Damned words, the story.

Damned words. Chapter 8

                  Damned words, the story.

ISBN: 9781370977567

Traducir al Español

The fire consumed it. The notes files, the drafts, the old manuscripts that I had been writing and editing for months, for years. Even the dry grass with some branches that always were scattered throughout the patio, everything was turned into ashes.

The next day I had work in the store. My shift was going to start at six in the morning.

It was close to twelve in the mid night, which avoid my neighbors to call the firefighters because of the smoke, but late to let me rest.

It hurt me to erase the greatest of my dreams; however, it should be the only cure. There are cures that hurt.

Writing is my best exercise, the food, peace, the communication that I cannot do without.

I wrote about things that happen to me or had happened to me before. A kind of chronicle of daily and previous events, so the decision to forget them, to eliminate the list of current events and remembrances, I assumed it with a fatal retroactive effect.

The beginning was when I decided to restart. In Cuba I was in a literary workshop. Now, my work in the store, in the supermarket, it left me free time.

A half-romantic experience had made me pick up the pen again. Intoxicated as I was in that season, it was easy for me. I started easily. I fired my first story with the skills of an old hunter who takes the paths of the jungle and launches his first arrow, sure to hit the target.

I did not have a precise target, it was not even important to me that the story was redacted immaculately, correctly written, from the rhetorical point of view; with enough literary theory.

I wanted to write it, to spill the explosion in some vase where it could be stored and then later drink it, when time allowed me to forget it, like someone who drinks delicious aged liquor.

I finished writing it and gave it to an old woman friend of mine to read. I do not know if he read it or not, he said yes, he liked it. It must have been for giving me the pleasure of letting me hear what I wanted to hear.

The friends help us to dream, to fornicate with the illusions and someway later, they remind us, that they warned us, while they watch us going fall downhill.

Writing the first one, the second one was already conceived. So, period and followed, I continued with my second story.

It was another story a bit melodramatic that happened almost when I arrived to the United States.

Although I had removed enough of the honey that smeared it, I still seemed sweet, sensationalist, implausible. But it was not, it was true. Without taking into account certain details that I added, changes that I did so that only the protagonists recognized themselves, the rest, was the pure truth.

The imagination is for when the truths do not reach to fill the reality.

Sometimes I regret that my existence has been something novelistic, it could seems like fiction; inventions of drunken conversations.

When I make anecdotes about things that happened to me, about which I even have traces, physical evidences that are arguments of undeniable truth, my interlocutors look at me like saying:

— "From where did you get that story?”— even more in the city where I live.

In which it is usual to listen the people telling superlative stories.

Then, to look at you with the expression... "What are you going to tell me; me that I know everything about everything".

The beautiful city of my salvation, covered with tinsel.

The city that I live in, that has given me its warmth, is not guilty that you could read inside the peoples' eyes ... "perhaps you have not noticed how beautiful (or handsome) I am", (some other like these interlinear questions), although..

.

I lose the main theme.

I wrote three, four, five or more stories. I intended to gather them into a book.

As I said, I was in a literary workshop in my country. I contacted the workshop adviser and asked her to read what I had written. I was waiting several months for her answer, which never came. While I was waiting for her opinion, I kept looking for others.

In my job, talking to Griss, who is a beautiful young woman who studied arts in San Alejandro in Cuba, I told her that I liked to write, that it would provide to her a way to read my narrations. If she gave me that honor, I would give her copies. I did it, uselessly.

Insistence is the virtue that sustains itself.

To start I went around the net looking for advice for my publication, a cheap publisher, possible ideas to publish what I had already compiled in a small digital book.

Every day I thought about a better title, one that was appropriate, authentic, that fit the message, the propositions I wanted to offer.

I found an editorial that offered digital publications with a striking format. It could put the book on sale and gave away two printed copies.

First failure, I sent my original, with the required copies. I contacted a coordinator of the editorial with whom I spent several days going back and forward because of details that had to be corrected before accepting my project.

At the end of this stage I sent the document to him, I elaborated the book's cover, I attached my information for the back cover, as well as the payment of the first installment, because I had to split the payment in two parts.

A few days later I received a message from another member of the editorial house telling me that I needed a ... "Certified signature" to move forward.

I had no idea what was "a certified signature", so I asked him to clarify.

He told me that it was a way to be sure that I was the author.

I could request the signature from a notary or at my work. I could also ask for it at my bank.

Neither in my work nor in my bank were they able to tell me anything about it. They did not know what the hell "A certified firm" was or at least they told me that.

