It was five in the morning when he returned to the shack that served as his home. The sky was beginning to pale timidly in the east, tinting the still-empty streets a bluish gray. Soon the first workers would come out, their eyes swollen and their steps weary, heading toward their respective jobs. That was precisely why he always returned before that hour: to avoid any encounter. In fact, some cars could already be seen on the streets, their occupants hollow-eyed. The vehicles were not so much the problem as the people coming out of doorways toward the cars parked along the streets.

Alder’s extreme misanthropy forced him to walk between one in the morning and five or five-thirty at most on workdays. On Fridays and Saturdays, he delayed his walks by an hour, going out at two and returning at six or six-thirty. He must not run into anyone, much less any woman, whom he must not look at under any circumstances.

He opened the door to his humble home, a small habitat full of cracked walls that consisted of a single room and went inside. The house had no electricity, and at night he had to light it with a streetlamp, which, though somewhat far away, shone through the window enough to keep him from bumping into the furniture. Old, dirty, rickety furniture that nevertheless matched him perfectly: he too was dirty, old, and battered.

He dropped into the old wingback chair, whose threadbare upholstery spoke of decades of use. The silence was absolute, broken only by the distant hum of some early car. Alder closed his eyes for a moment, exhausted, and then knelt with difficulty before the wooden crucifix that presided over a battered dresser. He prayed Compline in a hoarse voice, almost a whisper, asking for strength to endure one more day.

The book of hours—which contained the Divine Office—was in terrible condition from so much use. The torn, stained pages came loose naturally from a volume that had been used several times a day for decades. To make matters worse, he could barely read it, given the scant—if not nonexistent—lighting in the room. But after repeating it for so long, he almost knew it by heart, and by merely sensing the words he could recite fluently the psalms, ejaculations, and antiphons that made up each liturgical "hour" on each day of the week.

After finishing, he lowered the blind and dragged himself to the narrow bed. The mattress sagged in the middle, forming a valley that seemed to swallow him. He slept in patches until ten, but remained lying down until one in the afternoon, alternating light sleep with murmured prayers. Without getting out of bed, he now prayed the Carmelite rosary between bouts of sleep. He prayed the six mysteries with their twelve Hail Marys, and when he finished the litanies, he got up to pray Lauds and then have lunch.

Since he had no electricity, he had no refrigerator, and he kept food in a wood-lined cavity under the floor that insulated it from the heat. In winter this was not necessary, since the glacial temperatures inside his house prevented any spoilage.

In that improvised refrigerator, as always, were the customary dozen eggs and sausages. He wondered why there were always twelve, even though he ate only two a day. The same was true of the sausages: it was always a package of six, when he only ever ate two. "The boss’s doing, I suppose," he said to himself, looking upward, and took out two eggs and two sausages, then added butter to a skillet. After that, he lit the gas cylinder to cook them, and when they were ready, he carried the plate to the table to eat them with the eggs.

But the table was covered with all kinds of objects, and there was barely room to set the plate down. A worn, sticky oilcloth covered it, preventing anyone from seeing the screws that kept it standing—and those were more than loose, causing the whole structure to wobble far too much whenever he leaned on it. That swaying motion was made even worse by all the weight piled on top of it: everything from countless bits of junk to several stacks of books.

He found enough space and finished his meal, leaving the dirty plate in the sink. Then he sat down in the wingback chair and began reading the Jerusalem Bible: an old copy with the covers coming loose and dirty pages, which was lying on the seat, and he paid as much attention as he could. It was not unusual for him to read entire passages without taking in a word, forcing him to reread them over and over again.

One might think that, during the day, Alder would have no trouble reading. Light would come in through the windows, and he would not experience the difficulties nighttime presented. However, that was only relatively true, because in reality, he lived practically in semi-darkness, even during the day.

His dwelling was at street level, with no garden or space between the façade and the sidewalk where pedestrians passed by. In front of the windows, he had chain blinds—that is, one-inch wooden slats held together by wires that linked into one another, forming a kind of little chain. The blinds were always down except at night, when they were replaced by sheer curtains, because they were an additional form of protection from the outside world. Alder did not want to see anyone, and he did not want anyone to see him.

Under those circumstances, enough light filtered through the space between slat and slat for him to do his daily chores, and even to read. But no one outside could see him, not even by peering through those cracks, thanks to the optical effect by which light always travels from the illuminated area to the dimly lit one, and not the other way around.

