Peasant story

Yes buddy, just like you hear it. In those days hunger made us twist our guts, and on moonless nights our taitas came down from the hill to get us food for us to eat. We also could not make bonfires, because if not those large metal birds shot fire from the sides, although the bad thing about it was biting our tongues and not screaming, so death would cover us forever with its black cloak, while the howls of the dogs informed us of the strangers who roamed the bush.

So I grew up and took my first steps in life. Sometimes hidden in the bushes, and other times in the half-abandoned farm surrounded by the taitas, the sisters, the chickens, the pigs, and an old horse gifted by the former owner of all those lands. When I could, I would go in the morning to the ravine that drowns out the crowing of the roosters and the whistling of the birds due to the thunder of the river at its mouth, to draw the water with the totuma from a hole in the sand; to drop it in a mucura and climb it up the hill on the head, so that my mother and my sisters could prepare the food. Having had a good breakfast in the quiet times, I would grab my notebook with the pencils, and I would throw in a lot of quimba, until I reached the school, with its mud walls lined with guaduas that formed a spacious room full of desks.

Ah! Compadrito Pancracio, we were like sixty students. I don't even remember. There we were the culicagados from the first to the fifth grade meeting with the teacher who took the hands of the guipas to teach them to delineate the tangles of the letters on the paper, while some of the children cried because they could not go to piss in the bush , or we would pick up in the weedy yard, surrounded by the dense mountain that miles ahead becomes a mountain range.

At recess we played to remove the asses to place them on the backs of our careless companions, and the would see shout; then the teacher would come handing out blows to the right and left with a rose stick that she had made us cut since the beginning of the year of study. On the way home we would fight because Bertilda kissed one of the boys, and not us, or because of some other thing. But since there was no time left in my house because I often went with my father to help cut the grass and cultivate the corn, soon after I went all dirty to another region where one day I got a wife.

Some years passed, and I already had a patron who owned the haciendas in the region, who gave me a piece of land and a ranch to live with the family made up of three guambitos baptized with the name of the saint of the day the stork, my wife, me, and the animals that we managed to gather with the few pennies saved in the course of a lifetime of effort. We no longer used the sperm, but the petromax lamps that we bought in the nearest town.

At that time the woman was jealous of me with the female of    Aniceto, because in addition to being very pretty, in the patron saint festivities she was almost always my partner in the patron saint dances, which made the godfather won't greet me, and she and I would make some scandals in front of the guambitos or friends, either while I was smoothing my pants with the charcoal iron, already at meal times, and even now that I have no love affairs with any other. But what are we going to do to him: The past, past, and don't think that I dragged the naguas to all women.

As for money, my pants pockets always remained empty, giving just what is necessary to live and dance hard at the parties that I tell you, well, look at me that I learned to wear shoes here in the city.

Of the children, the first, Martina de San Silverio, rendered accounts to my  god very early. The second, the caite José Onésimo, later. Wait I explain godfather. The violence was still raging, and we peasants did not know why they were killing people, and so we were forced to abandon the crops. That is how we began to feel hungry, so much that our guts were thrown away dry from how much we endured.

For this reason, I who have been an  a believer, tried by all means to find a way to support the family, resorting to the imagination that from time to time deceived me at night when I seemed to see tealights that glowed among the stubble; and very stealthily I would go to the place where I thought I saw them, and mark it with a stake or whatever else I could. The next morning, very early in the morning, we would go with Caite José to take a pick and shovel to the place I am telling you. Why will you say, or as it is said now. It happens that the ancients, our parents, great-great-grandparents and other dynasties, buried the gold they had in clay pots, to hide it from thieves. Much of that gold must still be around. After their death, the soul remained grieving, waiting for some lucky person to see the flickering tealights burn at night. Then one would dig for the deceased to rest, and the Christian to enjoy. Caite José accompanied me on many excavations, but luck was cast on its back for us. We never get anything.

The pockets were more bare than a newborn child god. The bosses of the region had decided on the cultivation of cotton since the machine to enter through the large door of the plantations. Thus they destroyed the banana crops, the guava trees, and all the support of the food of us ignorant people, to turn us into poorly paid wage earners, since the money was not even enough to buy the food that arrived in the nearest town on market days.

The hunger was terrible. The guambita, the oldest, I don't know, died without being able to remove the vice of eating dirt. Every time I remember, my soul hurts as if it had been yesterday.

The poison that controlled the cotton plague decimated the birds and wild animals of the field, poisoned the water of the rivers and forced the swollen fish to die on the banks of the rivers. For these reasons, many children died. Among them my caite José, my guámbito. I wanted to look for another region, but since we had the ranch, I worked from dawn to dusk picking up cotton during the day, and getting up early to fish for the only good thing that was achieved in the newly built dam on the side of the slope, to get the food that was scarce day by day.

 Imagine godfather, at that time the devil was doing his thing on the sidewalk, because the condemned man would appear at the least expected moment and scratch the peasants, or he would lose the women with the friends of the husbands peering into the very noses of one . In the days that I am telling you, after drinking some spirits to cheer myself up, I went fishing at the dam that I tell you. There he had the godfather of the lesser guambito, a tin boat with a powerful motor on board, which he used to pass people to the other side of the pond, either with food or with laborers who worked there.

 So the compadre lent me the boat and deep into the lagoon, bocachicos, nicuros, patalós fell on the hook, and I'm not saying more because he tastes his mouth. In the early morning of that day when I was leading the canoe back, I saw in the dark a guy who looked like the same devil they were talking about, or viruñas as I call him, who was walking with espadrilles between the mountains. My hair stood on end with fright, compadre. Immediately, I put my hand on the motor and lunged against the bundle that was on the water. The truth of the case, this guy was not the devil, but a Christian who fished at dawn, and who appeared dead floating in the middle of the logs.

The peons who were waiting with the compadre for my arrival heard the story and were the witnesses who blamed the death on the account of the guy who spoke to him, being arrested and sentenced to several years in prison. While he was paying for the broken dishes, the woman worked on the ranch of the compadre who owned the boat, to support the least of the guambitos.

