By Lien Estrada
HAVANA TIMES – My friend graduated in Art History from the University of Oriente. She taught at the journalism school in Holguín. We had met at a literary workshop, and she had always dreamed, like me, of publishing a book of adult fiction. She had been waiting for her parole for about a year. Her brother, who lived in Kentucky, had been processing it for a long time.
Finally, my friend called me to tell me that her papers had arrived. I congratulated her. We agreed to meet at a café the next day to say goodbye, and so we did. When we met, she had already deregistered from the Oficoda (ration card system) and had her tickets purchased.
I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she felt like she was on a roller coaster. She could imagine the next step, but it was impossible for her to specify anything until she landed on the other side, naturally. “It must be complex in the soul to leave definitively,” I observed. That’
