Carnivorous.

Carnivorous.

ISBN: 9780463616864

I saw her, while I was going around. She was graceful, fragile, helpless. Attractive, with curious shapes. She took my fantasy away to fly, where the myths of Rococo art prelude raids of satyrs and nymphs, to the meadows radiating of magic, where the song of the pigeons floated like smoke of incense.

She was tender, an allusion to the uniqueness of creation.

It was not just her; there were others, just as delicate. However, love is unidirectional; she was the one who tied my heart, to my misfortune.

I go to the markets and specifically address what I want to look for. I find what I need, I pay and I leave as soon as I can. I avoid being caught by the well-known temptation to buy as much as we are invited to buy, suggesting us with images, commercial advertisements and insinuations that it is unquestionably urgent for us to acquire as much crap as has been put in our sight, how much offal the marquetin uses to attract the primitive instinct of stuffing us with useless odds and ends.

All beads and quincallas between which it is impossible to determine, elements to adorn the truth that we have changed into worms dependent on the material things.

We forget who we are. We get carried away.

It is thus, that society survives; recurring to the human limitation of not knowing what we really need or why we need it.

I was already going out. I managed to find what I had come for; after asking one million three hundred and five thousand times to the workers, those who looked at me in a daze and indicated the first thing that came to mind, to get out of me.

My job is in a market; I know the point. The employees, we want to help, but it becomes difficult. On the other hand, the shelves move.

It is logical, not to be able to record the locations of the trillions of artifacts, objects; useful and not useful that are grouped in the departments of the markets and also change locations.

Then I saw her; beautiful, delicate. As if she had always been present. She infiltrated into my blood, my passions.

She slipped into the habit of owning, of storing prizes. It was added to the habit, adding to the personal album of the everyday mirages that sweeten the way.

I backed up. I stopped myself, watching her. Wondering how it was that no one had noticed the paradoxical creature.

She was indifferent, flirtatious, pretended not to see me. She prepared the ground to catch me. Leave me captive

I felt pale, soften, bended in emotions; surrender my mind to the desire.

I bought her. Without thinking; without imagining what would come next. Without assuming what it would means.

I got home. For a while I thought about where she would stay. A place where I could look at her, that would give her comfort. In which the people who frequent me, could admire her.

The feminine needs comfort. They like the praise, the consent, that they are pleased and pampered.

I found a good place. I cleaned it, I organized details. I sprayed air freshener. I pulled the bugs out of the light; those who are everywhere confident, with a sense of belonging.

I evicted the spiders; those who also think themselves patroness of the room. They tend their branches of cloth in absurd corners so they can’t capture insects. They do it for vice, lack of occupation.

It was a March morning. A Saturday. A green morning, fresh, sunny. The cooing of morning birds rocked outside.

With my disheveled bat voice, I sang a melody of memory; an exotic song that it has not been forgotten.

I was pleased to groom the room of what would be my roommate, in making it pleasant the humble enclosure that gave me peace.

I had forgotten the sentence that hung announcing in the market:

"Carnivorous plants."

Almost at noon I finished. That Saturday, in which I had not scheduled my usual job, I had predicted it sad, but no, it became important. I was going to have company.

I placed her close. I could see her from the bed, right above my rustic desk. After spending hours with my eyes fixed on the computer, I raised my eyes and refreshed myself contemplating her.

She was tiny. She had some funny twigs that ended in claws. Comic forms, like flowers, adorned them. The smell was, like ... I could not say. It was not the smell of the air freshener that I had sprayed, it was ... another smell.

I have the misfortune to be a promoter of pernicious ideas. Sometimes, my imagination wanders lost in incongruous suburbs, harmful to good believing. Luckily, I know. I'm warned

Due to the above, I assumed that it was another invention of my sadistic, unreal sorcerers-conforming machinery, that feeling; the clear perception that I refused to accept.

I looked at her, I smelled, but ... I did not connect one thing with the other. I scrubbed the fucking contradiction between the cute figurine and the perfidious aroma that permeated the environment.

It was tenuous, although, invariably captured, an uneasy effluvium.

I had trouble understanding it. Months later, it was obvious. Absolutely evident, that the stench, the smell that intrigued me was nothing but the smell of the blood.

But, I already said it. I delayed in understanding it, in assimilating it. Initially, it was a romance. I took care of her, I protected her. I kept her little place neat. I shook dust, termites, and ants. I did not allow her to be disturbed.

Yes, that they could importunate or sour her mood. Plants, is said, have feeling. They are wounded and they shed a resin that relieves the wound. So, and...what are the thorns for? But to defend? How do they know about the need to defend themselves? My plant had no thorns.

When a plant is attacked or bitten by an insect, it reacts in the same way that an animal would. There are studies that prove it.

I scared the lizards that liked to climb the window frame, go up to the corner and look at her with envy. She had someone to watch over her welfare.

I brought bugs to her little claws. As soon as they were within reach, she closed them, trapping them accurately.

