Sunday, November 27, 2011

The Witness



The witness

 Everyday, at seven in the morning Mr. Brown takes a plastic chair

that one day was white and plunk it in front of his house. 

He watches the neighbors going to work, to school, to shop, to drink.



They go singing, fighting, running, spiting, smoking, swearing, dreaming.

Mr. Brown says hello to everybody. Now and then he gets into his house

to get a soda, he comes back quickly to see a wife  who is running in distress

a man who returns drunk to his house a dog that gets stoned by a horde of children.



Mr. Brown never says more than “hello,” he may disapprove, he may support

nobody knows, he just watches. If somebody looks at him he barely smiles and says nothing.



Mr. Brown is fifty three years old, he has been disabled for the past twelve years

and he became a witness of humanity ever since. Mr. Brown knows all the secrets of the

people but nobody knows his.



At noon, Mr. Brown disappears inside his house eats crackers with honey and returns to his

post. As a witness he never misses the action around his eyes.

He knows all the faces, voices and mysteries of the neighborhood.



After a short recess for dinner Mr. Brown vigil the street until twelve o’clock,

then, he takes his plastic chair inside the room he calls his house where he

keeps his chair, a bed and his thoughts.



When there is a crime in Mr. Brown’s block the police and the journalists

don’t bother to ask him anything, he never sees a fly, he hears nothing.

Everybody knows he is a witness but people say he is a witness of God.