Everything Else

For 35 years Doña Flor has worked as a clerk in a government office. Each day she attends to dozens of people who sit across from her and hand her their documents. For 35 years she has been invisible to these people, a mere cog in the machine. She has grown so accustomed to this invisibility that she seems to have become invisible even to herself except for the brief pause at the pool each day where she watches the children swim and remembers her daughter. One morning Doña Flor awakens to find her cat has died in the night. Unable to accept the loss of her sole companion, Doña Flor tries to continue her routine as always, but the loss opens up the much deeper wound left by the downing of her daughter. She decides to swim seeking solace in the water, but finds herself paralyzed by fear. As Doña Flor faces her fear of the water, she faces hers of life. One day, in the shower room, another woman unexpectedly washes her back in a simple gesture of compassion that resuscitates her. "Everything Else" is a poetic and lyrical story about a woman's second coming of age as she reawakens to herself at sixty-three.