#Moving

This story begins with three @ handles and ends with two. With a single hashtag, repeated insistently like a mantra: #moving. A flickering light on the computer screen in the dark. And a song.

- María José Navia

Ana writes in the mornings. Sometimes also in the afternoons. It has become almost a habit, like brushing her teeth or having her three cups of coffee for breakfast. She likes commenting on a few news articles (usually in the cultural and entertainment sections), posting a few verses of her favorite poems, and linking the video to a good song.

She is moving out of the space she has been sharing with a childhood friend for the past three years. She wants to live alone, move on, see what that feels like. Slowly she’s putting away books in boxes, but not without first labeling them (red for fiction, green for nonfiction).

Rodrigo leaves the keys on the kitchen table. Those were Adriana’s instructions and he will follow them to a T. He takes one last look at the apartment, small, tiny, and spotless after hours of cleaning, as he hears the tinkling of the keys, finally breaking free from their chain, as in one last farewell movement.

He smiles.

While he’s waiting for the elevator, whose ship steam boiler sound he will not (never ever) miss, he takes his cell phone out of his pocket.

Quickly, before the elevator doors open, he writes: Finally #moving on.

Julia sees the floor getting covered in hair. Tangled locks get stuck on the plastic robe she was put in and she tries not to look up. She doesn’t want to see herself. Not yet. She doesn’t want even the slightest chance of changing her mind.

She asked the hairdresser to cut her hair right below her ears. She, who had always worn it down to her waist. To make her a brunette also, and he couldn’t hide his shocked/surprised face, caressing almost with sorrow her long and radiant blonde curls. And to please hurry up.

(“mirror, mirror” #moving)