The Opera of the Silence

From his first awakening of consciousness, Marco Carmín Posantos dreamed of being a singer. He spent hours in front of his father's collection of vinyl records watching them spin on his grandfather's phonograph, enraptured by the prodigious voices of Carlos Gardel, Lucho Gatica and Enrico Caruso. He knew every tango, every bolero and every opera from beginning to end and recognized them as soon as the needle fell on the groove of the first note.

His father enrolled him in prestigious conservatories; and hired the best private teachers in Italy, the United Kingdom and Argentina; He contacted the most recognized producers and radio stations, and presented him to the cream of society, but always received the same stubborn response:

"Gentleman, your son is mute".

Marco Carmín Posantos considered that a crude excuse, since he did not doubt his talent. So magnificent was he that as he walked through his family's wooded lands, the birds approached him as soon as he opened his mouth, attracting the fauna and invigorating the flora as if he was a princess from a fairytale.

One beautiful day in June, carrying an empty box, Marco Carmín Posantos arrived at the small square packed with tarantines from the popular market. In front of the fountain, he dropped the box, decked himself out in a Gardel-style fedora and climbed onto his portable stage. The moment he opened his mouth, time seemed to stop: the merchants dropped the coins and their customers let the tangerines and melons roll on the cobblestones. The faithful birds crossed the forests to join the astonished pigeons, who, for the first time, ignored the crumbs of bread that the old women offered them.

Marco Carmín Posantos did not make a sound, but his lips and limbs moved with the passion of the Alexandrian choirs of ancient Greece. Such was his artistic passion that the crowd, inexplicably, managed to hear a voice as clear and diaphanous as the water that ran through the fountain behind him. Including a deaf beggar who jumped elated when the young man's miraculous voice ignored his birth disabilities and resonated like a heavenly song in his silent existence. They recognized each melody, even those they did not know, circles of dancers were organized imitating the tango steps, the women twirled their skirts with flamenco elegance and the men tore their hearts to the rhythm of painful boleros of heartbreak. The festival lasted for several days, under burning suns and stormy rains. Marco Carmín Posantos did not rest and only stopped his concert to briefly go to the tavern's bathroom from time to time.

His father was in charge of reading in detail the thousands of contracts that arrived at the doors of the Posantos house, one by one, comparing figures and miscellaneous. Meanwhile, Marco Carmín Posantos enjoyed the benefits of fame: surrounded by women, drowned in liquor, dressed by tailors from all corners of the country and being photographed with political and artistic personalities.

Finally, he was welcomed to one of the largest stages in the world: the Arts Festival in Rome. The Pope, one of his many admirers, had offered him his balcony in St. Peter's Square, but his father, being a stubborn agnostic, considered it too pompous, so the Holy Father had to leave his chambers and settle for taking a seat next to the commoners in the stands in front of the Colosseum.

Marco Carmín Posantos was received with applauses, screams and tears. He walked along the boards until he reached the center, where a spotlight awaited him. All of Rome was stunned, ready to witness the consecrated opera of the silence. Marco Carmín Posantos decided to open with a heartbreaking performance of Nessun Dorma. The aria's climax was approaching, tears flowed and hair stood: All'alba vincerò, vincerò...

Close to the last notes, Marco Carmín Posantos felt a strangulation in his throat, his eyes bulged and a balled-up frog was projected from his trachea to the lap of His Holiness, who murmured disheartened: "Merda, le piaghe d'Egitto": "Shit, the plagues of Egipt". As soon as the amphibian achieved the desired freedom, a perfect and intoned Vincerò, perhaps the most beautiful ever performed, vibrated in the virgin vocal cords of Marco Carmín Posantos. His voice travelled through every corner of Rome, and, according to some, it also reached the faithful birds of his distant forest, who fluttered away in terror of that scandal, to never to return.