It was raining as it had not rained for several years; this became a deliciously cold memory, which brought with it the melody that the drops produce when hitting the roofs of the houses; the exquisite perfume of the wet earth, and the need to prepare hot chocolate, or at least a coffee for the occasion. That's what Vile did. He took a cup of hot chocolate with two marshmallows to accompany it. He was well wrapped. The cold was accentuated. He pulled out an acoustic guitar and began to play it. However, the fingers hurt a lot. It was late at night; With a strange demonic hatred the rain fell. But for Vile, that "demonic hatred" was not so strange, but familiarly uncomfortable.

And of course, it was night and it was raining on Lilith, a tavern with several people inside drinking, eating and telling stories. However, inside there was too much solitude. In fact, three solitudes crowned by different names. The solitude of the silence, hollow, and dry, like all the things that were missing. Perhaps there was also a lack of music to appease the silence, since the voices of the customers were not enough, and Vile's guitar had gone out like the light of a firefly in the thick and the distant darkness of the place. The second solitude was fear. Thus anyone could hear in the absence of words in the mouths of customers who avoided telling terrible, but true stories about everything that happened in the city of Serendipity. And finally, the third solitude, which was complex to find because it merited that you would look for it with your eyes, or with any other sense; it was that of a man with blue pupils as funerary trappings nuanced in melancholy nailed in the direction of nothingness. His name: Vile.

His hands caressed the back of the guitar with affection and tenderness, just as a man caresses the hair and the face of the woman he loves.

Vile took a glass of whiskey without ice. He tried it with subtlety. He did not feel any discomfort in his throat and he finished heating up.

In Lilith there were only seven customers left without telling Vile. It was not strange. Serendipity was also an abandoned and forgotten city.

Then someone came through the door. An old man with a stern expression, with gray, but fleeting eyes like pulses of light on his face that contrasted with the black clothes he wore; he moved skillfully into the bar; his eyes had the stele that makes the look of someone who knows too many things.
He sat at the same table as Vile after ordering two rounds of what he was taking.

—You're still here— the man in black said.

—Yes. I'm still here. A little dry and trapped— Vile replied bitterly. He stayed talking with the man one more hour about the terrible news that the others in the bar avoided. Nobody could hear them anyway.

—Tomorrow you should go out, Vile—the man insisted. His voice sounded hoarse, but he had strength, like an old lion that can still roar—otherwise, you will consume yourself unfailingly.

—I'll see if I can do it, Boris— Vile replied and took a deep drink.
The next morning, it was not raining on Serendipity. Instead, a delicate blanket of snow had fallen. The sky on its side was a gray blue, sad, dull, like the eyes of some orphans who lived in the streets. Vile walked to the old dock; It brought back memories. Some very painful.

Boris did not appear. Vile lit a cigarette and brought it to his mouth, inhaled; he could wait for him while having cigarettes to consume.

Snow fell slowly. As if Serendipity kissed her in a delicate and tender winter.
Vile thought while he smoked and bathed with the snowflakes. Recalling of the past, he remembered the death of his beloved Veronica, on this same gray and sad dock, today covered in snow as on that occasion.
It was almost midnight of an autumn that was about to come to an end. The Ruska party was celebrated. The atmosphere smelled of damp wood and roasted meal and beer. It was all slightly more cheerful as all that is remembered with so much past that does not allow to see the present. After the government closed mines in the city, Serendipity would begin to die. It was several years before that fall. Everything went into decline. As some inhabitants feared, many shops closed their doors; some families separated because the younger ones went to other cities; suddenly in the streets there were more children and the elderly homeless. Suddenly there were more people with bad intentions in the streets without measuring dates, just waiting for the night to feel protected by the cold darkness that Serendipity threw over them like a mirror inside a room without any bend of light.

It was a band of five assailants. They neutralized Vile with some good punches, while Veronica was grabbed. They both
removed their belongings. Veronica had her hair, kissed by the fire. He remembered it still in a warm and close way and produced in him at night the feeling of being in front of a bonfire. Her hair was long like a waterfall coming out of the same twilight light. But the warmth of that memory was always interrupted suddenly as if an icy breeze extinguished the embers of a single violent breath.

She was raped in front of Vile by the five men. The five had their faces rotted by malice and the desire to hurt, the product of a contaminated society that throws its inhabitants into the wells of pain and barbarism. The police appeared on the scene, but everything had already happened; they were able to grab the assailants and bring them to justice. But Veronica did not...

—Sorry for keeping you waiting, Vile,— interrupted Boris, his voice so calm, clear and strong as polished marble.

—Do not worry. You're already here— Vile said, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette. —Now you can tell me who you are? —He asked. His voice showed no irritation, only boredom and confusion. —You've been following me for a while. You know many things about me—.

—Do you really want to know?" Boris asked quietly.

—Yes— Vile insisted.

—And you also want to die?

—Yes ...—he replied.

—And then why do you not throw yourself from a bridge, or give yourself a shot in the forehead? You can do it at any time.—He looked into Vile's blue eyes, dull as the ocean.

—Is that…

—You seek a guarantee—interrupted Vile. —Men always seek a guarantee before they die, although most do not think about death or the nothing that awaits them but that scares them.

—I would not mind if at death, I am condemned to nothing! —Exclaimed.—Men live with the certainty that one day they will die. But nobody thinks about it as you said. I do. I am afraid to die after having lost all the reasons to live as well as to die.

—You should know, Vile. I am the same death. I live in this city where everything dies and decays in the gray. The florets are born withered. Hopes run away. You are a sleepwalker without hope who roams these lonely streets. What are you really looking for?

—I'm looking for forgiveness— Vile said after a moment. —And you are looking for me?

—Do not. Not yet. Unless you do not find what you want—said Death. Vile felt a strange relief going through his viscera and his spine. —I accompany you on these streets because you are the only dead person who walks that could really come out of the stigma of this city. When the plague of misery accompanies a man, this is until the end of his days.

—I understand—he answered after a minute.

Vile took a suitcase and walked with Boris to the end of the dock; they went through where everything happened.
Veronica was there waiting for him dressed in white like summer that was still far away. Vile approached her with care and determination. The suitcase was getting heavier and heavier on his arm. Veronica turned her back subtly. Boris stood at one end of the two of them. It was a while when Vile, just looked at her from behind, silent, still, feeling that time had stopped. He took the wreath of flowers from the suitcase, placed it on Veronica with warmth and care; He hugged her on her back.

—I hope you can forgive me, my love— he said in her ear and she vanished among the flowers.

—What did she tell you?— Boris asked.

—Nothing.

—The dead do not speak—. Boris swirled the flowers on the floor. A white lily came out of them. —But she says everything is fine.—Vile finally smiled.

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