28: Comet Cuba

There are hours in the day and there are days in the year when Cuban life is so unreal that it evaporates. All that is solid melts into air. Even Fidel floats, like an insufferable disease we don’t know how to wake up from. These are hours and days when memory collapses, sublimates, and forces us to look to the heavens as if God himself had forgotten to tell us something. The vapor ascends, a dizziness descends. And there is no truth that is not as volatile as gunpowder.

It’s been decades since I’ve flown a kite. I’m afraid to tempt the void. I don’t want to end up dragged in dizzying flight over my city, unable to put my feet on the ground, rootless, without imagination. Maybe I’m just afraid of realizing that this extreme lightness, which at times is Cuba, is also—all the time—me.