Although there were several years in that situation, what more punishment than that of conscience, because ignorance makes us commit bestialities. Yes or no, godfather?

The poison that controlled the cotton plague decimated the birds and wild animals of the field, poisoned the water of the rivers and forced the swollen fish to die on the banks of the rivers. For these reasons, many children died. Among them my caite José, my guámbito. I wanted to look for another region, but since we had the ranch, I worked from dawn to dusk picking up cotton during the day, and getting up early to fish for the only good thing that was achieved in the newly built dam on the side of the slope, to get the food that was scarce day by day.

Imagine godfather, at that time the devil was doing his thing on the sidewalk, because the condemned man would appear at the least expected moment and scratch the peasants, or he would lose the women with the friends of the husbands peering into the very noses of one . In the days that I am telling you, after drinking some spirits to cheer myself up, I went fishing at the dam that I tell you. There he had the godfather of the lesser guambito, a tin boat with a powerful motor on board, which he used to pass people to the other side of the pond, either with food or with laborers who worked there.

So the compadre lent me the boat and deep into the lagoon, bocachicos, nicuros, patalós fell on the hook, and I'm not saying more because he tastes his mouth. In the early morning of that day when I was leading the canoe back, I saw in the dark a guy who looked like the same devil they were talking about, or viruñas as I call him, who was walking with espadrilles between the mountains. My hair stood on end with fright, compadre. Immediately, I put my hand on the motor and lunged against the bundle that was on the water. The truth of the case, this guy was not the devil, but a Christian who fished at dawn, and who appeared dead floating in the middle of the logs.

 The peons who were waiting with the compadre for my arrival heard the story and were the witnesses who blamed the death on the account of the guy who spoke to him, being arrested and sentenced to several years in prison. While he was paying for the broken dishes, the woman worked on the ranch of the compadre who owned the boat, to support the least of the guambitos.

Although there were several years in that situation, what more punishment than that of conscience, because ignorance makes us commit bestialities. Yes or no, godfather?

At my exit, we were worse. Fear was spread throughout the region visiting plot after plot, destroying everything in its path like locusts. To add insult to injury, the relatives of the deceased wanted to avenge him. The compadrito who always helped me gave us some pesos, and with that we came to Bogotá, paying for hiding places at any cost. The farm and everything that we had acquired there, they were as if we had never had them.

 Freezing cold, we got a room in a seedy hotel, which at night received unfaithful men with noisy women who stayed in neighboring rooms and would not let us sleep while we prayed. Notice compadre that violence forced us to civilize ourselves. And I who half read and write, who never got an ID or papers, I was forced to look for a job and work whatever it was. As my god does not abandon any good Christian we soon became friends with the owner of the hotel. A fat lady, already old. She proposed to my wife that she sweep and clean the rooms every day, which would earn her lunch and the daily rent for the room. We stayed there for several months, while by contract I made several deep ditches that helped me to learn a new trade.

This is how I started a new life, compadre Pancracio. Nobody knows how one's life is written on earth. For my part I was rigged in the hotel of the fat girl, reason for not looking for the appropriate place to put my head. So the days went by until the one in which the chubby girl began to sharpen my wife with her tongue, which she half understood between laughs and laughter. "What a woman, one has to look for a husband who answers by the house, earns money, and have it well" She promised that I would get a good job that would help us get by with the other sute we had. It is true that we peasants smell something against one, and we immediately burst. So it continued.

One fine day this guy appeared who according to the fat woman would help my wife get a good job, and with giggles, and painting little gold birds with all the flattery to which we are accustomed in the cities, he took her hand by the foot. The scandal was strong. My wife, who is a Tatacoa and she can't stand practical jokes, gave him a hit a blow to the evil born who takes advantage of these. It turns out, compadre, that this guy had a good business. He lived by picking up newly unpacked females from the field, to take them to work as prostitutes, and thus later throw throw them on the street. For us it was the endless beginning of life in the city occupying rooms full of filth in the different tenants where we have been.

I still remember compadre, the time I met a toilet the first day we arrived in Bogotá. We had gone with a friend more trained than us to visit some countrymen. I had a bad stomach while visiting. Luckily the owner of the house understood me and lent me the bathroom. How awful. It makes me sad to say it compadre. I confused the towel from drying my hands with what we now call toilet paper. The friend who sensed that something had happened took me out of the house and explained the details of the case. We were, but very, very, ignorant. One, what would he know that toilet paper was used here and all that  that we now call civilization. Those were other times, godfather.

The messenger of the gods

Zoratama could see in the stream the reflection of her slender body, with erect breasts and firm pubes, with her smooth brown skin caressed by the cold water that her deep breathing induced. He sensed the arrival of the messengers of the gods who threw lightning and flashes, spit fire from thickly bearded mouths, and rode unknown four-legged animals down the rugged jungle paths. He learned of them, thanks to the guardians of Zipa, his master and lord, future husband and companion, owner of the lives of his subjects; which also foreshadowed the punishment of Bochica, the god who roamed the mountains of water, plowed through the Magdalena river and crossed the Opon teaching the trades and morals to men.

Sensual woman, with caramel eyes, prominent cheekbones, hips accurate to her body, imposing as a goddess, she smoothed her black hair with her hands, while others covered her with blankets, and carried her raised to their hut. There they rubbed on her skin the orchids brought from many parts of the kingdom, special for the descendant of Chia who illuminates men, and accompanies the sun in the daily events of the sky. They dressed her in a gray-striped white blanket, adorned her with earrings, nose rings, pectorals, and gold bracelets, and on a wooden seat supported by two thick logs, they carried her on the shoulders of strong warriors to witness the festivities of the tribe. that celebrated the last triumph of Tisquesusa who climbed a mountain incline, while his faithful subordinates on the neighboring slopes awaited the favorable response of their God, who little by little lifted the veil, and illuminated the lagoon.

