The story
The night in Bogotá used to dress in a cloak of thick mist and a cold that cut right through to the bone, especially for those who made a living behind the wheel. Many years ago, on one of those lonely shifts, a driver cruising the avenues of the capital stopped his vehicle upon seeing a solitary silhouette at the intersection of Carrera 80 and Caracas. The man, of ordinary appearance and dressed in a dark coat, got into the back of the taxi and requested a fare toward the far north, heading in the direction of Calle 220.
The trip began in complete silence, broken only by the monotonous purr of the engine and the tapping of the drizzle against the windshield. However, after a few minutes, the passenger cleared his throat and, in a slow but insistent voice, asked if he could light a cigarette. The driver, without taking his eyes off the road and fiercely protective of his livelihood, replied immediately in a dry tone that smoking was forbidden inside the car.
Kilometers ahead, as the taxi ate up the wet asphalt under the dim glow of the streetlights, the same voice echoed once more from the darkness of the backseat. The passenger insisted a second time with the same request, begging almost in a whisper for a puff of tobacco. The driver's refusal was just as blunt. He was not about to let anyone ruin his upholstery, especially out in the middle of that lonely nighttime route where thoughts tended to turn strange.
The atmosphere inside the cabin grew heavy, saturated with an odd stillness that did not match the constant movement of the city. As the vehicle was now moving through the more unpopulated areas of the north, the passenger asked the question a third and final time. The driver's answer was a definitive, cutting no. Intrigued by the insistence and feeling a sudden chill run down his spine, the man at the wheel looked up to glance through the rearview mirror.
What he found was absolute emptiness. In the backseat, there was not a trace of the man who had hailed the ride. With his heart pounding frantically against his chest and a freezing fear gripping his hands, the taxi driver jerked the wheel, pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road, and turned off the headlights. He turned around completely, stretching his arms toward the back, but the vinyl benches were entirely empty. The doors were never opened while moving; the night wind blew outside, oblivious to the impossible thing that had just happened.
Terrified, he got out of the car to inspect every corner, looking for a logical explanation in the gloom, but the street was deserted. That nighttime apparition had vanished into thin air, leaving the driver alone with the night and the echo of a question that should never have been asked.
