Enrique Anderson Imbert: El cigarrillo

El nuevo cigarrero del zaguán –flaco, astuto– lo miró burlonamente al venderle el atado.

Juan entró en su cuarto, se tendió en la cama para descansar en la oscuridad y encendió en la boca un cigarrillo.

Se sintió furiosamente chupado. No pudo resistir. El cigarro lo fue fumando con violencia; y lanzaba espantosas bocanadas de pedazos de hombre convertidos en humo.

Encima de la cama el cuerpo se le fue desmoronando en ceniza, desde los pies, mientras la habitación se llenaba de nubes violáceas.

Ambrose Bierce: A Jug of Sirup

This narrative begins with the death of its hero. Silas Deemer died on the 16th day of July, 1863, and two days later his remains were buried. As he had been personally known to every man, woman and well-grown child in the village, the funeral, as the local newspaper phrased it, “was largely attended.” In accordance with a custom of the time and place, the coffin was opened at the graveside and the entire assembly of friends and neighbors filed past, taking a last look at the face of the dead. And then, before the eyes of all, Silas Deemer was put into the ground. Some of the eyes were a trifle dim, but in a general way it may be said that at that interment there was lack of neither observance nor observation; Silas was indubitably dead, and none could have pointed out any ritual delinquency that would have justified him in coming back from the grave. Yet if human testimony is good for anything (and certainly it once put an end to witchcraft in and about Salem ) he came back.

I forgot to state that the death and burial of Silas Deemer occurred in the little village of Hillbrook , where he had lived for thirty-one years. He had been what is known in some parts of the Union (which is admittedly a free country) as a “merchant”; that is to say, he kept a retail shop for the sale of such things as are commonly sold in shops of that character. His honesty had never been questioned, so far as is known, and he was held in high esteem by all. The only thing that could be urged against him by the most censorious was a too close attention to business. It was not urged against him, though many another, who manifested it in no greater degree, was less leniently judged. The business to which Silas was devoted was mostly his own - that, possibly, may have made a difference.

At the time of Deemer’s death nobody could recollect a single day, Sundays excepted, that he had not passed in his “store,” since he had opened it more than a quarter-century before. His health having been perfect during all that time, he had been unable to discern any validity in whatever may or might have been urged to lure him astray from his counter and it is related that once when he was summoned to the county seat as a witness in an important law case and did not attend, the lawyer who had the hardihood to move that he be “admonished” was solemnly informed that the Court regarded the proposal with “surprise.” Judicial surprise being an emotion that attorneys are not commonly ambitious to arouse, the motion was hastily withdrawn and an agreement with the other side effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have said if he had been there - the other side pushing its advantage to the extreme and making the supposititious testimony distinctly damaging to the interests of its proponents. In brief, it was the general feeling in all that region that Silas Deemer was the one immobile verity of Hillbrook, and that his translation in space would precipitate some dismal public ill or strenuous calamity.

Harold Kremer: La casa

Otra vez aquí -dijo la abuela-. Ven.

Cada vez que soñaba la abuela me llevaba por la casa, señalaba las puertas de los cuartos y decía: Aquí vive tu bisabuelo, aquí tu hermano José, aquí Salvico, aquí... Y así, en cada sueño, la casa crecía con los cuartos de mis antepasados.

Alguna vez pregunté por uno de los nombres y la abuela me dijo: Es el bisabuelo de tu abuelo.

Esta noche recorrimos la casa entera, repasamos los nombres y llegamos a un cuarto nuevo. Miré a la abuela. Me dijo: Este es tu cuarto.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon: The Hall Bedroom

