I told her: “I intend to get to know you a little more tonight.”

She didn’t answer because she simply couldn’t answer, only listen, though I wasn’t sure she was listening to me.

Because at Chialva Pharmacy, her three-dimensional, light beauty struck my heart. Blue eyes, pink lips, dark hair, and a Gucci perfume in her right hand. She looked drawn by the gods.

And I was just a lonely man in love with the woman from an advertising poster. And that night… yes, that incredible night, I was going to love her forever.

I waited for hours sitting in 25 de Mayo Square, across from the store. I watched neighbors come and go with their shopping bags, make phone calls, chat quickly. I thought of her. Of our future together.

At 11 p.m. the pharmacy closed. The employees locked up and left.

The cameras weren’t on.

A unique, unrepeatable Sunday night for the two of us.

I stood up, a few minutes of contemplation. I felt inspired, happy, blessed.

And I walked toward the pharmacy window. I touched the glass that separated us with my hands.

And from my right pocket I pulled out a hammer.

A couple of blows…

The glass exploded over us.

The alarms went off.

I took a few steps toward her.

I caressed the surface of her face, brought my mouth close. Our first kiss.

I closed my eyes.

We kissed. A wet, slobbery kiss.

And I hugged her.

And the plastic paper crunched against me.

I didn’t care about her name, her surname, her country. I cried while pressing the advertising poster against my body.

“Thank you for this, my love,” I said.

A policeman was behind me, watching.

He cleared his throat.

He didn’t ask questions, didn’t want explanations.

I turned my head and saw him.

With tears, I made a gesture of satisfaction.

And everything around me slowed down.

The policeman lowered his gaze, ashamed.

He knew, like me, the fire of passion. He knew what it was to be madly in love.

And in one movement, I lifted the poster from its place, looked at the policeman one last time, and ran with her, body to body, out of the pharmacy.

And the policeman ran after me, waving his hands and shouting.

A race of two with her.

“You won’t take her from me,” I told the policeman.

A car passed by with Gilda’s song, “No Me Arrepiento de Este Amor” blasting.

And it felt good. It felt like a sign from heaven.

But the policeman was fast, too fast, and he stuck his right foot between mine and I fell. I fell with her.

And on the dirt street, the advertising poster broke in the fall, mutilating my woman into several pieces of plastic paper.

And I stopped being happy.

A happiness that for an instant I believed belonged to me.

The policeman stood there, waiting for me to react on the ground. But I stayed there lying down… I don’t remember how long I stayed there, and he left.

And I returned to my small house in Pedro Cano neighborhood where I lived with my mother and father. I never told them what happened.

In El Lapaceño, the town’s local newspaper, they wrote that the glass was broken but there was no robbery. An advertising poster of a perfume flew away and was destroyed by dogs. Pure yellow press lies. And my truth kept in silence until today.