Yesterday you did what you do every day. You don't know if it's worthwhile remembering it. You only want to remember, lying back there in the twilight of your bedroom, what's going to happen: you don't want to foresee what has already happened. In your twilight, your eyes see ahead; they don't know how to guess the past. Yes; yesterday you will fly from Hermosillo, yesterday, April 9, 1959, on the Compañía Mexicana de Aviación shuttle, which will depart from the capital of Sonora, where it will be hot as hell, at 9:55 a.m., and will reach Mexico City exactly on time at 4:30 p.m. From your seat on the four-motor plane, you will see a flat, gray city, a belt of adobe and tin roofs. The hostess will offer you a Chiclet wrapped in cellophane-you will remember that in particular because she will be (she has to be, don't think everything in the future tense from now on) a very pretty girl and you will always have a good eye for such things even if your age condemns you to imagine rather than do (you're using words incorrectly: of course, you will never feel condemned to that, even if you can only imagine it). The bright sign NO SMOKING, FASTEN SEAT BELTS will go on just when the plane, entering the Valley of Mexico, abruptly descends, as if it had lost the power to stay aloft in the thin air; then it suddenly leans to the right, and packages, jackets, suitcases will fall and a collective shout will ring out, cut off by a low sob, and the flames will sputter, until the fourth motor on the right wing stops, and everyone goes on shouting and only you stay calm, unmoved, chewing your gum and watching the legs of the hostess, who will run up and down the aisle calming the passengers.