Mario Méndez Acosta: ¡No se duerman en el metro!

Hay cosas en la vida, y eso incluye a esta ciudad de México, que más vale que nunca averigüemos. La ignorancia nos permite dormir con placidez en la noche, y concentrarnos en nuestros respectivos trabajos. Por ejemplo: ¿se ha preguntado usted qué les sucede a las personas que se quedan dormidas en el Metro, cuando éste llega a la terminal de una línea, lo que causa que no escuchen las advertencias que les piden abandonar el vagón y sigan adelante en el mismo, adentrándose en un profundo túnel oscuro que aparentemente no lleva a ninguna parte? La verdad es que esa es una de las cosas que en realidad no nos conviene averiguar, si es que queremos mantener la ilusión de que vivimos en un universo nacional.

Sin embargo, no está de más tomar algunas precauciones sencilla, que bien pueden evitarnos experiencias en verdad lamentables. Una de ellas es la de no dormirse nunca en el Metro, en especial, después de la puesta del sol.

Para Arturo Marquina, periodista ya no tan joven, y autor ocasional de relatos de ciencia ficción, cuentos de horror y novelitas policíacas nunca publicadas, el descuido le produjo un extraño desarreglo que sus amigos califican casi de locura. Se niega Arturo, quien es una persona sensata, racional y de buen humor, a acercarse siquiera a las entradas del Metro. Se rehúsa también a pasar por encima de las ventilas o registros del sistema de transporte colectivo de esta capital. En eso puede ponerse hasta agresivo y desagradable. Marquina se niega a hablar de esa extraña fobia que le aqueja. Siempre logra desviar la conversación cuando se le interroga al respecto. Sólo una vez, en una cantina de Bucareli, después de varias horas de consumo y animada conversación, llegó un momento en que se puso serio e hizo una advertencia a uno de los amigos, que le dijo que utilizaba el Metro cotidianamente, y en especial a altas horas de la noche.

“¿Llegas a alguna terminal a esas horas?”, preguntó Arturo. Ante la respuesta afirmativa, nuestro amigo abandonó su discreción. “¿Tú sabes lo que le ocurre a las personas que se quedan dormidas en los vagones que siguen avanzando después de la última estación?”. –“La verdad, no”-, repuso el compañero. “Yo sí lo sé”, continuó Arturo. “Esto que te voy a contar no es un cuento, te pido que me lo creas, por tu bien. Nunca lo repetiré ante ustedes”.

“Fue justo hace un año. Serían cerca de las once y salía yo del trabajo después de un día durísimo. Tomé el Metro en la estación Hidalgo, y me dirigí hacia Tacuba. Ahí transbordé hacia Barranca del Muerto. Ya a esa hora, el Metro va casi vacío. Cerca de Tacubaya me quedé dormido. El tren llegó sin duda a la terminal, sin que yo despertara. No oí la distorsionada voz que de advertencia que sale del sistema de sonido, ni el insistente pitido del silbato electrónico que anuncia las paradas. Unos segundos después, cuando ya el vagón se dirigía hacia el inquietante túnel que continúa el trayecto, alcancé a ver el letrero y la insignia de mi estación de destino, la cual quedaba atrás. Con preocupación y fastidio, pude ver que no iba sólo. Unos asientos más adelante iba un tipo viejo y desastrado, en evidente estado de ebriedad, que seguía dormido y cabeceaba con cierto ritmo. Pensé que quizá el tren cambiaría de vía y regresaría por el mismo trayecto en unos instantes más. Pero no fue así.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dagon

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone, makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realise, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.

It was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific that the packet of which I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea-raider. The great war was then at its very beginning, and the ocean forces of the Hun had not completely sunk to their later degradation; so that our vessel was made a legitimate prize, whilst we of her crew were treated with all the fairness and consideration due us as naval prisoners. So liberal, indeed, was the discipline of our captors, that five days after we were taken I managed to escape alone in a small boat with water and provisions for a good length of time.

When I finally found myself adrift and free, I had but little idea of my surroundings. Never a competent navigator, I could only guess vaguely by the sun and stars that I was somewhat south of the equator. Of the longitude I knew nothing, and no island or coastline was in sight. The weather kept fair, and for uncounted days I drifted aimlessly beneath the scorching sun; waiting either for some passing ship, or to be cast on the shores of some habitable land. But neither ship nor land appeared, and I began to despair in my solitude upon the heaving vastness of unbroken blue.

