Juan José Arreola: El guardagujas

El forastero llegó sin aliento a la estación desierta. Su gran valija, que nadie quiso cargar, le había fatigado en extremo. Se enjugó el rostro con un pañuelo, y con la mano en visera miró los rieles que se perdían en el horizonte. Desalentado y pensativo consultó su reloj: la hora justa en que el tren debía partir.

Alguien, salido de quién sabe dónde, le dio una palmada muy suave. Al volverse el forastero se halló ante un viejecillo de vago aspecto ferrocarrilero. Llevaba en la mano una linterna roja, pero tan pequeña, que parecía de juguete. Miró sonriendo al viajero, que le preguntó con ansiedad:

-Usted perdone, ¿ha salido ya el tren?

-¿Lleva usted poco tiempo en este país?

-Necesito salir inmediatamente. Debo hallarme en T. mañana mismo.

-Se ve que usted ignora las cosas por completo. Lo que debe hacer ahora mismo es buscar alojamiento en la fonda para viajeros -y señaló un extraño edificio ceniciento que más bien parecía un presidio.

-Pero yo no quiero alojarme, sino salir en el tren.

Alfred McLelland Burrage: Smee

“No,” said Jackson with a deprecatory smile “I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset your game. I shan’t be doing that because you’ll have plenty without me. But I’m not playing any games of hide-and-seek.”

It was Christmas Eve, and we were a party of fourteen with just the proper leavening of youth. We had dined well; it was the season for childish games; and we were all in the mood for playing them — all, that is, except Jackson. When somebody suggested hide-and-seek there was rapturous and almost unanimous approval. His was the one dissentient voice. It was not like Jackson to spoil sport or refuse to do as others wanted. Somebody asked him if he were feeling seedy.

‘No,’ he answered, ‘I feel perfectly fit, thanks. But,’ he added with a smile which softened without retracting the flat refusal, ‘I’m not playing hide-and-seek.’

`Why not?’ someone asked. He hesitated for a moment before replying. `I sometimes go and stay at a house where a girl was killed. She was playing hide and seek in the dark. She didn’t know the house very well. There was a door that led to the servants’ staircase. When she was chased, she thought the door led to a bedroom. She opened the door and jumped – and landed at the bottom of the stairs. She broke her neck, of course.’

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón: La mujer alta

--¡ Qué sabemos! Amigos míos.... ¡qué sabemos! --exclamó Gabriel, distinguido ingeniero de Montes, sentándose debajo de un pino y cerca de una fuente, en la cumbre del Guadarrama, a legua y media de El Escorial, en el límite divisorio de las provincias de Madrid y Segovia; sitio y fuente y pino que yo conozco y me parece estar viendo, pero cuyo nombre se me ha olvidado.

--Sentémonos, como es de rigor y está escrito.. en nuestro programa --continuó Gabriel--, a descansar y hacer por la vida en este ameno y clásico paraje, famoso por la virtud digestiva del agua de ese manantial y por los muchos borregos que aquí se han comido nuestros ilustres maestros don Miguel Bosch, don Máximo Laguna, don Agustín Pascual y otros grandes naturistas; os contaré una rara y peregrina historia en comprobación de mi tesis..., reducida a manifestar, aunque me llaméis oscurantista, que en el globo terráqueo ocurren todavía cosas sobrenaturales: esto es, cosas que no caben en la cuadrícula de la razón, de la ciencia ni de la filosofía, tal y como hoy se entienden (o no se entienden) semejantes palabras, palabras y palabras, que diría Hamlet...

Vladimir Nabokov: Signs and Symbols

For the fourth time in as many years, they were confronted with the problem of what birthday present to take to a young man who was incurably deranged in his mind. Desires he had none. Man-made objects were to him either hives of evil, vibrant with a malignant activity that he alone could perceive, or gross comforts for which no use could be found in his abstract world. After eliminating a number of articles that might offend him or frighten him (anything in the gadget line, for instance, was taboo), his parents chose a dainty and innocent trifle—a basket with ten different fruit jellies in ten little jars.