Then he, surrounded by his priests and in the middle of some rocks, appeared naked, covered in turpentine and gold. Later, he would enter the lagoon in a special raft followed by other canoes leaving the shores with the procession. Already in the center of the lake, the priests lit the sacred branches, and the smoke of the incense rose in the cold air. The great Zipa felt in his entrails the silence of the indigenous people who, on their knees and with their heads pressed to their thighs, their hands thrown against the vegetation and with their backs to him, waited for him to submerge in the sacred water. Then he would go out to preside over the parties.

The music of the fotutos and snails was heard by many suns of the kingdom, where the messengers of the gods had just disembarked from the mountains of water, who had just measured their strength against the sea monsters that for centuries lashed the caravels with their wings. of blizzards, and bodies of eddies. Their boss had offered their lives to the one true God, provided he led them to the mainland, without the swaying of the ships in the waves preventing him from seeing a new world. Cristóbulo who without being a warrior, demonstrated in the inns of the roads of his land the talent in the throw of the sword, the handling not only of the wild colts, but that of the women who went out in love with the male, who seduced them , and kidnapped them.

 After traveling through all the courts of the European kings in search of help for his long-awaited adventure, he finally achieved glory in the recognition of his peers. Not in vain did he come from far away, from that lavish universe of the Olympian Gods, who defended their protégé in all the mishaps of life, while playing in the abodes of heaven with the passions of men in wars. Thus they wove their tunics with the threads of blood and the hatred accumulated in their history. Demigod condemned to be human and immortal was banished by the owners of life and death to live in the company of wars and conquests, due to which his victories came to us as legends. Very soon the gods fell away and he took up the sword, the cross and the horse. He traveled the world in pursuit of these untamed lands, to possess them in the name of his deity. It was enough only to enchant his soldiers, rewarding all those who obeyed his orders, or inflexible punishing -even with death- those who did not comply with them. Without the above, he could not cross the country of snows, which as a door blocked his way through floating gardens, to “The Golden”.

From the limits of that enchanted region came the great river to its mouth forming foamy waves with the salty water. A deafening noise produced by the air against the leaves of the ceiba and myrtle trees silenced the shouting of the monkeys, the chirping of the birds with colorful feathers, and the roar of the animals in the jungle. The world he never imagined, much like that of a sensual woman, haunted him. To drive away the jaguar that came from night to night for one of his soldiers or untamed horses, he celebrated his fictitious death surrounded by the whining and comrades in arms, but not before ordering that the fire with logs not extinguish it, while the fireflies fluttered around him.

 The new days arrived accompanied by the squawking of chattering birds, the fluttering of herons, inclement rains, suffocating heat, and the attacks of fierce Indians who received them with poisonous stakes. Then the arrows rained down from the skies on the bodies of his faithful followers and many of the quadrupeds died in the mud, or in the jaws of alligators. Thus the river became interminable while he heard the echo of other divinities on the cliffs through which he imagined a woman calling   many moons on the way, with the encrypted sounds of the cry of the natives hidden in the jungle. She sensed that another man wanted her for himself.

Tisquesusa was preparing her marriage after defeating Hunza with the mere ostentation of her command, and in compromise with the sorcerer Sugamuxi, who knew about all the entanglements of power. Peace was sealed with offerings. Children brought from the eastern plains were slain. One of them received the arrows of the entire Zipa tribe. To another, he sliced ​​open the chest with a sharp stone, and drew out his beating heart as all the rocks in the realm were stained red. Something magical fell into the hands of Zoratama that cut his fingers, splintered into many pieces, and so he could see his face reflected in all those pieces of quartz, as if they were stealing his soul. The mysteries of the recent messengers of the gods bewitched her. He saw them come out of the vegetation in bloom with new species. He felt them gallop on his chest ascending from the mountain range to the plain amid the battle of the Zipa's vassals against the glitter of armor, the neighing of horses, and fire-breathing weapons. The hero appeared on the back of his horse. He humiliated the Zipa through the body of an indigenous crashed against the earth. Zoratama, in love with Cristóbulo gave birth to a child. The "Chroniclers of the Indies" say that the victor traveled to the eastern plains where we still see him wandering maddened by the fever of love, and deceived by the mirage of glory.   Zoratama threw herself into the lagoon, perhaps disappointed to be the goddess of a new race. Many other stories like this were woven into the daily life of their descendants. This is confirmed by historians.

The labyrinth

I don't know if you remember the history of the minotaur in Greek culture. I am often confused, as many assume that I should be in hell. They are confusions. Mephistopheles lives in the underworld, and in heaven we are as in the story of the Antioquia writer Tomás Carrasquilla: "On the right hand of God the father." In the labyrinth, man walks through inscrutable corridors and corridors with no possibility of escaping from the Greek myth, as if by some guilt of love or low passions, he was condemned to die under the splint of the bull man. And in hell, as Dante Alighieri says in the Divine Comedy, those who wanted them to be there are doomed. And they probably deserve it. But there are also others, as in my case, they felt like I should go to hell. This is how for years I ended up in hell, not by my decision, but on their behalf. Of course, for those who do not understand, I was the one who got into that labyrinth that I often confuse with that of the minotaur, or that of hell where bad Christians inevitably end up purging their felonies. Of course, with repentance, everyone can end up in heaven. Raise your eyes and you will see them there.

I do not remember since when, but the only certain thing is that I ended up in unfortunate hell, and as if I had committed a vileness for years and years I was in the middle of mysterious torments, abstracted from reality, while the stooge who helped such sinister torture they wanted the angel of death to take me to hell. We always justify things. And it's not that I believe myself a saint. Like all mortals, we often insist on believing that we are the culprits, and that is when those who should be, justify. They frolic in Eden. They are the farces we are all used to. They put on their masks and hide their envies, their rages, their concealed anger, their ambitions, and like comparsas they howl from the four winds that the unfortunate man is condemned to live in ignominy. They yawn and their ambitions run out.