MY name is Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings. I am a highly respectable woman. I may style myself a gentlewoman, for in my youth I enjoyed advantages. I was well brought up, and I graduated at a young ladies' seminary. I also married well. My husband was that most genteel of all merchants, an apothecary. His shop was on the corner of the main street in Rockton, the town where I was born, and where I lived until the death of my husband. My parents had died when I had been married a short time, so I was left quite alone in the world. I was not competent to carry on the apothecary business by myself, for I had no knowledge of drugs, and had a mortal terror of giving poisons instead of medicines. Therefore I was obliged to sell at a considerable sacrifice, and the proceeds, some five thousand dollars, were all I had in the world. The income was not enough to support me in any kind of comfort, and I saw that I must in some way earn money. I thought at first of teaching, but I was no longer young, and methods had changed since my school days. What I was able to teach, nobody wished to know. I could think of only one thing to do: take boarders. But the same objection to that business as to teaching held good in Rockton. Nobody wished to board. My husband had rented a house with a number of bedrooms, and I advertised, but nobody applied. Finally my cash was running very low, and I became desperate. I packed up my furniture, rented a large house in this town and moved here. It was a venture attended with many risks. In the first place the rent was exorbitant, in the next I was entirely unknown. However, I am a person of considerable ingenuity, and have inventive power, and much enterprise when the occasion presses. I advertised in a very original manner, although that actually took my last penny, that is, the last penny of my ready money, and I was forced to draw on my principal to purchase my first supplies, a thing which I had resolved never on any account to do. But the great risk met with a reward, for I had several applicants within two days after my advertisement appeared in the paper. Within two weeks my boarding-house was well established, I became very successful, and my success would have been uninterrupted had it not been for the mysterious and bewildering occurrences which I am about to relate. I am now forced to leave the house and rent another. Some of my old boarders accompany me, some, with the most unreasonable nervousness, refuse to be longer associated in any way, however indirectly, with the terrible and uncanny happenings which I have to relate. It remains to be seen whether my ill luck in this house will follow me into another, and whether my whole prosperity in life will be forever shadowed by the Mystery of the Hall Bedroom. Instead of telling the strange story myself in my own words, I shall present the journal of Mr. George H. Wheatcroft. I shall show you the portions beginning on January 18 of the present year, the date when he took up his residence with me. Here it is:

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Non omnis moriar: Fahrenheit 1400

Ahí donde se queman libros se acaba quemando también seres humanos.
Heinrich Heine, Almansor

Ante sus ojos horrorizados, la bárbara purga continúa. Lenta, pero inexorable. Los hombres uniformados, como aliviados de un peso insoportable, se deshacen metódicamente de su pasado. Sin embargo no hay regocijo en sus rostros inexpresivos. Sencillamente cumplen órdenes. Para cuando la grabación acaba, él ha tomado ya una determinación. No puede dar la espalda a sus responsabilidades.

El Nuevo Testamento, El Quijote, Los miserables, 1984, Un mundo feliz… Uno tras otro van desapareciendo en el horno crematorio.

Primero fue el papel. Luego, los CD y las memorias portátiles. Y así cada nuevo soporte, hasta que ya sólo quedó uno. El más sofisticado y sagrado; el supremo tabernáculo. Porque ellos son los últimos guardianes de la palabra, los únicos custodios de la memoria. Y no están dispuestos a rendirse. Quien deja arder su pasado, sólo puede encontrar cenizas en su futuro.

“Has de darte prisa; no queda mucho tiempo. Han descubierto tu identidad y pronto te darán caza”.

Guy se dirige por última vez al altar y apoya su mano sobre el metacrilato. “El Bombero, Galaxy, 1951”, lee inconscientemente en voz alta. Los hermanos lo toman por un rezo. El papel amarillento, probablemente el último que quede en el mundo desde hace siglos, se diría una piel madura. La reliquia le infunde valor. Comprende que todos formamos parte de un proyecto. Un tejido cuya integridad siempre habrá alguien dispuesto a defender. Un organismo en el que él seguirá viviendo.

Ray Bradbury: The Scythe

Quite suddenly there was no more road. It ran down the valley like any other road, between slopes of barren, stony ground and live oak trees, and then past a broad field of wheat standing alone in the wilderness. It came up beside the small white house that belonged to the wheat field and then just faded out, as though there was no more use for it.

It didn't matter much, because just there the last of the gas was gone. Drew Erickson braked the ancient car to a stop and sat there, not speaking, staring at his big, rough farmer's hands.

Molly spoke, without moving where she lay in the corner beside him. "We must of took the wrong fork back yonder."

Drew nodded.

Molly's lips were almost as white as her face. Only they were dry, where her skin was damp with sweat. Her voice was flat with no expression in it.

"Drew," she said. "Drew, what are we a-goin' to do now?"

Drew stared at his hands. A farmer's hands, with the farm blown out from under them by the dry, hungry wind that never got enough good loam to eat.

The kids in the back seat woke up and pried themselves out of the dusty litter of bundles and bedding. They poked their heads over the back of the seat and said:

"What are we stoppin' for, Pa? Are we gonna eat now, Pa? Pa, we're awful hungry. Can we eat now, Pa?"

Drew closed his eyes. He hated the sight of his hands.

Molly's fingers touched his wrist. Very light, very soft. "Drew, maybe in the house there they'd spare us somethin' to eat?"

A white line showed around his mouth. "Beggin'," he said harshly. "Ain't none of us ever begged before. Ain't none of us ever goin' to."

Molly's hand tightened on his wrist. He turned and saw her eyes. He saw the eyes of Susie and little Drew, looking at him. Slowly all the stiffness went out of his neck and his back. His face got loose and blank, shapeless like a thing that has been beaten too hard and too long. He got out of the car and went up the path to the house. He walked uncertainly, like a man who is sick, or nearly blind.

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.