The change happened whilst I slept. Its details I shall never know; for my slumber, though troubled and dream-infested, was continuous. When at last I awakened, it was to discover myself half sucked into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away.

Though one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at so prodigious and unexpected a transformation of scenery, I was in reality more horrified than astonished; for there was in the air and in the rotting soil a sinister quality which chilled me to the very core. The region was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish, and of other less describable things which I saw protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plain. Perhaps I should not hope to convey in mere words the unutterable hideousness that can dwell in absolute silence and barren immensity. There was nothing within hearing, and nothing in sight save a vast reach of black slime; yet the very completeness of the stillness and the homogeneity of the landscape oppressed me with a nauseating fear.

Ada Inés Lerner Goligorsky: El ataúd usado

Después de discurrir largamente, mi hermano Simón decide que no es inconveniente que yo comparta el ataúd con el tío Ismael (fallecido allá lejos y hace tiempo), dado —dice Simón a la familia— que es notable la diferencia de precio e ínfima la posibilidad de que, con el tiempo, la comunidad sospeche un incesto. La funeraria (el dueño era gentil) le ofreció cremación y urna por un precio más conveniente y Simón —que ha olvidado los preceptos de la religión— acepta.

A partir de ese treinta de abril comparto una vasija mortuoria con Ismael, judío liberal y viudo de primeras nupcias. Se trata de un hombre desconocido para mí; eso es lo que a juicio de Simón evita los comentarios maledicientes y además —dice— no puede ser atrevida tamaña cercanía con alguien que me lleva casi doscientos años.

Philip K. Dick: The Eyes Have It

It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it; I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control.

I was sitting in my easy-chair, idly turning the pages of a paperback book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn't respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I'd comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn't noticed it right away.

The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properites, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything—and was taking it in his stride. The line (and I tremble remembering it even now) read:

. . . his eyes slowly roved about the room.

Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.

. . . his eyes moved from person to person.

There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race. Obviously non-Terrestrial. Yet, to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural—which suggested they belonged to the same species.

And the author? A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride. Evidently, he felt this was quite a usual thing. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal this knowledge. The story continued:

. . . presently his eyes fastened on Julia.

Roberto Jusmet Cassi: El ejecutado

Se cogió la cabeza con las dos manos para evitar que se le cayera al suelo cuando el hacha del verdugo le cortase el cuello. Luego no supo qué hacer con la cabeza.

Steve Rasnic Tem: Bodies and Heads

In the hospital window the boy’s head shook no no no. Elaine stopped on her way up the front steps, fascinated.

The boy’s chest was rigid, his upper arms stiff. He seemed to be using something below the window to hold himself back, with all his strength, so that his upper body shook from the exertion.

She thought of television screens and their disembodied heads, ever so slightly out of focus, the individual dots of the transmitted heads moving apart with increasing randomness so that feature blended into feature and face into face until eventually the heads all looked the same: pinkish clouds of media flesh.

His head moved no no no. As if denying what was happening to him. He had been the first and was now the most advanced case of something they still had no name for. Given what had been going on in the rest of the country, the Denver Department of Health and Hospitals had naturally been quite concerned. An already Alert status had become a Crisis and doctors from all over—including a few with vague, unspecified governmental connections—had descended on the hospital.

Although it was officially discouraged, now and then in the hospital’s corridors she had overheard the whispered word zombie.

“Jesus, will you look at him!”

Elaine turned. Mark planted a quick kiss on her lips. “Mark

somebody will see

” But she made no attempt to move away from him.

“I think they already know.” He nibbled down her jawline. Elaine thought to pull away, but could not. His touch on her body, his attention, had always made her feel beautiful. It was, in fact, the only time she ever felt beautiful.

Jesus Esnaola: Elemental

Mientras Watson se acuclilla junto al cadáver, Holmes, envuelto en la nube de humo que sale de su pipa, examina la habitación en que se encuentran. Mientras Watson observa el puñal que la víctima tiene clavado entre los dos omoplatos, Holmes repasa las paredes desnudas, sin una sola puerta o ventana, estudia el cubo perfecto de muros lisos que los rodea. Mientras Watson, seguro de que el hombre ha sido asesinado, se pregunta cómo el asesino ha podido salir de aquella trampa sin escapatoria, Holmes, confundida su silueta con el humo del tabaco, se pregunta intrigado cómo han podido, Watson y él, llegar a aquel lugar.