While I was in that hell, they came out as witches and tried to make me stay in that outburst forever. Their covert little voices and conspiracies were much like Dante's. And now that I breathe a little the air that we all breathe, I still see them thinking about how to take me back to that labyrinth. Everything is unreal there, and whoever takes advantage of whatever it is to satisfy their appetites. It is a state of mind, in which, if we are careless, we die without realizing why. It may seem that we committed scoundrels, but no. Only the infernal know it. They are the demons. They are the ones who instigate and justify their felonies to savor the ignominy, and they do not know or understand that as mortals they are condemned to live their own hell, since they will live on hatred and resentment.

They will not be happy. This is how the sweat in the labyrinth that can be in the depths of the earth or the sea, will make us believe that we are happy satisfying our irrational appetites. The mortals like the gods of the Greeks, we believe that we have everything, when in reality we are passengers in this world. Be careful not to get caught up in such terrible chaos. They are dangerous. Its shadows are of passions and banalities. Do not be confused because the paraphernalia will be waiting. They are like the Pharisees. They live on vain passions. They don't mind confusing anyone with their tongues. They are nefarious and deadly.

Return from death

From the sky, cities were seen as huge swarms of cells that glowed and darkened permanently. The shadows advance or retreat to the swaying of the winds that seemed to accommodate the new circumstances. The shadow of death had left us. The struggle of science, doing research with its thousands of eyes in the depths of living beings, and listening in the different forms that it presented, they could never defeat it. It didn't matter that they cornered her momentarily. She multiplied because she needed her shadow to hover over all of us. Some despised her and amused themselves by calling her at the wrong time. Yet she was rushing to do her duty. He quickly organized his abode. Then came the rigidity of the body, and very soon the worms merged with it into a new being that was integrated into nature. He patiently spun the decomposition of one life, transforming it into another, until it became part of the matter from which it had been germinated. He enjoyed all of this. I can't remember it very well, but I know that for millennia we fled from his presence, that presence that was a shadow that mourned our hearts, stealing the heat from our bodies without asking our permission. Now we were mired in sadness. His absence seemed definitive. It all started in a casual way. We prepared giant bonfires in order to celebrate the ephemeris of the colonization of outer space that we believed to be unique. And it was not so. We lived in one of the many spaces that exist everywhere. We discovered that our space was more restricted than we expected. There were many manifestations of matter by which time transformed it at speeds almost impossible to quantify. Time absorbed us in infinity of labyrinths not previously inhabited by matter or life. It was nothing. In one of those spaces while we are organizing the commemorations that I am telling you, death left us. As simple as that. We knew this because the solar system seemed to have been anchored in the center of the universe. The sunlight was static. Its fire cooled and the night stretched out to make us forget the calendar that we patiently built for centuries with the help of the constellations and the Gods. As the wrinkles in the earth were not enough to cover each one of our bodies, we had to paint them with saliva, to remember that a lot of time passed in our surroundings. We were ancient, just beginning to conquer the world. Our insights they changed each other upside down and we could see them through our shadows that stretched and shrunk, identical to that of cities as we tried to remember the world we live in. Finally, we decided to forget about death. A shadow appeared in the sky. We had found another space and another death in another time. The cities took on another grayish hue and the concrete shadows blur the new shadow that was growing. At dawn, a new summer shone in our eyes. Only then could we verify that the memories surfaced and the shadow spread throughout all our pores. Death returned in another way. We had to invent a new calendar.

Fishing for Pisces

Everyone knows that the first forms of life appeared at the bottom of the ocean, and then populated the earth's surface. It is no coincidence that most of our bodies are made up of water, and that without it none of the living beings that we know can exist. Furthermore, who can assert against the fact that, just as man has wanted to fly, he has also wanted to live at the bottom of the sea. At least we all want to know that liquid and majestic mass that moves on the surface of the earth. Now, you may wonder why I am telling you this story. It happens that it is about many insatiable fishermen who wade through rivers and seas in search of fortunes. In the sea I have seen the scientific advance used to satisfy the human appetite. In return, I never tire of observing the sky and counting the stars that make up the constellation Pisces. I don't need nets or lures for fish. I dive into the ocean in the dead of night and find the fish in the starlight scales that shine in the sky. I feel the happiness when caressing the fire of each one of them, while the others leave their nets to the swaying of the waves. When you manage to get the fish that I am telling you, and you can tell the wrinkles of the history of life and of man, I will tell you why I look at the sky next. Only in this way, I rediscover the image of Pisces.

The infinite man

My residence is in the gloom of the finite and infinite. Light and shadow are my companions through becoming without beginning or end. From me the constellations came out into the immensity of the void to return in a concentric sphere to the jaws that like a black circle absorbs all matter. Above space I build the floating palaces of stars, planets and constellations that move like clouds for centuries impossible to count. Sometimes I let the world go on throbbing with fire. Others, that it walks under the glacial cold that crushes the fire and makes it solid. From time to time I ride the steed of speed and light through the gardens of outer space, sowing life on the planets that collect water in their vessels. My breath, I distribute it in bulk. Life lulls in my eyes of fire. Intelligence overflows beings because I allow it. There is no man or living being that is a product of mine. Life is so ephemeral that a single breath was enough to wander through space. As my years are infinite, I calculate the finite life between pain and hope. I am the content and the form. I am the three dimensions, although some say four. The rains of the rays of light are the transients of the memories that transfer the material in the castles that I make, and the worlds that I forge. I am what everyone is and even if they do not want to, I will lull them with my breaths to the bottom of the void of death. Their lives are my breaths. If they wish, they may continue to reap the happiness of living.

The model and the painter

The model wants to move. She is tired of being in the same position. He winks at the painter. Through the window you can see a sunny day. He moves his hand deftly. She speaks intensely. He has never been able to like such little music. He tells about a tragedy in his personal life. One day when I was accompanied by a friend, two guys armed with knives came out. They were going through a desolate part of the city where there is only stubble and streets that look more like extensive pastures of sand and stone.

-Go away, they tell the friend.

-Yes, do it, answered this one.

