least that´s what I read in between the lines if you will. I need to imagine a quid pro quo, a slender possibility of conspiracy. A coherent geometry of corruption and even salvation. The Inferno is so carefully constructed I can only tour it in fits and starts - an occasional reader unlike the near monastic dedication it draws forth from that legion of dantistas - and puzzle at it´s allegories and moral physics. Conspiracy is evil shaped into a logical construction. And less horrifying than evil as absence, as chaos. The gangsta-idiot who shot his friend and then his friend´s girlfriend - an Ashbury College graduate from Ottawa - because ¨she was screaming¨. Better an evil pope or a Da Vinci Code than that sickening moment with no gravity or center. Only simian violence. It´s still warm by midday and outside the usual packs of joggers and strollers move along the sidewalk with the parapet facing the sea. I take a final sip of my mate and leave the cup on the zinc counter that surrounds the kitchen sink. I´ve slept less than normal lately but feel rested. Odd, I´m not that efficient a sleeper. And that restless, buzzing energy is still there. Along with occasional fits of nausea. As if that snapping wind filled my sails and pushed me out to sea and even left me a little seasick. Rojas and Cagnazzo have organized a modest refurbishing of the building - some plaster and paint oustside and inside - and it looks like Rojas is going to convert it all into condominiums and take the cash. Diego bought the monitor board off me for US$ 2,000 and I hope we can help sell some of the apartments - sorry, units - and earn a commision. Oriana hasn´t helped enough yet with the website. Let´s see if Matts can lend a hand and along with Isa we can get it up and running soon enough. Will Rojas let us buy a unit bit by bit? Damn ... I can´t look that far ahead. We need, I need, a job. I notice it´s nearly 11 before I turn off the pc. Time to wake Isa up.

The bedroom is dark and stuffy and her scent reaches me a few steps past the door. Instead of kissing her head I squeeze between the bed and the window and pull on the canvas strap liting the shutters slightly to let in more light and air. I then gently push open the windows so the opening is larger. Isa shakes her head, half covered in pillows. It´s an affirmation she´s awake but also a refusal to speak just yet - all in one small motion. She needs to cross that twilight zone and arrange her semiconscious thoughts into some sort of order before confronting the day and it´s annoying details. I return with a fresh mate and a thermos and leave them on her side table. But rather than return to the kitchen or the computer, I stand and watch her. Stand with me here. What do you see? I see she´s taken some sun the last few days and her skin glows. But she´s fairly heliophobic and not a sun worshipper at all. Her face? I see a mediterranean nose that I love. She always fussing about how it´s too large. Her hair? Dark chestnut I suppose but she´s always dyeing it some other shade of red. Her neck and shoulders worthy of a Grecian Urn. But they´re covered by the sheets and she´s curled up in a fetal position with her head under the pillows.

Let´s say you´re at the foot of the bed while I´m here between the bed and the window. The light is dusky with only slender shoots of light sprouting through the persianas. That smell ... is it her? No ... it´s me. And I showered twice today already! This pulsing, this energy. I feel a wave of dizziness. She buries her head more in the pillows and I have to spread my knees out so as not to crush her legs. When did I climb onto the bed? My arms are trembling, my palms face down on either side of her head. I have her under me trapped. I breath deep and slow to steady myself and catch some of the smell of her skin. I´m sweating and that smell is stronger. I must reek if I can smell myself. I lower myself over her body until my chest is almost touching her right shoulder. I slowly pull back one of the pillows with cruel deliberation and expose her head, so lovely and vulnerable. That bird-like slender neck. Whether Isa then hits me first or my arms give way and I collapse first on top of her I can´t really say. Motion and clumsiness and slaps or is she just freeing herself from my sweaty skin? And then ... ?

Dante´s sinners have no awareness of the present, only past and future. An eternal damnation if there ever was one. When you wake up from a faint you have to reconstruct the world and bridge that gap where your consciousness shut itself down. Where the present continued without you. So. Isa´s hair is soft and damp between my fingers. She has one hand on my collarbone as if to keep me at bay and support me at the same time. And her other hand is squeezing my left hand hard. We´re facing each other on the bed and I have to reconstruct things ... It was sunny and calm a short while ago. Then I was on top. Then I fell ... Isa speaks softly,

Amor, falta ver un medico.
Que carajo paso?
No se ... estas raro amor.

But I don´t want to see a doctor. I need this energy. I need it to sustain the next job. And we need jobs. One after the other. We lay silently on the bed, as if in a stale mate in that dusky light while outside Mar del Plata enjoys a late March sun-filled day.