The story
The Bogotá night has always had an icy edge that chills you to the bone, especially for those who make a living behind the wheel. Bernardo knew the capital's worn-out asphalt by heart, along with those dead hours when the city is left at the mercy of the silence. For years, like so many drivers who roam the urban gloom, he had maintained an unwavering devotion to the souls in purgatory. For him, they weren't a cause for dread, but distant protectors whom he used to entrust with every shift and every difficult fare.
Because of this habit, when the loneliness of the early morning hours took over the avenues, he used to detour his yellow taxi toward the borders of a cemetery located in the south of the city. It was close to two in the morning when he brought the vehicle to a halt in front of the entrance. Bernardo took the usual precautions of someone who works at night: he never turned off the engine, leaving the vehicle running with a steady hum and the doors open in case he needed to react in a hurry. The headlights pointed straight toward the gate and the perimeter wall, casting two sharp beams of light that dispelled any shadow.
When he stepped out of the car, the cold air and the stillness of the place enveloped him completely. Adjusting his jacket, Bernardo began his daily ritual. He started walking at a slow pace from one end to the other in front of the entrance, focusing on the rhythm of his thoughts while he whispered the Lord's Prayer. The repetitive cadence of the phrases offered him a strange calm in the middle of the street's desolation.
It was in the middle of one of those prayers when a sharp sensation made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Out of the corner of his right eye, he sensed that someone was moving mere inches from his shoulder. There were no footsteps on the ground or rustling of fabric, but the displacement of an invisible mass broke the stillness of the sidewalk.
Bernardo turned his head in surprise and spotted a tall figure, practically the same height as his own, walking right beside him. The entity was wearing garments of a bluish tone that strangely absorbed the light. The most unsettling part was its face: a uniform pinkish complexion that completely lacked any features. You couldn't make out eyes, or a nose, or the corners of a mouth; it was a flat, smooth, and mute visage, silhouetted against the night.
That presence didn't turn to look at him or slow its pace. It followed a straight and determined path toward the cemetery wall. Bernardo stood paralyzed right where he was, with the prayer stuck in his throat. Under the direct, clear illumination of the taxi's headlights, he witnessed with absolute clarity how the figure reached the solid brick structure and, without the slightest effort or sound, passed right through the wall from side to side as if the concrete were mere fog.
It took the man several seconds to catch his breath. Facing the intact wall and the engine that kept humming behind his back, he understood that this hadn't been an optical illusion or a flesh-and-blood person, but the tangible and inexplicable response of the very souls he used to pray to.
