Llanito category winner

‘Mujeres Entre La Linea y El Valor’

By Naomi Duarte
The bus exhales, mechanical and weary. A beast long burdened by the weight of its own journey. The doors stutter shut, the bones of the vehicle locking into place, vertebrae clicking, sealing us in. Without hesitation the driver does not wait, all the while the intimidation in my cuerpo feels unwonted. The great lung of the engine expands, fills with breath and the whole frame lurches forward, as if moved not by will but by some ancient muscle memory, a body waking before it is ready. Y ya, no hay vuelta atrás.

I settle by the window, heat pooling against the touch of glass. Outside, the border town dissolves into streaks of dust, restless under the sun. Gibraltar peels away from me, skin shed in slow retreat. I should watch it disappear and turn my face forward, but I hesitate. I am still learning how to part with a place, how to leave without the weight of querencia pulling me back.

I scan the bus for others who have committed the same transgression. Y ahí, en el asiento de enfrente, la veo. Her hair, un halo frayed at the edges—straw-blonde, the tips tieso from summers spent drowning in peroxide and reckless love. But the roots betray her, dark as tierra, speckled with canas that catch the early light. Me imagino que tendrá una nieta que le encanta jugar con ese pelo for the familiar texture of a muñeca’s hair.

La señora shifts. Arms fold, weight redistributes. A body shrinking into itself without meaning to.

“Qué miedo me da ir tan lejos,” she says, not as a complaint but as a quiet admission – let slip in release, the way one exhales before stepping into the cold poniente water. I latch onto her words, worn and recognisable, as if passed down through generations. I recognise them instantly. The way fear settles, not in trembling retreat, but in acceptance. She’s not speaking to me, but to the woman beside her. Perhaps a stranger, close in age, familiar in the way women sometimes are. The quiet reassurance of bodies near enough to soften silence.

“Voy a visitar a mi hermana en Torremolinos,” she adds, validating her right to depart from her pueblo, as if one must justify the act of leaving.
I nod, though she cannot see me. I, too, would break the bounds of the known and the necessary to see my sister.

The road stretches forward, unbroken, an artery of dust and asphalt pulsing towards the horizon. Behind us, La Línea se deshila poco a poco, dissolving into heat. I do not know whether to watch it disappear or fix my eyes on the road ahead.

She exhales again. Soft and warm. A breath pulled inward, folded into the hollow of her chest. Hands resting in her lap, fingers curling into the small gesture of comfort. She’s inquieta. Her thumb moves in slow circles over the crease of her palm.

I know hands like that. Manos that scrub, that wring, that fold the world into the simplest of gestures. Manos that once held the weight of life, of children, of promises unkept, of a love that doesn’t wait. Manos which haul plastic bolsas overflowing with food porque mas vale un viaje que dos. Esas manos que acarician lejía, cracked at the knuckles and healed without queja.

I wonder if she’s ever held something without purpose, ever sat still, cuando no se ha sentado en to’l dia.

The bus rocks forward, steady, a motion both lulling and relentless, the low vibration of it slipping beneath the ribs like a canción de cuna.

Me la imagino esperando sola en la estación, mirando el autobús como si fuera una boca abierta, lo desonocido capable of swallowing her whole. Thinking, “Y si mejor me quedo?” I know that moment. The thickening of air, solidifying at the threshold of vastness. Fear gripping the chest with hands unseen, urging return. We have carried this fear with us. Passed it down like an heirloom, draped it over our shoulders like a second skin. It is meant to shield us but instead it binds, perpetuating the very dangers it warns against.
And yet.

Even with all that weight, we step forward anyway.

Cómo decirle que se merece ver la belleza del mundo. A lo mejor a part of her already knows.

She shifts, pulling out her phone, the quiet of her actions telling a story of their own. Scrolls. Pauses. Starts typing. Stops. Deletes. Starts again. A message sent. A breath held.

She leans back, eyes falling closed, no dormida no, but descansado, in the way only women who are never truly allowed to rest can. Her lips press together, tight like the seam of a bag that has held too much. Her mercadillo lipstick too soft against the sharpness of her face—viscid pink, the kind that lingers: on the rim of a coffee cup, on the end of a cigarro, on the tender bend of a forehead. I wonder si ella tiene a alguien deseando besar esos labios de candy.

The bus jerks, and her eyes flutter open. She blinks, caught in a flash of rumination, her fingers gripping the velvet armrest.

For a moment, in the warped window, I see us both, our faces blending together. Women. Separated by time, borders, and lives, but not by herencia.

Her fingers curl around the cold latch, hesitant, then firm. The window creaks. Air slips in. She exhales, relief soft as lana, her head resting back.

In that quiet, I understand. Close in distance but divided by so much more. Yet connected by this small act of defiance, this gentle courage. It’s the same reckoning, isn’t it? Both of us, poised at the edge of fear. Both of us stepping forward, despite it.

Because of it.

The bus moves on, and the hum of it pulls us closer, the distance thinning with every turn of the road as we move farther from home.

Judge’s Comments:

A story that captured us through its beautiful and expressive turn of phrase. The evocative use of imagery and the sense of sisterhood between the main character and the other women travelling on the bus will resonate with many readers who also recognize que ‘mas vale un viaje que dos’.