I entertained myself by feeding my plant. I put mosquitoes, flies, spiders and even a piece of bread; that she squeezed it.

She was insatiable. She ate at any time. My work, with changing shifts; at night, during the day, at dawn, etc.., it forced me to leave the hobby of nourishing my plant at the time I could. Even I, I had to eat at the time I could.

She started to grow.

I was happy. I was taking care of a life, a being that God created.

At that time, near my job, a vagabond cat was around. When I worked in the periphery; in the parking lot, collecting shopping carts, I saw him alone, wandering helpless.

I decided to take him home, another friend. Who makes friends in animals, despises them in people. More company I already had someone to talk to. Also, I shared my food.

The cat preferred the fish. Instead, the plant prioritized the shredded steak. Her size was noticeably superior. The branches that once looked like delicate arches with flowers were no longer; they were powerful arms, tentacles in which dark mouths opened. She no longer fit in the box in which I bought her. I had to put her outdoors, that is, indoors, even outside the original box, alone, on the window frame, next to the door.

Both were versed in letters. One afternoon, I became entangled in controversy with the plant, about different interpretations of "The dialogues of Plato."

The Romans and the Greeks were her specialty.

“Protagoras and the Gorgias.”

That about of ... "No one do badly voluntarily." There was no agreement.

My life had been enriched. My neighbor on the side brought a parrot, guided by my assertion that animals distract us. They energize us a little.

Certainly, the fatherly feeling is unique. The virtue of giving, caring, magnifies

I collected leftovers from customers to take to my cat, the plant, no way. She despised the remains of food that I brought. She ignored them proudly, like thinking: "That, you eat it, if you want."

My room was clean of flies. The cockroaches, which were always some, disappeared completely.

The cat was, still skinny, emaciated, timid. He was content with some fried fish that I brought him. Stew, I did not touch it, but raw or fried, he accepted it.

The plant, however, grew and grew for days. I had to take her out to the patio. Under a kind of coffered ceiling that protected it from the rain; the one I detested.

Manuel, one of the friends who visit me, one day when he arrived, he screamed scared:

— What the fuck is that shit?

No, he did not understand. It was my defenseless plant, the one that ... to tell the truth, it did not seem so helpless.

Looks are deceiving. We never know when we should protect ourselves or from what protect ourselves. We fall like stupid people into trivial traps and take precautions of healthy things.

The girls sharpen their skills; accentuate the traits that attract men. The consequence is ... that masculine sayings, we succumb to the voluptuous, senseless attraction.

We do not suspect that it is precisely such a thing that we have to protect ourselves from.

My plant did not intend to seduce, rather, it resembled fierceness, with the elementary sense of self-protection. Remove the wild agents.

I said, there were no insects left. The lizards fled. A bird skeleton appeared suspended from its segments.

So, it was that, when I began to suspect.

That week, the neighbor's parrot, the same was lost. A couple of days later, I found the head. In the trunk, which was already a thick adult trunk, was the head half rotten.

The cat, slipped quickly, sensing the danger, to pass near the rare vegetable. In the end, he vanished. Nothing remained of the poor animal. My steaks were lost from the refrigerator.

I arrived home and got refuge into the room. I looked through the cracks. I saw her beating her branch, the cylindrical stems like snakes. Empty the surrounding diameter.

The smell became unbearable. A pestilence to the corpse smeared the courtyard, the entire block.

My peaceful shelter conveyed danger, massacre.

When returning from work, I entered cautiously, checked the lock. When I left, I escaped.

An agreement was urgent, an agreement, a truce.

The month of March ended. April came, also beautiful, then came the month of flowers.

I decided to seek a consensus. Recover the relief of reaching the home. Emboldened, I approached her.

She was not hostile. We talked. We lighten tensions. We even laugh. I praised her. I told her about the sensuality of her curves; they remembered woman curves.

She pointed out about that of beauty in women was relative. "Does a male scorpion, do not see a copy of the opposite sex attractive?”

— Beauty is beauty. — I said — We see beautiful flowers.

She studied me suspiciously. She measured the words. She was considering the restriction of the verb.

She stroked her branches. I, hesitantly, kissed them. She fixed her arms around my neck. I was speechless. It crossed my mind that I was going to be strangled.

But ... no, she combed my hair with her lips and cooed daringly:

— "You say you can love flowers?"

I had not said it like that, but how to deny it, with such appendages around my neck. A sharp squeeze and broke my cervical spine.

I nodded, coward, stunned by not knowing if I was afraid of tentacles or the parody.

We discussed about it. She accused me of doubting, of distrusting about that feeling intelligent beings' own s.

I let her expand on elucidations. We already talked daily. I transmitted her, the anomaly of writing. Actually my approach had the intention of polish asperities. Now, the exchange was pleasant.

I had been writing about the leaves. "The life of the leaves.” was titled. I showed it to her.