At the time of his birth, they had already been married for a long time; a score of years had elapsed, and now they were quite old. Her drab gray hair was pinned up carelessly. She wore cheap black dresses. Unlike other women of her age (such as Mrs. Sol, their next-door neighbor, whose face was all pink and mauve with paint and whose hat was a cluster of brookside flowers), she presented a naked white countenance to the faultfinding light of spring. Her husband, who in the old country had been a fairly successful businessman, was now, in New York, wholly dependent on his brother Isaac, a real American of almost forty years’ standing. They seldom saw Isaac and had nicknamed him the Prince.

Elena Casero: Comprensión

Anoche me morí en tus brazos. Lo hice sin pensar, por cariño, como lo he hecho todo por ti. Pusiste cara de susto, pero te duró poco tiempo. Después, cuando yo ya había cerrado los ojos y creías que no te podía ver, te relajaste y sonreíste feliz. Me abandonaste en el sofá, tal como me había muerto, algo desmadejada. Entonces te escuché hablar con ella. Tu voz sonaba con un timbre pulido, tan diferente del que usas conmigo, que parece hecho de productos abrasivos, de los que arañan el corazón. Te cambiaste de ropa, te perfumaste y saliste de la habitación sin darme siquiera un triste beso. Esta mañana, he decidido no volver a morirme nunca más.

Franz Kafka: Ein Landarzt

Ich war in großer Verlegenheit: eine dringende Reise stand mir bevor; ein Schwerkranker wartete auf mich in einem zehn Meilen entfernten Dorfe; starkes Schneegestöber füllte den weiten Raum zwischen mir und ihm; einen Wagen hatte ich, leicht, großräderig, ganz wie er für unsere Landstraßen taugt; in den Pelz gepackt, die Instrumententasche in der Hand, stand ich reisefertig schon auf dem Hofe; aber das Pferd fehlte, das Pferd. Mein eigenes Pferd war in der letzten Nacht, infolge der Überanstrengung in diesem eisigen Winter, verendet; mein Dienstmädchen lief jetzt im Dorf umher, um ein Pferd geliehen zu bekommen; aber es war aussichtslos, ich wußte es, und immer mehr vom Schnee überhäuft, immer unbeweglicher werdend, stand ich zwecklos da. Am Tor erschien das Mädchen, allein, schwenkte die Laterne; natürlich, wer leiht jetzt sein Pferd her zu solcher Fahrt? Ich durchmaß noch einmal den Hof; ich fand keine Möglichkeit; zerstreut, gequält stieß ich mit dem Fuß an die brüchige Tür des schon seit Jahren unbenützten Schweinestalles. Sie öffnete sich und klappte in den Angeln auf und zu. Wärme und Geruch wie von Pferden kam hervor. Eine trübe Stallaterne schwankte drin an einem Seil. Ein Mann, zusammengekauert in dem niedrigen Verschlag, zeigte sein offenes blauäugiges Gesicht. » Soll ich anspannen?« fragte er, auf allen vieren hervorkriechend. Ich wußte nichts zu sagen und beugte mich nur, um zu sehen, was es noch in dem Stalle gab. Das Dienstmädchen stand neben mir. »Man weiß nicht, was für Dinge man im eigenen Hause vorrätig hat«, sagte es, und wir beide lachten. »Holla, Bruder, holla, Schwester!« rief der Pferdeknecht, und zwei Pferde, mächtige flankenstarke Tiere, schoben sich hintereinander, die Beine eng am Leib, die wohlgeformten Köpfe wie Kamele senkend, nur durch die Kraft der Wendungen ihres Rumpfes aus dem Türloch, das sie restlos ausfüllten. Aber gleich standen sie aufrecht, hochbeinig, mit dicht ausdampfendem Körper. »Hilf ihm«, sagte ich, und das willige Mädchen eilte, dem Knecht das Geschirr des Wagens zu reichen. Doch kaum war es bei ihm, umfaßt es der Knecht und schlägt sein Gesicht an ihres. Es schreit auf und flüchtet sich zu mir; rot eingedrückt sind zwei Zahnreihen in des Mädchens Wange. »Du Vieh«, schreie ich wütend, »willst du die Peitsche?«, besinne mich aber gleich, daß es ein Fremder ist, daß ich nicht weiß, woher er kommt, und daß er mir freiwillig aushilft, wo alle andern versagen. Als wisse er von meinen Gedanken, nimmt er meine Drohung nicht übel, sondern wendet sich nur einmal, immer mit den Pferden beschäftigt, nach mir um. »Steigt ein«, sagt er dann, und tatsächlich: alles ist bereit. Mit so schönem Gespann, das merke ich, bin ich noch nie gefahren, und ich steige fröhlich ein. »Kutschieren werde aber ich, du kennst nicht den Weg«, sage ich.