Outside, the owner of the house knocks on the door. He threatens to bring in the police. They cannot live in the room without paying the rent. It plays the ignorant. With her clothes stained with oil, she only has her eyes and her heart for the model. She replies that they will pay her with the proceeds from the sale of the painting. The classical music broadcast on the radio inspires him. Some houses can be seen in the painting. She, as she is, occupies all the space of the painting. In the background you can see the city. The girl speaks louder. He tries to turn off the music with his voice.

-Yes love. The very fagots raped me!

Stretch your legs yawning. Fool painter. Living from art is like living on illusions.

-We deserve a break, says this one at last.

He leaves the room in search of water, and again the owner of the house with her chant. He returns to her in a pot and puts it to boil, while the girl frolics on the mattress that serves as their bed. The water boils, and again it is heard when it is watered. They don't know about themselves.

-With you I'm starving. If I were homeless, I would earn more.

The owner insists again.

-Okay, I will give you this painting as soon as I finish it.

The noise of the cars is heard through the window. Night has come, and the painter finishes his work. The owner prefers to receive the painting.

The model and the painter argue. Life goes on.

 

The train of love and dreams *

The departure left an immense cloud of steam at the station stop behind the sparks produced by the wheels as they moved on the rails. Nobody, nobody knew at what moment he would leave. It was as if the vision of the train disappeared for the passengers who did not manage to board in time, and who also wanted that imaginary adventure. We only realized that we started when the porter let us enter through the door of the car near the driver. Access closed, there were no more questions to be asked. The train was going at incredible speed. It crossed the space without allowing us to quantify the elapsed time. We passed the cities with their neon lights illuminating us at nights that rather resembled astronauts who, without the force of gravity, floated in outer space among the bolides of light that like blasts of air expelled the stars that were moving away in the immensity of the firmament. Sweaty we went through the rails carried by the framework that crossed the distances hurting the void at high speeds. Sometimes it seemed that the stars hovered around the windows. Other times, the sidereal zone let the darkness touch. A soft melody lulled the passengers, and then we had the urge to enjoy the acceleration when the time of our lives decreased or increased as it pleased. Inside we did not feel the sting of this in the years of the fast hearts.

We were going through galactic corridors against the train track. We made love in the moments that the memories crowded together to leave us the satisfaction of what we experienced. We were playing future roulette in one of the wagons. The first to enter the locomotive were the first to return to the station. This happened at the moment of going through all the wagons at unlimited speeds. Other passengers waited outside, impatiently dreaming of celebrating their happiness in the worlds that the fleeting vehicle scrutinized. The hour hand always marked the same time of day and year that we approached it. We savor the future without moving from the present. A trip on the train of love and dreams. As we descended, we breathed the air of the restless city again as if the machine had not moved from its place, while the sky satisfied our emotions. An inscrutable reality that disturbed dreams. An eternal journey of life within the vastness of the cosmos.

* A tribute to Einstein's theory of relativity.

Last night in a lonely alley I tried to rob the guy I'm telling you. It came tumbling from side to side. I walked over quickly and grabbed him by the flap of the jacket, while it pulled him close to the wall. He asked what if I killed those who didn't have a penny in their pockets.

-I said yes, even with many money.

He proceeded to get rid of the jacket and shirt. He showed me a stain on his heart, in case I had a revolver.

-I answered no.

Then he pointed to his right side, at the end of one of the floating ribs, in a wound that was bleeding. He told me to proceed.

I did it ruthlessly with the knife in my hand.

Dumbfounded I looked at him. It was the same. Without saying anything, he continued on the path he was leading. If you believe as I do, it could be Jesus Christ who made me such a charade.

The magician

The magician has been harassing man for centuries. Live in the immensity of the void sheltered from the sinister shadows left by the lights of the stars. It levitates its shadow through the centuries and lets us reach its magical breath in strange sounds that blind us with its hidden forces. The fight against these has always been because it is not a mortal enemy. His stubbornness in colonizing human mysteries made us do a thousand times all our intelligence, so as not to fall into the darkness of the cosmos. 

On that occasion the invention of fire served to light the torches in all corners of the planet that dazzled the conjurer and forced him to illuminate the shadows that travel in infinite space. Knowing his failure, he built an imaginary mirror located between the lights of the stars, and made the lights travel fleetingly, breaking our hearts. That was how everything we did fell apart and the matter turned out to be an enchanted dream. We also had to break that spell, because we are in danger of being pure hallucinations. That's why we dream of this one, to make it more real.

The terrestrial rings

For centuries the human being made life impossible on earth. Atomic tests, acid rain, radioactive waste, deforestation, global warming, evaporation from the sea, etc .; they made the planet the garbage dump of the universe.

And also during all this time the man who put satellites after satellites around the earth managed to build immense swarms of rings that revolved around it. Thus they were building countless artificial cities that housed the vegetation and fauna that they could save.

Now man lives in an artificial world, waiting for the day that he can return to what was once his paradise.

The exterminator

While they were making love, in another region of the earth, a false alarm caused by a series of technical failures that coincided with the verbal confrontations between the heads of the great powers caused that the electrical flows  to be unleashed between the electrical flows of the computers the automatic order to fire anti-missile rockets.

The announced world war had begun. Clara and Nestor, ecstatic, saw the reflection of the light that suddenly illuminated the earth through the window of the room.

A slight heat invaded them, since the explosions had been from the other side of the earth. They believed it was dawn. The large fire mushrooms only gave them time to dress and go out into the street scared.

Great human tides did the same in other parts of the globe. The couple without understanding what was happening, hugged each other. The same man was the exterminator of his own fellow men.

The bomb

The bomb exploded silently. Without making a sound, it raised a cloud of dust that swept across the land. One dog turned into thousands of puppies. One cat in other thousands. And so on. So the world got bigger by making living and inanimate things smaller. Man multiplied and spread in the universe. The same bomb forced him to disable the rest because they no longer served what they were created for.