I commented about the way they are born, that is, they sprout, grow, multiply, age and fall. "It is poetic to see the leaves fall. However it is a death. Can there be poetry in death? Do we understand what it means? "

"Is it a transition?"

"It's a natural process, arranged without linking it to evil. According to what was read, death did not exist before man sinned. Well, it is certainly not the fall of the leaves the end of an existence or it is a transformation. "

I talked about the pleasure that walking on dry leaves brings me. "Look at it!" - Finished a paragraph - "that I like to walk on dead bodies."

I concluded that I interpreted it better as a transformation, conformation, evolution to another type of life.

- Tawdriness! - She said, followed. - In fact, you're lost in theology.

What a critical sense!

In summary, we did not agree on most issues, but the purpose was achieved. I managed to placate the terror. It brought, on the other hand, negative results.

The mosquitoes returned. Also, good changes. The steaks remained. I put a table with pencil and white sheets. I went to work and left her busy writing. She no longer devoured the wild birds, frightened them by shaking.

She told me she was writing a novel: "The convoluted story of the five hundred thousand and one penance of the bastard Gamulios."

— Long titles do not work. — I opined.

— What do you know? — She said. — You have written a thousand of carrions and you cannot sell a book.

It was true, a gloomy truth.

She calmed down. She did nothing but write. She did not even eat. She lost weight. She pulled out her leaves when rereading the writing. — Shits! — Shouted — bull shit!

I felt guilty about inoculating the virus. To use that means to mitigate fear. To use a function that does not work, to confuse her, to tame her.

It said a character, which I do not intend to quote the name: "What matters is the end, not the means." It is the content, not the textual phrase. I do not agree, but there are cases that do. The panic subsided, for the moment.

At the time when she ate a lot, swallowing everything she could catch, I conceived the urge to declare her in my taxes as a "dependent". It was no longer necessary.

I even told her to change her eating habits, about to mutating her to vegetarian.

It grieved me to see her weakened. She neglected the basic need to be nourished. The noxious and sterile exercise of writing absorbed her.

And ... I could not get rest; she longed to see me arrive to call me. She consulted me about details of literary techniques that were not clear for me.

— Bring your thing here. — demanded, wallowing her papers.

— No, this does not work. Brings better ... — and asked for books that I kept.

There were the steaks, the hamburgers. Now, my bookseller was full of empty spaces.

She became documented in literary streams. Classicism, Humanism, Realism, Impressionism, Modernism, Avant-garde. What do I know!

She sophisticated her vocabulary. I am not familiar with literary terminology, so I left blank.

— What kind of trash writer are you? — She roared.

I slept sitting next to her, while she read me what she had written.

- Brother, pay attention, at least for decency! - She shouted.

The spring months came to an end, the summer passed. Autumn was coming.

I had to move. Higher rent values. My house was cheap, but the owner, embarrassed, explained to me about the increase in taxes, the price of electricity, water. She had to charge me more.

I settled in an enclosure where my bed barely fit. It had no bathroom, but a shower in a corner covered with curtains, detached a few inches from the toilet.

I placed the computer at the head of the bed, which caused to me a condition in my shoulder or neck, because I was hunchback all day, in an embarrassing position to write.

It hurt me to leave my plant. I was sad to leave her alone. I go see her from time to time. She finished her book, published it.

It happens to her the same like me, she does not sell any. I suggested hiring a "literary agent." I've heard about that. I thought to do it.

- With what the fuck are we going to pay him? - She asked.

- You ... - she said later - you were a programmer, you could think of a mobile application, those little games for phones that sleep people. Or maybe, with what you earn with the shopping carts.

- Funny! - I said - Earn a tiny amount of money by bending the spine or burning my brains, to melt it in trying to get a tenth of that amount, selling books.

She applied my suggestion to become a vegetarian.

- The vegetables are expensive, but I eat the grass in the yard. - added. - I swallow the mangoes that fall from the trees that border. The neighbor has not sued me because he can not imagine. Luckily, I do not need water. The owner removed the service. Nothing, they say it gives cancer.

- There are no improvements, no hopes. - I concluded.

We talked that December Monday. That I went to see her driven by the longing. During the tiring day, I was content thinking about her. In which I would see her when she finished.

I arrived. The shiny cars of the new tenants; that work equally in that of the markets, another in the construction, radiate solvency, power, prosperity. They earn more or less what I earn, but they must think differently.

I entered. I was humming the usual melody. "Sappy", Nirvana. She immediately called me. She was happy. Without giving me a chance to sit down, she pulled me out and started reading.

She was excited because in her new book, she touched on matters that she forgot in the first ... and she had achieved it, she said what she wanted to say, what she wanted to express.

- Poor creature! - I thought - who the hell cares what do we mean?

I listened to her read. I remembered when I feared her. I looked at her with tenderness, with love. Also with pain; the two previous words, hurt.

Before leaving, she told me:

- Lets make a big roll. It's cheaper. Let's try with mine, which seems better. You, you handle the marketing. We split the profits.

"At least it is weird" - I thought - "May be."