Lydia Davis: The Mother

The girl wrote a story. “But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel,” said her mother. The girl built a dollhouse. “But how much better if it were a real house,” her mother said. The girl made a small pillow for her father. “But wouldn’t a quilt be more practical,” said her mother. The girl dug a small hole in the garden. “But how much better if you dug a large hole,” said her mother. The girl dug a hole and went to sleep in it. “But how much better if you slept forever,” said her mother.

Virginia Woolf: A Haunted House

Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making sure — a ghostly couple.

"Here we left it," she said. And he added, "Oh, but here too!" "It's upstairs," she murmured. "And in the garden," he whispered "Quietly," they said, "or we shall wake them."

But it wasn't that you woke us. Oh, no. "They're looking for it; they're drawing the curtain," one might say, and so read on a page or two. "Now they've found it," one would be certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm. "What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?" My hands were empty. "Perhaps it's upstairs then?" The apples were in the loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling — what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound. "Safe, safe, safe," the pulse of the house beat softly. "The treasure buried; the room..." the pulse stopped short. Oh, was that the buried treasure?

Alejandro Jodorowsky: Extravío

Un ciego, con su bastón blanco, en medio del desierto, llora sin poder encontrar su camino porque no hay obstáculos.

Flannery O’Connor: A Good Man Is Hard To Find

The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida. She wanted to visit some of her connections in east Tennes- see and she was seizing at every chance to change Bailey's mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of his chair at the table, bent over the orange sports section of the Journal. "Now look here, Bailey," she said, "see here, read this," and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. "Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did."

Bailey didn't look up from his reading so she wheeled around then and faced the children's mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like rabbit's ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his apricots out of a jar. "The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."

Dario Voltolini: Luci

Nel laboratorio di genetica al terzo piano della Clinica universitaria le luci sono spente. Le finestre danno sul parco. La luna rende nitide le sagome degli alberi con­tro il cielo notturno. Al lato opposto dell'edificio, sullo stesso piano del laboratorio in fondo a un lungo corri­doio, il reparto di rianimazione occupa due ampie sale e tre locali più piccoli connessi. Le luci sono accese. Dall'autostrada che passa oltre il fiume si possono ve­dere in controluce medici e infermieri muoversi, le loro ombre sulle finestre smerigliate e sigillate. Sulla porta d'ingresso del laboratorio di genetica c'è una targhetta con quattro nomi: G. Saliceti, A. Vasari, A. Thompson e S. Pizzi. La porta della rianimazione è una doppia ve­trata, senza etichette. All'interno, nella seconda sala grande, su di un letto, privo di conoscenza, Andrea Va­sari muove solo il torace, per respirare. I tracciati della sua attività cerebrale scorrono su di un monitor. L'atti­vità è intensa.

—    Sogna — deduce un'infermiera, mentre inietta un liquido nella soluzione fisiologica che pende dal tre­spolo accanto al letto.

