Ophelia's hypnosis ✨

Ofelia was a young girl with an unusual power: she had the ability to beautify or wither with her letters the world around her, only she didn't know it. When her thoughts were darkened, heavy rains would fall and the days would lose their brightness.

But when she was overcome with ecstasy, she would imbue things with an infinite divinity and luck would smile on the whole city. Some won the lottery, children played with little fairies that only they could see and abstract mosaics were drawn in the sky.

In other words... everything Ofelia wrote came true.

Her moods, injected into her verses, influenced the real world. It had never been a problem until she fell madly in love with a famous singer. Ofelia kept hearing him and had already attended two of his concerts last year, when the artist visited her country during a world tour.

This time, as the feeling of love invaded her whole being, so did it permeate her entire city. Images of the singer appeared in everyone's mind, close-ups of his face, close-ups of his deep gaze with Arabic features and, finally, they began to hear his voice on a daily basis.

That beautiful and melodious voice became part of the population. Everyone recognized it without being able to pinpoint its origin with certainty. It floated in the air, invisible but omnipresent, and like a soft murmur it crept into people's thoughts, causing passers-by to stop for a moment with the vague sensation of having heard something important.

The chanting grew louder and sharper. Each note wove phrases that resonated with Ophelia's deepest longings, longings that also became those of the rest. People hummed verses of unrequited love that intermingled with the singer's most popular songs.

The city was full of melancholy, sadness and nostalgia. At times an inexplicable euphoria awoke them from their lethargy, just when the young writer dreamed intensely of the artist and imagined herself with him in a cloud of stars, married and “happily ever after”.

To then fall back into a deep longing that tore at her chest and enveloped her in tragic despair. Thus taking each person on a dizzying journey of conflicting emotions that they could not identify in themselves. Where did it all come from?

As the days went by, the situation worsened and people began to behave strangely. Some would stop in the middle of the street with a beatific smile, while others felt like crying, unable to hold back their tears. Children were chasing musical notes flying near them and animals seemed nervous.

A cab driver found himself thinking about the famous artist, imagining a passionate kiss and a romantic dinner. When he woke up, he realized that he was blocking the road, generating traffic and the anger of many, who stuck their fingers out of their car windows in unfriendly signs.

Everyone spoke of “a benevolent spirit” that had come to the city, others of a collective hysteria because no one could explain what was happening. The more skeptical looked for hidden speakers or some ingenious prankster, because the voice was simply impregnated at will, casting a strange spell.

Ofelia remained oblivious to what was happening in her fantastic world, until her parents and younger brother also changed their behavior. It was then that she finally discovered the madness that was taking place in reality, not believing what her eyes were observing.

As she was always used to living in fiction, she had not noticed anything different because for her that was normal.

She decided to wander the streets, seeing with horror words and complete sentences reproduced on every corner, musical notes floating, her feelings printed on every billboard, how embarrassing! And the voice of her platonic love echoing everywhere, how could she stop it all, who had stolen her writings?

Ophelia watched the change in her neighbors with a mixture of fascination and alarm. She watched their eyes glaze over and their movements become slower and more harmonious, as if they were dancing ballet. He tried to speak to them, but received only evasive answers. “He's so beautiful,” they murmured with their gaze lost in an undefined point. “I want to be with him.”

An unpleasant pang in her stomach sent her running back home. She grabbed one of her pens and the notebook in which she had been venting for weeks about her favorite artist. She opened the page where she had left off and decided to change the course of events, writing a new story to wake the inhabitants of the hypnosis and return everything to normal.

He added a few final lines:

“From here on out, nothing I write will leave here unless I choose to do something different.Let everything go back to normal!”.

He then closed the notebook and lay down to sleep, having a restful and soothing sleep. The next day, everything was as it had always been and that generated a relieved smile on her face. He got up, brushed his teeth and went downstairs to have breakfast with his family. As she was opening the fridge to pour herself more juice, a shiver ran down her spine as she heard her favorite artist singing.

Afraid that things would get out of control again, she forgot what she was doing and looked out to see where the voice was coming from. It was just the TV on, showing him promoting a new song, on the morning show in her hometown....

“Ofelia, eyes of the sea, hair of gold, I don't know why I feel like I know you. I can't get you out of my mind, I see you writing at night and dreaming during the day...”.

Ofelia era una joven con un poder inusual: tenía la habilidad de embellecer o de marchitar con sus letras el mundo que la rodeaba, solo que ella no lo sabía. Cuando sus pensamientos se oscurecían, se producían fuertes lluvias y los días perdían su brillo.

Pero cuando la embargaba el éxtasis, les imprimía a las cosas una divinidad infinita y la suerte le sonreía a toda la ciudad. Algunos ganaban la lotería, los niños jugaban con unas pequeñas haditas que sólo ellos podían ver y en el cielo se dibujaban mosaicos abstractos.

Es decir… que todo lo que escribía Ofelia se cumplía.

Su estado de ánimo inyectado en sus versos, influían en el mundo real. Nunca había sido un problema hasta que se enamoró perdidamente de un cantante famoso. Ofelia no paraba de oírlo y ya había asistido a dos de sus conciertos el año pasado, cuando el artista visitó su país durante una gira mundial.

Esta vez, como el sentimiento del amor invadió todo su ser, de la misma forma impregnó a toda su ciudad. En la mente de todos aparecían imágenes del cantante, primeros planos de su rostro, acercamientos a su mirada profunda de rasgos árabes y, por último, comenzaron a oír su voz a diario.

Aquella voz hermosa y melodiosa se volvió parte de la población. Todos ya la reconocían sin poder señalar su origen con certeza. Flotaba en el aire, invisible, pero omnipresente y como murmullo suave se colaba en los pensamientos, haciendo que los transeúntes se detuvieran un instante con la vaga sensación de haber escuchado algo importante.