When the Cement Gives Up

When the Cement Gives Up


The First Cracks


The humidity was not just a layer in the air, it was an invasion, a violent occupation of every pore, every crevice, every breath. The urban landscape, suffocated under a sky that looked like a leaden roof, was slowly disintegrating, abandoned to the fate that decades of neglect and shoddy workmanship had prescribed. The buildings, ghosts of another era, stood heavy, as if carrying the weight of the sins of their builders.


An alienated observer might see these workers' quarters as a monument to social neglect. But to me, it was an open wound, a mirror of my own silence. My work clothes, stained with the mud of the previous days, clung to me, a constant reminder of the reality I tried to ignore.


My footsteps on the wet street were muffled. Each step was a struggle, not only with the ground that was giving way, but also with the memories that haunted me. The smell of mold and confinement, emanating from the entrances of the apartment buildings, was familiar, a smell I had learned to associate with failure.


The workers' housing complex loomed before me, a mass of concrete and iron that seemed to be collapsing under its own weight. The cracks in the walls were deep, like wrinkles on a face that had lived through too much. The balconies, rusty and crumbling, looked like traps ready to close.


My heart was pounding as I approached the entrance to Building B. There, in the foundations, lay the truth I was afraid to face. The truth about my father's company, about the malfeasance we had covered up, about my silence that had cost lives.


A small child ran past me, laughing, oblivious to the danger that lay ahead. The sight of him made my stomach clench. How many children like him lived in these buildings, playing on a time bomb?


Eleni stood at the entrance, her sleeves rolled up, a picture of determination and suspicion. Her eyes, intense and piercing, looked at me with an expression that left no room for misunderstanding.


"Are you here again?" she asked, her voice full of irony.


"I need to check the foundations," I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.


—Check what? —he laughed bitterly. —All you engineers, you come and go, you write reports, and we continue to live in fear.


My silence was my answer. What could I tell her? That she was right? That I was part of the problem?


"Don't worry," he continued, "we're used to it."


Her words were like a stab. The habit of fear. The acceptance of risk as part of everyday life.