Your Dream, Your Worst Nightmare

By Carola Chávez

I saw your photos on Facebook, very happy, there in the main Ave of Las Mercedes, where we partied when we were kids, remember? I saw you with your new tricolor cap, with your beautiful haircut, with your earrings and necklaces, with your pretty clothes. You always so flirtatious, so well groomed, with your good taste. I did not see your children, I suppose they stayed at La Yaya’s house. I guess that was better: the quiet, safe and well-groomed kids. Because we do everything for the kids, right? That’s why you went out that Saturday, “to fight for your future”. And you stopped there to listen to your new leader, attentively, and when he asked you – for the world to know – if they were afraid of a civil war, you, for the future of your children, shouted Nooooo! that you were not afraid, as you are not afraid of an invasion of the Marines; whatever it takes to get the chavistas out, even if among those chavistas are your cousins, your dad.

A civil war, how exciting! I suppose you imagine that this war, which you do not fear, would happen far from the east of Caracas, say, the Barrio 23 de Enero, never in the East of the East, because there they have streets closed with guard posts and their underpaid guards are going to prevent the violence that a war supposes from arriving at your placid street. I suppose you think that your kids’ school would continue to care for the children happily, that far from terror and death, your children would continue their English classes. That your life would remain intact and even better, you know, in freedom. That your business would flourish because there is nothing better for the family economy than a war. It’s a pity your business is not funerary! Nothing more beautiful than a killing among neighbors, family and friends, or “I kill you or you kill me” and those deep wounds that will never heal anymore. The important thing is to get out of chavismo.

I know you, I know your aspirations, the value you give to those things you call “quality of life”, your career, your precious home, your security, your future and that of your children. I also know the madness that strikes you every time your leaders invented a guarimba. And because I love you, because I love your children, I must tell you, even in vain, that the civil war that Guaido wants, the one you say you do not fear, would be the end of all your dreams, the future of your children, your lost home , your life abandoned in the flight. Because I love you, I want you to understand that in the civil war you want there are no weekends, for children, in the tranquility of the Club Puerto Azul.

Carola Chávez

@tongorocho