—    Però non dorme — commenta Jean-Luc Volatier, anestesiologo, rivolgendosi a Sergio Pizzi.

—    E come lo chiamiamo, se non sonno? — doman­da Pizzi con un tono sprezzante.

—    Chiamalo come vuoi. Ti ricordo però che dal son-

ci si sveglia, mentre qui abbiamo provato ogni tipo di stimolo e non è successo niente. Intendo dire: niente di evidente nei tracciati. Tu che sei intelligente, cosa ne pensi?

—  Oh, io sono solo un genetista...

Enrique Anderson Imbert: Espiral

Regresé a casa en la madrugada, cayéndome de sueño. Al entrar, todo obscuro. Para no despertar a nadie avancé de puntillas y llegué a la escalera de caracol que conducía a mi cuarto. Apenas puse el pie en el primer escalón dudé de si ésa era mi casa o una casa idéntica a la mía. Y mientras subía temí que otro muchacho, igual a mí, estuviera durmiendo en mi cuarto y acaso soñándome en el acto mismo de subir por la escalera de caracol. Di la última vuelta, abrí la puerta y allí estaba él, o yo, todo iluminado de Luna, sentado en la cama, con los ojos bien abiertos. Nos quedamos un instante mirándonos de hito en hito. Nos sonreímos. Sentí que la sonrisa de él era la que también me pesaba en la boca: como en un espejo, uno de los dos era falaz. «¿Quién sueña con quién?», exclamó uno de nosotros, o quizá ambos simultáneamente. En ese momento oímos ruidos de pasos en la escalera de caracol: de un salto nos metimos uno en otro y así fundidos nos pusimos a soñar al que venía subiendo, que era yo otra vez.

Edmond Hamilton: The Monster-God of Mamurth

Out of the desert night he came to us, stumbling into our little circle of firelight and collapsing at once. Mitchell and I sprang to our feet with startled exclamations, for men who travel alone and on foot are a strange sight in the deserts of North Africa.

For the first few minutes that we worked over him I thought he would die at once, but gradually we brought him back to consciousness. While Mitchell held a cup of water to his cracked lips I looked him over and saw that he was too far gone to live much longer. His clothes were in rags, and his hands and knees literally flayed, from crawling over the sands, I judged. So when he motioned feebly for more water, I gave it to him, knowing that in any case his time was short. Soon he could talk, in a dead, croaking voice.

"I'm alone," he told us, in answer to our first question; "no more out there to look for. What are you two—traders? I thought so. No I'm an archeologist. A digger-up of the past." His voice broke for a moment. "It's not always good to dig up dead secrets. There are ionic things the past should be allowed to hide."

Alfonso Castelao: Un ollo de vidro. Memorias d'un esquelete

Leutor:

Certo día fitoume unha vaca. ¿Que coidará de min?, pensei eu; e naquel intre a vaca baixou a testa e sigueu comendo na herba. Agora xa sei que a vaca somentes dixo:

—Bo, total un home con anteollos.

E ó mellor eu non son máis que o que coidou a vaca. Velaí a ledicia de pensar que cando a miña calivera estea ó descuberto xa non poderá xuzgarme ningunha vaca.

A morte non me arrepía e o mal que desexo ó meu nemigo é que viva até sobrevivirse.

Eu son dos que estruchan a cara pra apalpa-la propia calivera e non fuxo dos cimeterios endexamais.

Tanto é así que teño un amigo enterrador nun cimeterio de cibdade. Iste meu amigo non é, de certo, amigo meu; é somentes un ouxeto de esperencia, un coelliño de Indias. Un enterrador sabe sempre moitas cousas e cóntaas con humorismo. Un enterrador de cibdade que dispe e descalza ós mortos pra surti-las tendas de roupa vella, ten de sere home que lle cómpre a un humorista. Un enterrador que saca boa soldada co ouro dos dentes das caliveras tiña de sere meu amigo.