Spiderweb

It’s harder to breathe in the humid north, up there so close to Brazil and Paraguay, the rushing river guarded by mosquito sentinels and a sky that can turn from limpid blue to stormy black in minutes. You start to struggle as soon as you arrive, as if a brutal arm were wound around your chest, squeezing. And everything is slower; during siesta there is only a rare bicycle in the empty streets, the ice-cream shops seem abandoned, with their ceiling fans spinning for no one, and the chicharras shriek hysterically in their hiding places. I’ve never seen a chicharra. My aunt says they’re horrible creatures, spectacular flies with green wings that vibrate and smooth black eyes that seem to look right at you. I don’t like the word chicharra. They’re also called cicadas, which I think has a smoother sound. If they were always cicadas, their summer noise would remind me of the violet flowers of the jacaranda trees along the Paraná, or of the white stone mansions with their staircases and their willows. But as chicharras they make me think of the heat, rotting meat, blackouts, drunks who stare with bloodshot eyes from their benches in the park.