Aura

Aura, she said in my ear:

-Varga Vila wrote "Aura o las violetas", in honor of the love he feels for me.

I hugged her and gave her a kiss trying to keep the jealousy out of my head. I took her to a small hotel in the Santafé neighborhood, and we made love.

I promised to tell Vargas Vila about us, so that he would have no illusions.

He insisted that I tell him nothing. I nodded my head. I cleared my throat a bit, and we made love again.

The trip in the mirror

- Mommy! Mommy! The mirror makes faces at me.

-Don't be careful my love.

Sitting on the seat of the mother's dressing table, she rubbed the glass with her hands, winking at him and looking at the trees and mountains that reflected the mirror.

-Mirror, mirror, it said. I would like to enter and know your world.

 He gladly accepted. She felt smaller than before. Inside he found a cat and mouse playing like two old friends. Those were the times when cats no longer ate mice, and they did not have fleas or transmit diseases. They were guinea pigs in scientists' labs.

He jumped into a drop of water vapor rising from the damp earth to the clouds. This is how he got to know the natural flora and fauna of the land.

Later he returned in drop of water that fell on a petal of one of the roses in his home garden.

- Mommy! The mirror keeps making faces at me.

-Quiet little daughter; make faces at him too.

And the girl happy because the mother did not notice the  stroll in the mirror, she promised to keep the secret.

The doctor

With each step he takes, it seems that he is going to lose his balance, and yet when he takes the other, he returns and recovers it. "How cold he feels, the friend tells me." It was really cold. With what the money lasted us, we had a few beers. We talk about his profession. He was a doctor. Doctor of the National University. It ended a few years ago. Right now he is working at the San Juan de Dios hospital. He's the head of the psychiatry department. That said. Talk about medicine at all times. That his father did not want him because he was born on December 24, and because he was very Catholic, he never accepted that his son was born on the same day as Jesus. "Waht  a silly, he kept saying." He was - according to him - very dedicated to science from a very young age, so much so that he made the smallest instruments that man has imagined. But the great industry stole part of his inventions, and here he is as an employee in one of the best hospitals that Colombia has. I do not know what to think. I met him at the Capablanca chess club where he goes every day. Perhaps it has been one of the few places where students from the early hours of the morning separate chairs and tables to dedicate ourselves to studying all day. There are emeralds, detectives, gamblers of all stripes, merchants and employees of different official organizations, and many other characters. There are also intellectuals and politicians. he reads and reads. Sometimes you spend endless hours flipping through a single page. It is slower than the same time. He think. His writings are from psychiatry. He has them in a bag that he carries it everywhere he goes. According to him, he owns a house.

-I'm renting you a room, he tells me.

-How value is it, I answer him.

-when you see it we will negotiate.

We were going to see her the moment she remembered some papers that she had to take to a place she didn't want to say. "See you tomorrow, he says again."

Here I am still waiting for it.

Before he left he told me a secret. In the hospital, because it is for the jai (aristocrats, oligarchs and deceitful smugglers; or whatever they want) they do not allow doctors or students to go without ties. Because he is very stubborn, he wears a bow tie. He showed it to me. He had it tucked away in one of the pockets of his jacket, threadbare from the old, discolored from grime, caked. He's not a believer because of the dad. But if he is found in heaven, he goes to hell. Swear and swear that he will. Yes sir. To say goodbye, he searches his pockets and does not find a single weight.

-Brother, loan me for the bus, he says.

 Then I see him walking away with the paper bag in one of his armpits. Go quick. Little hops. He reaches 10th avenue, and boards a bus that goes to the north of the city.

A strange family (mini novel)

 Chapter 1.

Amparo

 She was nuts the day his father kicked him in the butt, because he bent down to pick up the pieces of porcelain that the lunch plate was turned into. She was so mad that she often ran off naked into the street.

So, the old man, in order not to let her out, would raise her to the roof of the house, which amused her a lot, because she would go not only on the roofs of her own, but also those of the neighbors, stamping her feet and screaming with her arms crossed over her breasts :

- Motherfuckers ...! Son of...!

Chapter 2.

MARLENI

To her, the day I yelled at her in front of my neighborhood friends:

- Bye, mommy! He wanted to kill me with his eyes.

- Mommy, your mother, son of ...!

We all laughed, and we watched her stride away.

That same day as always, I passed by at night, and I saw that he was chatting at the gate of his house with his sisters.

They looked at me and smiled.

It was when she was all serious she told me:

-Walk to see what you know.

 Chapter 3.

JOSEFINA

Tired of the harassment to which the father had subjected her with his lewd gaze, and the care that the mother had for her while he was there, she ran away from home very young with the driver of a taxi, who then abandoned her shortly after she became pregnant .

Chapter 4.

 JOSÉ

 Or stick´s foot, as we call it. From the day he disobeyed an order from his father, he was lame in a moment of his anger. He threw a stick at his legs. In spite of everything, he was the only one who did something productive, because he learned masonry with the neighbors of the neighborhood. The evil tongues say that with his trade he analyzes his next victims, and disguised he makes mischief with others.

Chapter 5.

 JUAN

Or grime shell. He had no choice. He was the youngest of the brothers. For his sake he went on military service. Before swearing the flag, he escaped with his entire military force. No one understood why. They found him at home sleeping, with everything stolen. Today he is serving a sentence. It is not known what will become of him.

The transvestite

 

Has long hair. She wears a pleated skirt that covers her knees and a blouse that reveals her silicone breast. As he walks he outlines more than a woman.

Say hello to another who is standing in the doorway of a cafeteria.

- What was there woman, how are you doing?

-Good, answers the other one.

There are others that are standing on the sidewalks of the streets, or leaning on the walls of the hotels and brothels in the sector.

The one in the story greets a passerby:

-Goodbye, daddy.

Go to a patrol radio and pick up your pace. The others move from their places.

One of the policemen on the patrol radio yells:

- Hey! You fag! What does a woman's dress do?

-And that to you, what do you care?

The others almost fell apart from the laughter.