Fitz-James O'Brien: The Wondersmith

GOLOSH STREET AND ITS PEOPLE

A small lane, the name of which I have forgotten, or do not choose to remember, slants suddenly off from Chatham Street, (before that headlong thoroughfare reaches into the Park,) and retreats suddenly down towards the East River, as if it were disgusted with the smell of old clothes, and had determined to wash itself clean. This excellent intention it has, however, evidently contributed towards the making of that imaginary pavement mentioned in the old adage; for it is still emphatically a dirty street. It has never been able to shake off the Hebraic taint of filth which it inherits from the ancestral thoroughfare. It is slushy and greasy, as if it were twin brother of the Roman Ghetto.

I like a dirty slum; not because I am naturally unclean,--I have not a drop of Neapolitan blood in my veins,--but because I generally find a certain sediment of philosophy precipitated in its gutters. A clean street is terribly prosaic. There is no food for thought in carefully swept pavements, barren kennels, and vulgarly spotless houses. But when I go down a street which has been left so long to itself that it has acquired a distinct outward character, I find plenty to think about. The scraps of sodden letters lying in the ash-barrel have their meaning: desperate appeals, perhaps, from Tom, the baker's assistant, to Amelia, the daughter of the dry-goods retailer, who is always selling at a sacrifice in consequence of the late fire. That may be Tom himself who is now passing me in a white apron, and I look up at the windows of the house (which does not, however, give any signs of a recent conflagration) and almost hope to see Amelia wave a white pocket-handkerchief. The bit of orange-peel lying on the sidewalk inspires thought. Who will fall over it? who but the industrious mother of six children, the eldest of which is only nine months old, all of whom are dependent on her exertions for support? I see her slip and tumble. I see the pale face convulsed with agony, and the vain struggle to get up; the pitying crowd closing her off from all air; the anxious young doctor who happened to be passing by; the manipulation of the broken limb, the shake of the head, the moan of the victim, the litter borne on men's shoulders, the gates of the New York Hospital unclosing, the subscription taken up on the spot. There is some food for speculation in that three-year-old, tattered child, masked with dirt, who is throwing a brick at another three-year-old, tattered child, masked with dirt. It is not difficult to perceive that he is destined to lurk, as it were, through life. His bad, flat face--or, at least, what can be seen of it--does not look as if it were made for the light of day. The mire in which he wallows now is but a type of the moral mire in which he will wallow hereafter. The feeble little hand lifted at this instant to smite his companion, half in earnest, half in jest, will be raised against his fellow-beings forevermore.

Enrique Vila-Matas: Molestias

Sentí una molestia muscular, era la quinta vez que yo nacía.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Ghost Stories of the Tiled House

Old Sally always attended her young mistress while she prepared for bed—not that Lilias required help, for she had the spirit of neatness and a joyous, gentle alacrity, and only troubled the good old creature enough to prevent her thinking herself grown old and useless.

Sally, in her quiet way, was garrulous, and she had all sorts of old-world tales of wonder and adventure, to which Lilias often went pleasantly to sleep; for there was no danger while old Sally sat knitting there by the fire, and the sound of the rector's mounting upon his chairs, as was his wont, and taking down and putting up his books in the study beneath, though muffled and faint, gave evidence that that good and loving influence was awake and busy.

Old Sally was telling her young mistress, who sometimes listened with a smile, and sometimes lost a good five minutes together of her gentle prattle, how the young gentleman, Mr. Mervyn, had taken that awful old haunted habitation, the Tiled House ‘beyant at Ballyfermot,’ and was going to stay there, and wondered no one had told him of the mysterious dangers of that desolate mansion.

It stood by a lonely bend of the narrow road. Lilias had often looked upon the short, straight, grass-grown avenue with an awful curiosity at the old house which she had learned in childhood to fear as the abode of shadowy tenants and unearthly dangers.

‘There are people, Sally, nowadays, who call themselves free-thinkers, and don't believe in anything—even in ghosts,’ said Lilias.

‘A then the place he's stopping in now, Miss Lily, 'ill soon cure him of free-thinking, if the half they say about it's true,’ answered Sally.

