Then he remembered a quote from García Márquez, his favorite writer, the one who shamelessly laid bare the human soul: "The secret of a good old age is nothing other than an honest pact with solitude." Rafael moved silently. Gabo was always right. Life, after all, was about learning to dance with one's own shadow, without waiting for anyone to set the rhythm.
With one last glance at the garden, now tinged with twilight violets, Rafael smiled. He wasn't a complete man, nor did he know if he ever would be. But in that instant, under the sky turning purple, he understood that loneliness wasn't his enemy, but rather the accomplice who would accompany him to the end of the road.
Rafael was about to leave when something stopped him. There, perched on a rose with silky petals, as if dawn had woven them with threads of light, a butterfly opened and closed its wings as slowly as a sigh. It was white, but not the cold white of snow, but rather that hue that holds within its folds the shine of pearls, the reflections of dawn, and the delicacy of the ephemeral.
The world seemed to have stopped.
The garden, once a simple stage for her melancholy, now breathed with a serene magic. The rose, a rose so faint it almost seemed like a pansy, shone in the diffused light, as if holding the secret of tenderness in its veins. And the butterfly, oblivious to Rafael's presence, remained there, fragile and eternal, like a little piece of heaven that had decided to rest among the flowers.
Something broke inside him. Or perhaps, something healthy.
It wasn't just beauty that moved him, but the purity of that moment: a being who knew no anguish, no written destinies, no loneliness, existing simply because that was his nature. There were no questions in his wings, no pain in his flight. Only the now, perfect and silent.
Rafael held his breath, afraid that even the slightest sound could break the spell. But there was no fear in that stillness, only a profound peace, as if for the first time in a long time, the universe was whispering to him, "Look, it can all be that simple."
And in that moment, beneath the golden light filtering through the leaves, Rafael felt that, perhaps, life didn't need to be deciphered. That sometimes all it took was a butterfly, a rose, and the gift of witnessing something so brief and beautiful that, even if it didn't last, it was eternal for having existed.
He continued on his way, lighter this time, carrying with him the image of those translucent wings, which now flew not only in the garden, but also in some new corner of his soul.
Rafael sat motionless on the cathedral pew, his hands clasped, his serenity seemingly carved in marble. The dim light from the stained-glass windows tinged his white cassock with shifting hues—sometimes cream, sometimes almost gold—as if the sky itself were playing at dressing him.
His face was an enigma.
His eyes, the color of ancient gold, looked not at any specific place, but through things, as if his true dialogue was with something—or someone—that only he could see. The stole he wore around his shoulders was not just an ornament, but a map of embroidered symbols, stories in thread that perhaps narrated spiritual battles, broken promises, or untold miracles. The cross on his chest didn't hang: it weighed.
I don't pray out loud. There was no need.
The silence around him wasn't empty, but dense, heavy with all the unspoken words, the confessed sins, and the secrets that would never leave that place. Rafael wasn't a man at that moment; he was a bridge. Between the earthly and the divine. Between the pain of men and the stillness of God.
Someone might have walked past him without noticing anything extraordinary. Anyone would think he was just a priest praying. But there was something about the way the light clung to the embroidery on his stole, as if trying to decipher it, that revealed the truth:
Rafael wasn't asking questions.
He was listening.
And perhaps, in that moment of absolute stillness, he was the only man on earth who truly heard the answer.
The other priests remained bowed, whispering mechanical prayers, their low voices merging with the echo of footsteps on the marble. The high priest, from the pulpit, recited the Scriptures in a deep voice, each word falling like a silver coin in the still air. But Raphael did not listen.
Her golden eyes, instead of descending in devotion, rose to the heights of the cathedral, observing every curve, every detail, as if for the first time.
And what a wonderful place it was.
The Corinthian columns rose like petrified trees, carved by hands that believed they could touch the sky. The capitals, adorned with acanthus leaves that would never wither, held up vaults that seemed miraculously suspended. Atop the dome, frescoes told divine stories: angels in flight, saints with exotic gazes, a God observing the world from a swirl of clouds and golden light. The high altar shone like a captured sun, its central disk radiating flashes that disappeared into the shadows.
Rafael had seen all this hundreds of times. And yet...
Today, the dome reminded him of the shell of a cosmic snail, one that coils around the murmur of the sea. The painted saints seemed to blink, as if at any moment they might begin to speak. And the solar symbol on the altar was no longer just gold and stone: it was an eye, a portal, a reminder that the sacred was not above, but everywhere.
A sigh escaped his lips.
As the others murmured "Amen," he thought of the forgotten masons, of the artists who blended pigments with faith, of the centuries that had breathed within these walls. This cathedral was not just a building: it was a living organism, a pulsating pulse between the human and the eternal.
And Raphael, amidst that silence filled with voices, smiling at the priest .
Because some seek God in words.
But he found him in the stone, in the light, in the dust of centuries that danced in the rays cute .