It was in 1940 in a tiny village called Paraiso when I met Carmen, a woman so famous because the saints bestowed upon her the ability to understand people. She knew what ailed people, she could give prescriptions to make married women happy, she could explain what made husbands miserable. And people envied her for that power. People from distant villages would flock around her house every day to seek answers to their questions. She would answer them all one by one, painlessly, carefully. And she did so with consistency that no one who went to her house with questions left it unanswered.

But there was one man who seemed very impossible to read. She labored hard, summoned the earth and the sky, lighted a thousand black candles, and recited all Oracions she knew existed, but to no avail. He continued to be undecipherable. This pained her a lot, because he wasn't just any man. He was the man she loved the most. And she wanted to make him happy.

She confided her sadness in me. What good is there to have the power to understand the world when you couldn't understand the one who really matters? If she could trade all her abilities for one power, and that was to understand him, she would. She wanted so much to at least be in the same plane with him, and not to spend all her nights wondering. But it seemed that was difficult.

She continued patiently with her work and prayed for the saints to help her with her problem. She wanted her understanding ability be taken. In exchange a chance to read him.

But the prayer was unanswered. The saints fell silent and didn't appear again until that sad day she died in 1960.