Sergi Pàmies: El pou

El xarlatà predica davant del pou. «Qui s’hi llanci de cap», diu, «serà feliç». Els que ens aturem a escoltar-lo refrenem la curiositat amb un posat incrèdul. Estem atents, però. D’una banda, perquè l’home sap fer-se escoltar i, de l’altra, perquè no tenim res millor a fer. A diferència d’altres pous, aquest es va fer popular quan, amb l’ajut d’una megafonia sensacionalista, el xarlatà va començar a anunciar-lo com si fos una atracció de fira. No cobra entrada, només demana la voluntat. Després de setmanes de pensar-hi molt, un dia m’hi llanço. Abans li pago el que em sembla just a canvi de sentir-li dir «seràs feliç», així, sense donar detalls. En un primer moment, l’excitació m’impedeix experimentar res especial. Caic, això sí que ho noto, i també percebo que el pou és molt fosc, i que el forat pel qual he entrat s’allunya ràpidament. Sense veure-m’hi gens, sento que l’obscuritat s’eixampla i que, encara que no en tinc cap prova, no estic sol. Crido. Torno a cridar. Com que ningú no respon, dedueixo que els altres també criden i que no els sento perquè cadascú deu cridar per a ell mateix. Caic. I encara caic més. No m’hauria imaginat mai que seria un pou sense fons. Però, quan em va temptar perquè m’hi llancés, el xarlatà no va especificar res, només va dir que, si ho feia, seria feliç. I el cert és que, mentre em precipito cap a una tenebra encara més intensa que la de fa una estona -o de fa mesos, o de fa anys, ara no té importància-, acompanyat per altres éssers que només intueixo, potser sí que sóc més feliç que no era abans. Però fa de mal dir perquè d’abans no me’n recordo, tu.

Daniel Frini: El fantasma más viejo

Desorientado, no se encuentra entre los de su especie. El fantasma de un cavernícola muerto hace veinte mil años en Lascaux, en plena Edad de Piedra, no sabe nada de sábanas y cadenas.

Fitz-James O'Brien: The Golden Ingot

I had just retired to rest, with my eyes almost blind with the study of a new work on physiology by M. Brown-Sequard, when the night bell was pulled violently.

It was winter, and I confess I grumbled as I rose and went downstairs to open the door. Twice that week I had been aroused long after midnight for the most trivial causes. Once, to attend upon the son and heir of a wealthy family, who had cut his thumb with a penknife, which, it seems, he insisted on taking to bed with him; and once, to restore a young gentleman to consciousness, who had been found by his horrified parent stretched insensible on the staircase. Diachylon in the one case and ammonia in the other were all that my patients required; and I had a faint suspicion that the present summons was perhaps occasioned by no case more necessitous than those I have quoted. I was too young in my profession, however, to neglect opportunities. It is only when a physician rises to a very large practice that he can afford to be inconsiderate. I was on the first step of the ladder, so I humbly opened my door.

A woman was standing ankle deep in the snow that lay upon the stoop. I caught but a dim glimpse of her form, for the night was cloudy; but I could hear her teeth rattling like castanets, and, as the sharp wind blew her clothes close to her form, I could discern from the sharpness of the outlines that she was very scantily supplied with raiment.

"Come in, come in, my good woman," I said hastily, for the wind seemed to catch eagerly at the opportunity of making itself at home in my hall, and was rapidly forcing an entrance through the half- open door. "Come in, you can tell me all you have to communicate inside."

She slipped in like a ghost, and I closed the door. While I was striking a light in my office, I could hear her teeth still clicking out in the dark hall, till it seemed as if some skeleton was chattering. As soon as I obtained a light I begged her to enter the room, and, without occupying myself particularly about her appearance, asked her abruptly what her business was.

"My father has met with a severe accident," she said, "and requires instant surgical aid. I entreat you to come to him immediately."

Agustín Martínez Valderrama: El hombre elefante

Me corté una oreja y salí de casa. En el ascensor coincidí con mi vecino y me preguntó qué había ocurrido. Le dije que fue un accidente, esquiando. El tipo del quiosco también se fijó. A él le expliqué lo del atraco a punta de navaja. Luego, en la cafetería, el camarero insistió. Se me cayó, respondí sin más. Al llegar a la oficina confesé que sufría un tumor maligno. Funcionó. Hasta ella dijo que lo sentía y me besó en la mejilla. Tenía una voz bonita, olía bien y era más guapa aún de cerca. Unos días después todo volvió a ser como antes. Ayer me corté la otra.