I searched on the Internet and knew that in Argentina, the country where the publishing house turned out to be, that is common, but since I do not live in Argentina and I have no idea of going to that country, I sent everything to the hell. I had been working on the book project for months. I would not use more time or money, because none of these things had any surplus.

The amount I had already sent, I gave it like lost. It was better to lose half than to lose it completely.

I saved what I already had written in a flash memory so that I could investigate some possible way to get the publication.

At that time I had communicated with a friend, Angel, had informed me, who gave me Hector's address, another colleague from my country who had been part of our literary workshop and who had won important prizes.

Angel and I, we went to see Hector. I told him about my project. Hector is a wise man, he is also a writer by trade. He live retired, but write. Their points of view are very similar to mine, we are related in several subjects.

He was very kind to us. He attended us attentively, gave us food. He read a couple of texts of his inspiration.

He promised to read mine as soon as he had them.

At that time I had already managed to put what I had written on the Internet, in a blog.

I did not even know the true purpose of blogs, but at least it let me have my stories in the form of post, linked together and had even developed a kind of simple website where you could read the stories and even gave advertising to a business that I had been planning and implementing little by little.

Besides being free, it allowed me to publish my texts online; in Spanish and English.

I did hyperlinked them: "Translate to Spanish" or "Translate to English", a somewhat rustic translation that gave the opportunity for any possible reader to have at their disposal the publication translated by me, as well as the originals in Spanish.

I added the complementary images. It seemed to be, acceptable, but, still the same, without result. Neither Hector read them.

According to the blog's visit counter, I had… I do not know how many visits.

Possibly my own visits, while I putted the texts to the way I like.

I found in the blog interface a section where it was possible to make the selection that my visits would not be counted. So I specified it, but ... apparently they were still counting.

I applied to use Google Adsense in my blog, which in some way would bring me income. I never could get them to accept me. For one reason or another, they rejected me.

But well, I had my texts online. Whoever wanted, they could read them. The only thing is that, apparently, nobody wanted.

I made new business cards, I included the electronic address of my blog and my page, I paid a domain to where my blog was redirected quickly and gave access to the page where the titles with links to my texts appeared tabulated.

Nothing, I did not have visitors. Not even a sad comment to say: "I like ..." or "I do not like your texts."

I sent them a link to... I do not know how many people, in emails, I gave my business card to customers of the store that were already familiar to me.

Just a little was missing to put cards on the ceiling mixed with birdseed so that the wild pigeons can scatter them in the city.

I gave my business cards to my coworkers; I sent the link to my sister in Michigan. I did everything possible, imaginable, the reasonable, the conceivable.

I did anything that would have been occurred to an author on the solid surface of the planet, or to another improbable being under the margins of the sea.

Like could have been devised by a fictional creator of a hidden asteroid, or an inhabitant of our galaxy would have imagined, whatever, just for a comment.

Nothing. Zero criticism, without observations, nor even a note.

Nobody read my texts.

I conceived the idea of putting an ad in my blog that would clarify that I would pay a dollar for each visit, paid immediately and automatically from my Pay Pal account. If I did not do it, it was because I could not make sure they read and left comments.

Even so, the idea beat rebelliously, refused to let itself be abandoned.

It was not easy for me to get home after spending the entire day in front of a cash register resisting, what is not easy to find words to specify, as well as other days collecting shopping carts and to begin writing.

It needs a lot of thirst, a lot of desire to express, but I had them.

This point made me to think.

"Express to whom?", "Will it has any interest?", "... any meaning?

Questions without answers.

Also, what was my persistence that my stories were read? "Was it important to me that people who ... in case to catch Christ on their own, would peeled him the monkfish and put him a ring in the ear, would be useful to me their comments?

At that time, I sent the files to my mother in Cuba. My mother is a teacher with more than fifty years of experience, with preparation, cultured, besides, she is my mother; always willing to help me.

I asked her to read and correct possible spelling, grammar, writing, syntactic errors, etc.

Here my first suspicion appeared. She told me they were fine, that she had not found any mistakes.

During my exchange with the coordinator of the editorial that I contacted initially; Fernandez, it was my way of calling him, he detected innumerable errors, for which he suggested me to hire the professional correction services, which were not himself but another staff member of the editorial. I did not do it because I did not have enough resources.

I think Fernandez was possibly the only one who read my narrations. The money I sent, I considered it like a payment for his services.

Apparently, not even my mother had read my stories.