The seller of fantasies

I've always been a fantasy salesman. It all started with a friend who founded the first store of these and ornaments for wholesale sales in Bogotá. Before, they were sold in china shops and other businesses of different kinds. Although there were many manufacturers, none of them had the idea of ​​organizing a business dedicated to distributing them. That's how I started. He sold wholesale in the neighborhoods of Bogotá, or in nearby towns. Little by little I was acquiring enough clientele to sustain me. Before I had dreamed of being a legal professional, but the environment got me into this field. However, I was saving nothing. The wholesale fantasy businesses prospered until smuggling arrived that competed with the national one at a better price, and of better quality.

Many manufacturers went bankrupt, while others progressed in San Andresito in such a way that they changed their businesses for theirs. To friend came up with the idea of ​​creating a shopping center that would only be accessories for women and men. Then "La Pajarera" appeared, perhaps called that, because it looks like one of these. Before it was a famous hotel called "El Cartagena" where travelers from other regions of Colombia flock to trade their items in San Victorino. Over the years, "El Cosmos" and other shopping centers appeared. Thus arose the competition for those of us who were wholesaling. Sales in surrounding neighborhoods and cities became more difficult. All the owners of the miscellanies wanted better prices and therefore the small merchants failed.

I had an idea. I remembered that I had a friend who made cases for these, and that he sold them at good prices in high-end stores in the center and north of Bogotá. I copied them. I started making them on my own. Since I couldn't compete with prices, I took apart earrings to turn into charms, and made sets with chains and earrings that, packed in the cases, looked attractive.

At first it was a good deal. With the earnings, I was able to pay for a year or two in college. In addition to the novelty of my activity, it was facilitated so that in the seasons like "Those of love and friendship", "The teacher's", "The mother's" and "Christmas", sales increase.

I made a mistake. I was given the case to offer the friend who founded the first fantasies store and creator of the idea of ​​the first shopping center, who bought them several times at a good price to put pins on them. It turned out to be a good deal, as we say to the articles that in addition to leaving a good profit margin, they sell like hot cakes. Then the friend proposed the idea of ​​making the case cheaper to another manufacturer, and in turn other merchants copied it, until it was discredited for its quality.

I was left without occupation for a long time. Years passed and I continued to survive. However, as many people realized what was in the suitcase, and in the belief that it could be gold, or something similar, I was subjected to robberies and robberies, especially in San Victorino and in the area where I live.

Still, I subsisted. There was an economic opening that facilitated the entry of these goods from Taiwan, Korea and Japan made with better technologies. The market was flooded with these items. The clientele was over since you could not compete with the prices. I decided to retail it on the streets. It was not the same. In addition, the police would not let us work because of the invasion of public space. So I made up a last resort: I got myself a carriel, and there I put the little money that I had, which consisted of a few chains with their charms and a few earrings. Now I get on the buses. It is the fashion business. First I pay the driver to let me do the work. Then I distribute the samples to the passengers. There I command. I encourage them. I make them focus. I use all my histrionic resources to convince them of what I am going to sell them. In short, I teach them the qualities of what I offer. I take one of the chains and turn it several times with my hands on the rail of the roof of the car, and I pull it tightly so that they realize its resistance; then I wet it with the saliva, and rub it with my fingers to show them that it does not lose course.

It´s qualite as my tongue. Sometimes the charms are glass balls that inside have a grain that floats in oil, and which I call mustard for good luck. Others I make them believe that each pendant corresponds to a zodiac sign, so that they can buy the one that corresponds to them. There are many ways that I use to sell. Of course, I always have to check the bus on which I am going to get on, because I risk the value of the ticket that the driver paid for. That is my life. That is my destiny. I live on that. 

The seller in the buses

 

I'm a salesman, and my job is to do it on buses. Before I´ve done others in the midst of that law of searching that life in the cities forces us to do. For days and months I saw how in some shopping centers groups of children, young and old, gathered, buying books, sweets, garbage bags and other trinkets that were offered at retail in different sectors of the city. I was very tempted by the idea of ​​doing the same. I thought it was an easy job, but no. The first time I boarded a bus to sell some books on natural medicine that gave me a good result after paying the ticket and asking the driver's permission, I lost part of the profits. Or rather: That was my first shift, as the salespeople say in slang.

My first lesson: Never sell on crowded buses. Even though I won, when I came out several books got lost in the hands of unscrupulous travelers, and I still liked them. After that day I continued doing this type of sales on the buses. However, I risked going up where others had already done it, and therefore the passengers could be tired of so many offers, or they would have empty pockets. Another problem: I had to take care of the coins and counterfeit bills that passengers wanted to get rid of, since they had the habit of asking for the book just when I was going to get off at the change of a traffic light, and when it was ready. starting. In a single day they almost took my litte capital. As I could, I soon got rid of them and also eventually stopped paying the fare. Rather, I did what the vast majority of salespeople do who give out a tempting product to drivers to let them go upstairs to take their turn. The competition is fierce, you have to admit that. In all the avenues and at the confluence of pedestrians, there are thousands of sellers of sweets, books, etc., etc .; outside that there are also others who do not sell, but go up to ask for some help for the burial of a relative, or that since they are fleeing the violence in the fields they also do the same, or because as they are fresh out of jail or a hospital they need the collaboration of the good hearts of the passengers. Those who do best are those who have been climbing to these for years, not only because they are already known by drivers, but because they know where they should get , or because they recognize which bus they should must get on. There are also others who get on by force, when someone gets out through the back door or in an oversight of the driver, or because they do so to reduce their expenses. A matter of luck too. Although this is a difficult job, I think I will continue until when they let us work within these. 

