The rubble of Caracas holds its breath. A fine dust, the colour of ash and sorrow, settles on the crushed hopes of a nation. In the suffocating silence, a rescuer raises a hand.
“No one move,” he whispers, a prayer more than an order. The world stops. Even the vultures on the twisted rebar pause their vigil.
They listen for a cough, a whimper, a heartbeat beneath the concrete tomb. This is the sound of Venezuela: the agonising silence between the groans of a collapsing infrastructure and the desperate plea for a sign of life. It's a silence that screams louder than any explosion, a silence that tastes of gin and grief.
The rescuers, men with faces like crumpled maps, press their ears to the debris. They are not listening for a pulse. They are listening for the ghost of a nation's dignity.
And in that hush, you can hear the ghost of a thousand politicians shuffling papers, the phantom laughter of oligarchs, the distant drone of a propaganda machine. But under the rubble, perhaps, a real human breathes. Or maybe it's just the wind, whistling through the hollow promises of a failed state.
Either way, we hold our breath. We listen. And the silence, thick as molasses, suffocates us all.