In my work, I struggled with the distrust that my companions looked at me like ... "the crazy man of the stories". Every person I spoke with, I felt like he was going to tell me ... "do not get me involved with the subject of your stories". It was a spider's web.

At home, I reread my words, I broke them into pieces, threw them in the liquid structure of my voice, I was about to throw them one by one into the toilet.

I read them to my dead, I forced them to listen.

Some of them refused to continue visiting me from time to time.

Among them was Julia, a black woman from my hometown, a practitioner of an African religion, which, if she did not invent it, I do not know where she got it from.

One of the nights, I was sitting in my incredible study, so, Julia appeared.

Leaning on her wooden stick, smoothing her coiled gray hair from when she was alive, she touched me on the shoulder.

— You're spending your time. Your hourglass has its grains already counted, do not do not throw them away.

When she was alive, Julia was respected by my grandmother, who was a saint, a goddess of divinations.

The dark wisdom of that black woman of my memories would tell me why.

My words were... damned words.

That's what she told me, and she left again; this time forever. Never again she came to me, neither to my glories, that there were so few, nor my nightmares, that were so many. She never returned.

I was wondering why, what was the curse.

I saw in the store how people bought expensive magazines, where they gossiped about if...any was no known which artist married once or twice, if the president wanted to leave the chewing gum, about I do not know how many of silly stuff in social networks , about the shoe heel of I do not know who broke up in an interview.

It was a cruel, ruthless waste of editable material.

"I'm going to shit on the curse" —I thought— "I'm going to tell the world, or whoever wants to read me, I am going say what I want to say and by the other hand, I join to those others, that could exist, that they detest inexcusable imbecility, to repudiate the unscrupulous use of the intellect. "

Well, it sounded very heroic, but they were simple bravado. I was still looking for readers.

I read and reread my texts, correcting them, modifying them, adapting them to the narrative form I prefer, in short; miserably wasting time on lunatic idealizations of scriptures that no one would read.

I succumbed to outbursts of anger. Once, I threw the folders with the written material out under a torrential of water that was falling. Then a neighbor parked his car and unwittingly prevented it from being ruined.

Another time, I made them a package and sent them to a place where they bought paper for recycling.

Weeks later, I received them back with a message, which specified the correct ways to send material for recycling and an invoice that I had to pay due to they send them back to me, as well as to attach a check if I wanted to send the paper again.

Neither in the dumpster did they want my unfortunate damned words.

They gave me pity. My poor damned words, which had not asked anyone to be written, they had come into the world because of my unfortunate habit of saying and contradicting.

Our words are like our children; a result.

Lying on my bed, I saw my words walking distressed by the window frame. Divided into syllables, shake their hands with one another in their fraternal sorrow, in solidarity. To glide like a snake of smoky letters asking forgiveness to the ants of the ground for their hapless reason of existing.

They keep surfing the brooms shots when he tried to throw them out, throw them to the street.

That's how I had to reconcile with the idea of stopping, stop writing for a while. To top it off, I had some days off.

The store where I work, which only closes in case of natural disasters in which have to be more than a million dead, or also in case of nuclear war, was going to close for a day and for my misfortune I had the two free days of the week consecutively. Three days.

Three days without work, without writing, lose miserably the hours, squandering time.

I bought a TV, another error, although not recurrent, because I never had the habit of spending my time watching television.

Current television is a grotesque insult to the intelligence of man with a medium level of intelligence or higher.

I had the idea to inquire in the web about the social functions of modern means of communication.

I could know, according to expert opinions, that ... although in its origins, the media were conceived exclusively as an information tool and in the present yet the obvious function of the media is to communicate or inform, there are many others such as: entertain, teach, train, socialize, marketing and serve the system.

Without comment, I returned the TV.

But those days were not unproductive. I managed to reach a conclusion. For weeks I was been pestering my English-speaking colleagues to help me translate things I wanted to write. Not to translate literally, but translate keeping the idea of saying what I intended to say.

English is not my native and main language, so sometimes I did not find the appropriate equivalents about phrases that exist in Spanish.

Well, for my blog page, any translation served me, better, regular, elementary, any. In any case, there was a way to access the original in Spanish.

For my books that were being sold in digital publications, the prices were so cheap that inaccuracies could be justified.

Regarding a possible presentation of my modest work to a contest, if successful, it would be up to professional translators to translate.

Thinking about the purpose of my lyrics, I relied on what Nobel Prize winner: Camilo José Cela affirmed, "to write you just have to have something to say".