The buses calibrator

Some believe I work with a transportation or survey company. Others, that I give the lucky number to the drivers. But no. I am a bus calibrator. Let me explain: For those who do not live in a metropolis such as Bogotá, a chaotic city where the fight for the penny reigns, and thus do not confuse me with the street children who stand on the corners of the avenues, and they hit with sticks the tires to check their pressure. No. My job is a new profession in this city. We are still few. Once I began to think that it would be a good business to tell each bus driver how long it took him another bus on the same route, or just tell him if he was going ahead and very close. Among this guild they themselves spoke of the fight for the penny. Well, one day I made up my mind. I got myself a notebook and a pencil and I started to write down the numbers of the bus routes and the bus companies in an organized way. It was not easy. Although not all do it, I have tabulated the tracking of buses and routes on average every quarter of an hour. I'm not too bad in this business. Drivers already know me and believe me I live on this. There are already many like me, doing the same. This is my business. Ah!

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The female shoplifters

 

They tell me female shoplifter. Since I was a little girl I have been like this. I accompanied my mother in this trade. While I was asking the owner of an establishment for an item, I wrapped it  up with thousands of tricks to entertain him, while very sneakily I went inside, rummaged in the windows and took out what I could, and especially the money. Without further ado we sneak away. Many times they caught us, but what could they do if I was a restless little girl. It seems that previously these were dedicated to stealing clothes. That was his specialty. While one was deceiving a merchant, the other hid some garment under the naguas and carried it between her legs. But no, now we take everything we can, even if it is a jewel, a radio, anything of value. We usually work in a group since we cannot do it alone. Sometimes my colleagues do theater, while one asks the owner for any merchandise, another grabs the other's face to mislead the customers, and thus sneak away with something. At the end of the day we celebrated how well we had done. Or if not, how about it? Here I am. Many know, but what. I risk everything, even my life, if that's the case. What else can I do. Truth?

The female

Standing in a challenging position, her hands on her waist, she angrily watches the woman who from the window of an old building reveals a dark and smelly room. It gives her the same nausea that she got when one of her mother's clients raped her. She listened to the advice of her friends who explain the importance of having sex without feeling the pleasure of surrender. She does it as a revenge for the mother who banded her and scratched her for trying to do the same as her. Therefore, wear makeup. She wants to feel more female than the mother herself. It doesn't matter if they notice her girlish face.

The old

 

Tired of navigating uncertain paths, he slowly strikes the soul and takes a deep breath to endure the mystery of death. Very slowly it breaks away the sweat of dreams. The ether splashes the room and flutters tremulously the environment caressing the universe that beats its stars between explosions of atoms and traveling lights. Quickly drains the sip of life eager to meet its destination after a hectic past. He haggles over the little that remains of his own, ready to indulge his feelings on the shore of the stars. This urges him towards the future without pause, leading him to look at his image in the reflection of the shower of stars that move in rhythm towards infinity. It is seen in another time without future or space. Cultivate the land with the dew of tears shed on beards weary from the rigor of yesteryear. It is progressively repeated in diffuse instants, as if death were the one suffering on the carriage of life. It has never been the same throughout history. His image goes into eternity covered with different faces and different customs. Sadness overwhelms him again and predicts the death that comes amid the laughter of his accomplices as one life withers, while another germinates. In return, we enjoy seeing him lying on the sidewalks of the streets with his straw hat and threadbare clothes, perhaps tired of living what others began to do. We see him smelling of the gunpowder that his body will consume when we embrace and celebrate his final premonitory. He eagerly awaits the farewell, proud to be in all hearts amidst the blissful looks of the kisses and hugs, and the toasts to the year that will give birth to a new future during the crazy running of time on the calendar. Then it explodes in thunderous sounds and beams of multicolored lights between the celebration of men and women celebrating the end of one, and the beginning of another. The old man manages to cough his last breath. His memory is scarcely engraved on us as we learn to live in a moment the endless passage of the universe.

The other

The other looks at me silently. I look at him with the same look. There is no handshake or talk that breaks the silence. We both recognize each other after knowing our existence for a long time. We have many things in common. But even so, friends get confused with our attitudes. They think it's me, but no, it's the other. Rather, it seems that we are playing hide and seek, as we have never met before. They hate me when they see me serious, and they hate my attachment to vain things. They like to see me as the other. We cross our eyes without saying anything, and they reflect the animosity we have for each other. I break that reflection into a thousand splinters wanting to end that chance encounter. I turn around and leave the room in a daze thinking about the common things that tie up our lives. I manage to hear the noise that the other makes reconstructing the mirror, in order to look at myself again and detest with equal or greater force everything that I represent.

The other looks at me from afar, from the mirror that imprisons our features.

Cassandra

Cassandra, the fortune teller, took to the streets and found a world different from the one she had thought. He decided that since the future was not very rosy for men, to sink his thousands of eyes into televisions. Since then, children and adults have left their imaginations in the hands of these devices. Cassandra, now, forecast the present.

The trap

The men closed the doors and windows to all renovation. They preferred to look through the slits at the witches who fled desperately on their brooms on full moon nights followed by heavy clouds, cursing cloaks of oaths and imprecations, and incantations, to exorcise the evils of the new winds. Toads, snakes, mice and other vermin were expelled from the mouths of heretics in the long night of the inquisition, which not even Goya with his paintings could against the wrath of God's judgments, which turned the just into sinners. . Many stories were woven around the men and women of that time. Some historians say that most of them surreptitiously set about making them fall into their traps, and that each one sought his own for himself. 

They proceeded as follows: 

"They left a glass of water in the middle of the edges of the blades of open scissors and thrown on the floor where he wanted to take them. In the middle of the night they entered delighted traps, and appeared eager before the hunter furtive who was waiting for them to make love ". 

Now the way of catch them has changed. If you want to take them, follow my advice. Lie down comfortably, on your back, on the roof of your house or in a special part for the occasion. Make it the day when the sun is perpendicular overhead, and the moon is horizontal in the sky. Close your eyes. Please wait a few minutes. You will see them in your imagination dance on the celestial vault. Don't panic. From the sun they will come resolute towards you. They will arrive slowly. Take the one you want, and enjoy. 

If you are a woman, do the same. The difference is that the sun must be horizontal and the moon vertical at your head. Relax. Wait calm. He will see us go lustful.