She is patiently waiting for the arrival of a taxi. I am talking to her. She is telling it to me. Apparently, all the girls waiting for a taxi tell stories.
Occasionally, she averts her eyes, without losing attention, to have some snack to get her strength back. She has been waiting for many days. She tells me exactly, without looking up in any diary, the hours she has spent there sitting on that small square from which all the visitors that New York devours, take photographs to the flatiron Building. She tells me it is “La Plancha”, that’s the way other people call it.
I say nothing. I don’t want to discourage her since I have the certainty, sorry, I would say almost the certainty that her wait will be eternal. I mean, her wait for a blue taxi.
I don’t need to make her many questions. She is talking in a soft voice about the taxi. It has to be a blue one, she is not wearing yellow clothes for that special occasion in vain.
I hint to her that New York is full of white limousines. She moves her hands disdainfully but delicately in an eloquent gesture. I also talk to her about black limousines, fewer than white ones; but there are still quite a few. However, she keeps insisting. Blue is the colour which suits her best. It suits her, as if she were her clothing.
I go closer to a street stall and bring her a passion fruit juice. It’s hot. 76ºF and humidity is high. She asks me if there weren’t orange or peach juices. Better an orange one.
While I am coming back with the juice, now an orange one, hundreds of taxis pass by in every direction. I know I won’t see any blue one… but I stare at them as if my happiness would depend on it.
Hurries
Fast taxis dye the Fifth Avenue with minimal yellow shooting stars.
Fast pedestrians leave the tracks of their existence in the air.
Trees tied to the noise mistake their shades for a false sky.
And a false sea climbs the skyscrapers.
Speed
And hurriedly, a warm tree wants to come to a square,
where a girl dressed in yellow, was waiting for a taxi,
to tell her the secret everybody conceals from her.
Blue doesn’t exist. It doesn’t exist in movement.
.
.
.
:::Post 293 INT 031 - 090526 - The blue taxi girl
:::photo 1: 090513-C1556 - La chica del taxi azul - f/3.5 - 1/400 seg - 420*mm
:::photo 2: 090515-C1628 - Prisas - f/2.7 - 1/4 seg - 36*mm
:::photo 3: 090509 -P1020565 - Arbol veloz - f/3.3 - 1/60 seg - 30*mm
:::link: Spanish version: Cristal Rasgado - La chica del taxi azul