My humble damned words, they carried their message.

Finally, regarding my dream ... well, some people say that ... "Dreams are a sign of dissatisfaction with destiny".

My destiny, at this point, it was not going to change.

I asked myself: "Tell the truth, what is your dream?

Why did i want to be published?

My intention, that someone could read, was achieved with my publications on the blog, perhaps had presented another form of use of the blogs.

My passion for writing would not stop in any way, unless I decided so.

Maybe my dream was to get an income, albeit a small one, from the sale of my books. Do not be so dependent on my only biweekly check.

If I thought so, I had to remember what my friend Hector, the writer, told me:

—"Writing, it brings more losses than income, economically speaking"

I was thinking about seeing my habit as the bad habit of writing, or ... probably, the vice of writing, the unscrupulous way to make others waste time, to provoke the immersion of others in your personal feelings.

My anecdotes were significant to me, they were important in my way of thinking, but they could be seen frivolously.

Nobody tells a true story better than who lived in it. However, the same story may lack interest for everyone else.

Then happened what nobody could predict.

Once, I was talking to someone, to whom after I explaining that I had a thousand experiences to relate, that there was not ... that I could not say, what I still needed to live; He gave me a true sentence.

Cesar was his name. That man knew the surface and the depths.

—"Have you been in a war?"— He said, with his breath lacerated by the cigar.

—No, thank God, I have not been to the war.

I kept silent.

I saw him look at me thinking "you do not know anything about life".

César was in the war in Africa, in Vietnam, in Nicaragua, he had crossed the Strait of Florida without knowing how to navigate. He was part of the government of a country.

I was a miniature, neither the least comparison. But there was a difference.

He gobbled his memories, that is, I thought so.

After a long time without seeing us, luck put us face to face. We greet each other affectionately, have lunch together, talk.

Our talk addressed everyday problems, questions about family, work, routine; light affairs.

We look at each other, on the plain of silence.

—I'm busy writing a book. I said after a while.

—“Three things must be done by man, plant a tree, write a book and have a child," — he recited and encouraged me to continue.

I told him about my book. To my surprise, he showed great interest.

I did what was already a mechanic procedure when talking about my texts, I passed to him the link to the page.

Surprised, I saw him sink into reading.

He read a story, continued with the other, He went back and read again, He was around for two hours absorbed, reading and rereading without stopping.

Unheard, who had a lot to tell, was interested in my stories.

When he finished, he asked if I had printed copies. I said I would print the texts he wanted.

—Would it be too much to ask you to print them all?

I said no, I asked him how to deliver them to him. He gave me his address.

As we parted, Cesar patted me on the shoulder.

— At home I will continue reading.

I did not go out of my bewilderment, even more, from a distance he shouted:

— Be careful with your words!

A few days later, we saw each other again. Unfortunately, I did not bring the printed texts with me, because I had not planned such a meeting.

He pulled out a bunch of pages.

—I also have that predilection. Will you listen to me?

Obvious, I said yes.

He kept reading a long time. As I supposed, were war stories, of the jungle, coexistence with his comrades, they were impressive.

— Is it fiction? -I asked.

— How fiction? Is fiction what you write?

— No, it's not fiction, but it has modifications. I can not say that it is as things happened or that they are exactly those characters.

— One difference. I write adjusted to reality. Mine, they are legitimate, authentic facts, real characters. I can show you pictures.

He searched his things. He showed me pictures of individuals, of celebrities that I knew; not personally, but from the photos in the newspapers, in magazines.

He appeared photographed together with personalities of the history of my country. Portraits of comradeship of the war, occasions that, even, had to be registered in official means, war reports, documents of that style.

He continued reading, incredible things, although true. Raw hardness

Bombings, minefields, wild beasts, attacks on villages, guerrilla warfare techniques, deaths, fallen comrades, who lost a leg.

He read one similar to my ... "pink tales".

Love appeared. We laughed when I pointed it out to him.

—Without love, there is no life — he said — is the foundation of war and peace, of life and death.

Cesar was a hard man, made by hammer and chisel, a stone being, with a soft heart.

We said goodbye. I had a nice time. About a month passed. We contacted again. I told him about my friend Hector, the writer. I invited him to meet us. Cesar, he was a hopeless loner.

— I meet those who have been left on the road — he said— we talked, we remember.

I already knew. Days ago, in one of those moments when I leave the world, my body, my eyes are lost in immateriality, I saw my dead go to where those of Cesar to ask for details.

