Story weaver

Towards Plaza de Armas, the scent of tear gas still mingles in the air. The cafés are closed and motionless. Tumbrils loaded with strawberries, pinions and ripped bananas are set up. Echoing from the surrounding buildings, a broom.
I am heading to the Foreign Ministry, hoping to get a visa extension. As they open at 9, I stand on the line, rubbing my eyes.
My memories creep back to last night, when walking near Concepcion University we encountered a riot. We sneaked away from bonfires made of garbage, kindling in the middle of the streets. On a crossroad, the prickle of our noses led us to safety.
A cough brings me back. The line has grown to a full herd of red-eyed foreigners. A blind man approaches. He wears a green hat, straight pants, his gray striped shirt is hidden by a yellowish stain. His sight, too, conceals the rest of his countenance. We all stare at him. He rests his cane on the window and touches around, with unchaste hurry. He twists wires, opens locks, revolves levers and turns a wooden box into a table. You can tell the proficiency of habit. Then he spreads his hands, lean as charnelhouses, over the commodities inside, bringing out purses and cravats. He hangs them up.
By the time he is done, the place has opened. The firsts in the line went in and out, and now a bureaucrat is looking among us and bringing caucasians inside. He picks me, I show him my papers. He glances at them and decides I must come back tomorrow.
On my way out, the place has changed. Hurried clerks pace around, the buses fill the plaza with noise, theirs smog fades like the phantom of a spider. At a longer line, a baby cries. The newsstand headlines are about a presidential candidate. A dusty sun shines from behind.
No attention paid to the blind man anymore, who melts with the awaken city. Intrigued, I look for him. I found him standing straight up, next to a column, drinking a coffee. There’s something spinning around his gaze, fearless and inquisitive. He stares at us.