Waiting for the Sunrise

By Aurelio Pedroso (Progreso Weekly)

HAVANA TIMES – Almost with the same old feeling of someone waiting for the arrival of a teenage or already grown-up girlfriend, or the arrival of an old friend from past African battles, I look out on the balcony to the east for the first gleams in that impatient wait for the light of the new day to come.

In the sky, some drones prowl at this hour without us knowing who they belong to and what they do.

Today begins as is almost always the case. The Havana sparrows and other birds of a more prestigious spirit will soon begin their rowdy announcements that they are going to flutter free through every branch and corner of the city.

Now, at 6:30 in the pseudo-morning, the neighbor across the street already has the television on to hear the morning news, as well as to give continuity to the series that via the audio-visual packet calms the confinement.

At 6:35, the earliest sparrow, acting as an alarm clock, begins to sing and wake people up with an unpleasant and intermittent chirp. In the first minutes, nobody pays attention to the sparrow except a pitirre that supports him with its well-known credential.

The avenue below is deserted. The city, immobile, fearful or wary of the pandemic in the beginning of its sixth month.

It’s now 6:45. All grayish, as in retreating mourning. The birds things cheer up with their concert. A well-trained parrot, who arrived clandestinely from the central Cuba mountains of El Escambray, has not ceased to offer good morning since the perpetual confinement.

Very soon, optimism will be mixed with pessimism in their condition as Siamese twins united by the same umbilical cord: Covid-19.