I SEE YOU NEVER by Ray Bradbury

This story takes place in Los Angeles. Mr Ramirez has been Mrs O’Brian’s tennant for thirty months. He is a Mexican inmigrant who had stayed in the USA without a permanent visa for too long, six months more, actually. As a result, police authorities caught him and force him to go back to Mexico. At this point he comes to the situation of telling his landlady he has to get his luggage and clothes to return to Lagos, his hometown.

During the small period of time this situation takes place, us readers get, as a flashback, a sight of the life Mr Ramirez has had during those thirty months. How he came to live to Mrs O’Brian’s rooming house, how he got his job and made his American way of living, how he appreciates his landlady’s family, house, homemade food, kind manners, the neighbourhood…

The same way, Mrs O’Brian had a glance of a visit she had once made to Mexican border-towns, memories that are distinctively different from the ones Mr Ramirez has of her world: the roads, farms, thick foods and hot weather…

When at last the farewell is coming to an end, Mr Ramirez’ procedence and manage of the language are shown in his last words “I see you never”, something that makes the policemen smile, but makes Mrs O’Brian realize, as the door closes and Mr Ramirez finally leaves and she comes back to her normal life, that she will never see him again.