Yesterday, like always, while I was making a line to take a bus on Altamira square, a corner took my attention.The square has remain as an opposition icon for a lot of reasons but mainly because it has been the scenery of many demonstrations, fights, killings during the last few years and this corner proof it: a trash can serves as a grave, and around it with shark and then paint; someone made the shape of a body, the body of a woman who was killed right there on 2004. She was at an opposition demonstration placed in that square when a few members of the Bolivarian circles (Chavez supporters, the Bolivarian Circles doesn’t exists anymore I think, they have other names or some people suspect they are part of the police or the military; but that’s just a suspect) passed by in their motorcycles and shoot at the people. I was at home at that moment, watching TV. The news passed the exact minute when she was killed, and some people running and holding her body. It impressed me in the most dramatic way because the woman was just a little bit older than my mom and pretty much alike. And my mom was at that protest. I immediately jumped off my seat, took the phone and called her ordering her to come back home. She was at the back of the square, I can’t remember if she heard the shootings but she asked me to “calm down and don’t over react” – “But mom” – I screamed- “They just killed a woman who looks like you”.
I have heard that the husband has the responsibility of keeping the shape at that square intact. And since I have to go to that place a lot, I have seen that small piece of pain and history many, many times. But until yesterday as far as I can tell, I have never seen before someone walking upon the shape. It was like a sacred place, like a grave indeed, no one dares to put a foot on it, I think. I was wrong. While the bus waiting kept longer and longer I saw at least 5 people just walking by, stepping on that memory like it was nothing. A man with very deep eyes developed the tendency of looking with a very rough face, every time that someone just walked on the shape. And then he looked at me and turned his head down like saying “Yes, you have the same look, the same sad look of someone who can’t forget while the others just passed by and move on with their lives”.
PD: About the picture, This is the corner I'm talking about, I took the picture two years ago (2005) during the aniversary of those events, that explains the flowers. The shape remains the same.