Under those conditions, although he was safe from other people’s eyes, since he also did not want to see any passerby, he was forced to find a balance that would allow him to carry out his daily life efficiently without electric light and without even candles. He had already had a scare from the beginning of a fire after falling asleep, and he had discarded them forever.

The solution consisted of the aforementioned sheer curtains: very fine gauze curtains that let in the outside light but prevented him from seeing people. Even when they passed close to his façade, they could only be glimpsed fleetingly, like silhouettes, without their shapes being distinguishable and without it being possible to tell whether they were men or women.

In truth, the sheer curtains were enough, but the blinds provided an additional protection he needed, and not only because of his misanthropy: in the mornings the sunlight struck the façade, turning his house into a blazing oven, and the blind served its purpose by insulating the glass somewhat from the heat.

After two hours of reading the Bible, he took up the book of the Divine Office and knelt again before the crucifix to pray Terce. After doing so, he leaned back in the wingback chair again to listen to Gregorian chants. Until, once more, sleep overtook him, which happened at around six in the evening.

He slept for an hour with his head resting against the sides of the wingback chair, and then lowered the volume on the battery-powered player to prepare himself to meditate on the mysteries of the life of Christ. It was the first of June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and he looked for the relevant book on the shelf behind him.

But he could not find it. Where could it be? he wondered.

The house was small, and it could not have gone very far… If it was not on the shelf, it had to be on the table. He moved the odds and ends aside, leaving some on the floor—a wooden almanac anchored in the previous decade, a globe, a stapler, a fan without its casing…—and began rummaging through the pile of dust-covered books. After a while, he found it: exactly as he had left it on June thirtieth of the previous year.

He began reading those grimy pages for an hour, until eight o’clock struck. Then it was time for Mass, and he tuned the radio to listen to it with full devotion. He behaved as if he were physically present where it was being celebrated: repeating the verses, kneeling when he was supposed to, and making spiritual communion since he could not receive the physical one because he was not there.

Once the broadcast ended, he remained meditating and praying for those in need until ten o’clock at night. Then he had dinner, after praying Vespers, using the same plate he had used at lunch, which was still sitting on the sink.

It was a frugal dinner consisting of yogurt, some vegetables, and four or five cookies. Afterward, he sat back down in the wingback chair and continued listening to those Gregorian chants—male voices only, and if there was any female voice, she must never be the soloist—until, once again, one in the morning arrived. It was time for his walk, and since it was summer, he did not put on the heavy jacket he wore in winter but went out in his shirtsleeves.

The first thing he did was head toward the pastureland. His house was nearby, and all he had to do was cross a couple of streets to reach it. He saw no one. Thank goodness. At that hour he would usually run into some passerby returning late from work, though from seeing them so often he already knew their schedules and managed to avoid them. The worst was a middle-aged woman who must have been coming back from working at a restaurant and who had no fixed time. More than once, he had had to turn around when he caught sight of her, or else pass by her on the opposite sidewalk with that profound feeling of discomfort.

Even so, it was better to go through those streets than through others, which were more heavily populated, and lose himself for two hours in the pastureland, where, at that hour, he never encountered anyone except the animals grazing there.

Ah! The pastureland…

What had once been a simple cattle-raising village relatively close to a large city soon became a commuter town, home to those who worked in that great metropolis. Even so, cows still remained in that vast undeveloped space known as the pastureland, despite the efforts of successive mayors to build housing there.

It was the constant struggle between country and city, he told himself. Why did things have to change so much? he wondered. Everything had been so fine! Life had been so much better before!

The night was splendid, and a great full moon seemed to follow his steps along the paths he walked, bathing the meadows that made up the pastureland in an almost magical silver light. The sepulchral silence was broken only now and then by the distant sound of a car passing along the road.

A deep peace flooded his spirit, and then he sat down on a rock that formed a small promontory to contemplate the meadow stretching out at his feet beneath the full moon. There, he began to pray a few prayers dedicated to the expiation of the souls in Purgatory. It was the least he could do for all those companions who suffered, to a greater or lesser degree, in that place of torment. Too bad he could not do the same for his own soul.

In reality, they were only a few prayers, since three in the morning was approaching and some ranchers were beginning to arrive to tend to the animals.

Back in the town, he kept walking through the empty streets, crossing boulevards, squares, and deserted avenues. The nighttime silence brought him a fragile peace, interrupted only by the distant echo of his own footsteps. He crossed parks, fountains, and artificial ponds until he reached the train station, which was also empty… though not for much longer. Dawn was approaching, and with it the first train of the day. It was time, once again, to return home to rest and follow the same routine—exactly the same—as on the previous days.