Lost Benítez and the Botanical Drying-Room Where His Meridian Faltered

A muted weight gathers inside Benítez House, heaviest in the abandoned drying-room where Damián Esteban Benítez, born 1876 in Salta, once prepared medicinal plants for apothecaries and rural clinics. His unfinished meridian persists like a withheld explanation, its uncertain line bending the silence that encloses the room.

A Meridian Threading the Botanist’s Daily Rituals

Damián learned patient cataloging from his grandmother Rosalía Benítez, a healer whose dried chamomile bundle hangs brittle above a storage chest.

His days unfolded with gentle order: rinsing leaves in warmed water, blotting them on linen, aligning each to a center meridian before pressing. Ink pots sat arranged by shade; scalpel blades nested beside chalk used to mark stem curvature; reference sheets rested beneath smooth river stones he collected on distant slopes. His touch remains evident—labels written in disciplined strokes, browned petals laid neatly along a vellum square, and a handkerchief stiffened by tincture spills resting near an overturned stool. The drying-room still feels arranged for his next careful gesture.

When Pressure Bent His Order Out of Its Meridian

Quiet rumor suggested that a medicinal batch Damián supplied to a local midwife lost potency, raising quiet, troubled doubts about his once-reliable methods. In the interior corridor, Rosalía’s herb pouch lies torn at the drawstring. A scalpel rests near the wall, blade dulled by an uncharacteristic slip. A correction sheet leans beneath a carved niche, its botanical diagrams overwritten in faltering graphite. A thin scatter of dried mint crosses a single stair, as though shaken loose from a trembling hand. None of these things confirm fault, yet each leans toward a tightening strain he carried alone, paced in small circles no one witnessed.

Only the fading meridian on his last specimen remains—an interrupted intention suspended in dry air. Whatever stilled Damián’s practiced hand remains unresolved.

Benítez House remains abandoned still.