To try to clarify why, what was the purpose of mixing two so different universes?

They had to go the same way from where they had gone, because Cesar's dead were entangled in a game of dominoes, arguing about fighting cocks.

My words had given me a truce, but it was false. Apparent inactivity They were planning an ambush.

They got  a new skill. The characters crossed, changed positions. They went from one story to another. They connected with figures of anecdotes that he had not yet been written.

It was a total rebellion. They were written themself, annotated on the margin, erased, omitted.

One afternoon, after finishing my day, I felt my phone ring. A number I had already seen in the store that called me insistently. I could not answer before, because I was working.

I answered. Was Cesar, who called me from a different number than the one I had saved on my contact list.

He called me from a hospital. An accident had occurred, "a slight mishap," according to him.

He asked me if I could do him a favor.

— Sure, tell me, what do you need?

— If you're not very complicated, could you go to my apartment and bring me some things?

The real extent of the matter did not pass through my mind not even for a moment.

—Well, friend, tell me what you want.

— Under the plant pot in the window, is the key. Come in; take a couple of t shirts, the paper on the bed and in the bathroom and some others details for the bath.

He gave me the hospital's address.

—No rush, whenever you can.

—Don't worry, this afternoon I'll take your things with you.

I went to see him. Before meeting him, I had an exchange with a nurse who took me to his bed.

—It is regrettable. Something terrible. We are shocked. He said, as we walked.

—Are you sure we're talking about the same person?

She stopped for a moment. She reviewed some papers.

—Is he César Antonio Alarcón Morales?

She looked at me expecting me to verify, but I could not be sure of the full name.

—Well, we'll check— she said.

We take the elevator. We went to his room.

There was Cesar, dozing.

— Hi! —I said and tried to hold him.

—Do not touch him! Please, it's very delicate— said the nurse.

I turned around stunned.

He woke up. He laughed.

-Hi partner! -said, smiling- Did you bring my stuff?

I still did not understand. I looked at how many artefacts, devices, peripherals, emergency equipment.

I put things on top of a small table.

- But what is this? What happened?

- Ah! ... Things of war.

The accident had happened nine days ago. It was not like he said, "unimportant", it was ... extremely serious.

He had been taken to the hospital practically dead.

We talked little. I did not know how to disguise my grief, how not to show that I was overwhelmed by adversity. I put things where he could reach them, although he could barely move.

As I left, I saw a bird perching on the window.

— See, I have company-said with amazing good humor.

Another nurse or doctor stopped me when I leaving.

—Are you a relative?

— More or less.

—He probably will not walk again.

I left after a small dialogue in which we agreed that I would return, that before coming to Cesar, I would meet with them and explain specifically, the details, the true measure of the situation.

I went back by the hospital. As agreed, I got interviewed the doctors before going to see Cesar.

They were clear. It was a kind of paraplegia, possible tetraplegia.

Paraplegia is a disease in which the lower part of the body is paralyzed and lacks functionality.

It usually results from a spinal cord injury, as in the case in question, or from a congenital disease. If the arms are also affected by paralysis, in what could become the case, the disease is named tetraplegia.

They gave me other details; however this was the summary, approximately.

I left the hospital after talking with the doctors and seeing my friend, to whom I did not tell him about the conversation.

I was walking towards my car and thinking about life.

Simply unpredictable, unidirectional, volatile path marked by the passage of the clock.

To freaking out, escapes from the hard ones, then bit you the light ones.

A sun of lead was felling on the city, plucked smoke from the asphalt, crushing the people's yearnings.

I visited my friend two or three times a week. I helped him shave, I told him about my annoying litigation with the rebellious damned words.

I told him how I grabbed them out of my pocket while i saw them writhing, I tried to unscrew them from the usual dialogues.

We were discussing about his eternal companion at the window, a hawk or a bald eagle.

With Cesar, they took and brought him from a room where he was given medicines, treatments.

I picked up the paper sheets he asked me for.

It was close to twelve in the mid night. The next morning I would have to start early. I had to sleep.

I threw the pages on the grass; I looked at them one last time.

A cold, frozen breeze began, which forced me to take refuge inside the room, letting the flames do what they had to do, what they were obliged to do and they didn’t.

I could never know if I live in the world I live, if I can erase what I want to erase.

Data, reminders, notes files, drafts; were disappeared, but, covered, hidden under the dripping roof, in their miserable pagan scriptures, there they were, indifferent, healthy from the disaster.

The fire had consumed it, brutally devoured everything, except ... my damned words.