The voice on the other end of the phone sounds restless, timid, indecisive. – Are you Moca Varea? – Yes, I respond to orders feeling more Mocha than ever (I don’t care if I’m Monica or Mocha at this point). Do you teach writing? Now my voice is restless, shy, indecisive: – I don’t know if I teach writing, I don’t think I teach writing, definitely: I don’t teach writing, I just hold writing workshops, I say I too lose that forever aspiring writer who will never be my “favorite student “.

Argentinian writer Abelardo Castillo asked himself: What is the meaning of literature in a senseless world? And it was answered: There are only two answers. First: it doesn’t make sense. The second is precisely the one that seems to be out of fashion today: the meaning of literature is to imagine meaning for the world, and thus for the writer who writes it.

I live near the old and dilapidated, dirty and unbearably noisy Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa. I guess people have a right to listen to some sounds from the beat they call reggaeton; I guess event companies have the right to bring these loud bands and organize their concerts; and I guess the municipal authorities are obliged to issue the necessary permits for the infernal noise to penetrate up to three kilometers in all directions, delighting a crowd of future deaf people and ruining the lives of the neighbors. In total! Mr. money is a powerful gentleman.

A week before the concerts, the acoustic torture begins. The day of the event comes to a climax. All hell breaks loose and he takes his neighbors hostage in a total, disrespectful, nonsensical way. He’s trying to drive us crazy, I believe he’s succeeding, so that dementia takes over the neighborhood little by little and everything becomes noise, chaos, recklessness.

I don’t know when this disagreement between Quito and I started. I don’t know if I can recover the love, illusion and hope that the city gave me. I try but I can’t, heartbreak and neglect always win.

My house faces north, so only the afternoon sun warms it a little. My house faces north, and I didn’t even notice that the cardinal points have decreased since my life.

My north is the house across the street and sometimes Harry’s greengrocer two blocks away (Harry? “Dirty Harry,” Santi nicknamed him).

In the south, a dead-end street where I no longer walk my dog ​​out of fear, even though the night is not very dark; and one block further the bank Bolito.

My east is poor, there is only that cheeky shop where they rarely sell beer; and my west, that west that makes me move away from my center, that diverse west is that of the supermarket, the bakery, the pharmacy and the park.

I live inside more than four walls, but not a day goes by that I don’t dream of going to my favorite place in Quito: the Mariscal Sucre pre-boarding lounge, because my heart only looks north and south. Meanwhile, I continue to imagine the meaning of the world in literature. (OR)