Richard Matheson: Born of Man and Woman

X-- This day when it had light mother called me a retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch.

This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. I didn't like it.

Mother is a pretty thing I know. In my bed place with cold walls around I have a paper things that was behind the furnace. It says on it Screen Stars. I see in the pictures faces like of mother and father. Father says they are pretty. Once he said it.

And also mother he said. Mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you he said and didn't have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn't reach.

Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. That's how I saw the water falling from upstairs.

XX -- This day it had goldness in the upstairs. As I know when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I looked at it the cellar is red.

I think this was church. They leave the upstairs. The big machine swallow them and rolls out past and is gone. In the back part is the little mother. She is much small than me. I am big. It is a secret but I have pulled the chain out of the wall. I can see out the little window all I like.

In this day when it got dark I had eat my food and some bugs. I hear laughs upstairs. I like to know why there are laughs for. I took the chain from the wall and wrapped it around me. I walked squish to the stairs. They creak when I walk on them. My legs slip on them because I don't want on stairs. My feet stick to the wood.

I went up and opened a door. It was a white place. White as white jewels that come from upstairs sometime. I went in and stood quiet. I hear laughing some more. I walk to the sound and look through to the people. More people than I thought was. I thought I should laugh with them.

Mother came out and pushed the door in. It hit me and hurt. I fell back on the smooth floor and the chain made noise. I cried. She made a hissing noise into her and put her hand on her mouth. Her eyes got big.

Carlos Almira Picazo: Mario y el gato

La voz no humana me llegó de lo alto: “¡Agostino, Agostino!” Levanté la cabeza y lo vi. Estaba echado en el tejadillo calentándose al sol. Desde el paseo se avistaba su cabeza y el extremo delantero de las patas, con las garras bien recogidas.

—¡Agostino, Agostino! —repitió, y se puso en pie, estirándose y desperezándose, mirándome fijamente:

—¡Soy yo, tu amigo Mario!

Mario Cavalcanti se había matado con su moto hacía menos de un mes. Miré estupefacto al gato romano, lustroso, que se hacía pasar por mi amigo. En la tapia y el paseo del río flotaba la soleada mañana invernal.

—¿Te ha comido la lengua el gato? —bromeó, típico de Mario.

—Quiero prevenirte —prosiguió, cambiando a un tono grave, lacónico. Y arqueó el lomo trazando un rápido garabato con la cola:

—La muerte no existe, muchacho: pero no te hagas ilusiones. ¿Ves aquel perro que está haciendo caca en la farola? ¿Te acuerdas de Enrique Vinuti, el primero de nuestra clase, el preferido de los maestros que nunca fumaba ni se pajeaba y que murió de meningitis?

Miré horrorizado.

—El mismo —maulló—. Estás avisado.

Sin decir más, giró hacia los árboles, dio una voltereta, saltó y desapareció en el tejado.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft: The scream of the dead

The scream of a dead man gave to me that acute and added horror of Dr. Herbert West which harassed the latter years of our companionship. It is natural that such a thing as a dead man’s scream should give horror, for it is obviously, not a pleasing or ordinary occurrence; but I was used to similar experiences, hence suffered on this occasion only because of a particular circumstance. And, as I have implied, it was not of the dead man himself that I became afraid.

Herbert West, whose associate and assistant I was, possessed scientific interests far beyond the usual routine of a village physician. That was why, when establishing his practice in Bolton, he had chosen an isolated house near the potter’s field. Briefly and brutally stated, West’s sole absorbing interest was a secret study of the phenomena of life and its cessation, leading toward the reanimation of the dead through injections of an excitant solution. For this ghastly experimenting it was necessary to have a constant supply of very fresh human bodies; very fresh because even the least decay hopelessly damaged the brain structure, and human because we found that the solution had to be compounded differently for different types of organisms. Scores of rabbits and guinea-pigs had been killed and treated, but their trail was a blind one. West had never fully succeeded because he had never been able to secure a corpse sufficiently fresh. What he wanted were bodies from which vitality had only just departed; bodies with every cell intact and capable of receiving again the impulse toward that mode of motion called life. There was hope that this second and artificial life might be made perpetual by repetitions of the injection, but we had learned that an ordinary natural life would not respond to the action. To establish the artificial motion, natural life must be extinct -- the specimens must be very fresh, but genuinely dead.

The awesome quest had begun when West and I were students at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, vividly conscious for the first time of the thoroughly mechanical nature of life. That was seven years before, but West looked scarcely a day older now -- he was small, blond, clean-shaven, soft-voiced, and spectacled, with only an occasional flash of a cold blue eye to tell of the hardening and growing fanaticism of his character under the pressure of his terrible investigations. Our experiences had often been hideous in the extreme; the results of defective reanimation, when lumps of graveyard clay had been galvanised into morbid, unnatural, and brainless motion by various modifications of the vital solution.

One thing had uttered a nerve-shattering scream; another had risen violently, beaten us both to unconsciousness, and run amuck in a shocking way before it could be placed behind asylum bars; still another, a loathsome African monstrosity, had clawed out of its shallow grave and done a deed -- West had had to shoot that object. We could not get bodies fresh enough to shew any trace of reason when reanimated, so had perforce created nameless horrors. It was disturbing to think that one, perhaps two, of our monsters still lived -- that thought haunted us shadowingly, till finally West disappeared under frightful circumstances. But at the time of the scream in the cellar laboratory of the isolated Bolton cottage, our fears were subordinate to our anxiety for extremely fresh specimens. West was more avid than I, so that it almost seemed to me that he looked half-covetously at any very healthy living physique.

José Víctor Martínez Gil: La ciudad más tranquila del mundo

Esa noche inexplicablemente hubo un apagón. Toda la ciudad y sus alrededores quedaron a oscuras. Ni una sola luz. Era la media noche. Ni siquiera había luna en ese cielo coincidentemente despejado. Era una magnífica oportunidad para rebelarse: los humanos temen a la oscuridad. Y la ciudad estaba harta de ellos. Con cautela, cada edificio, abrió cuatro ventanas de su fachada que dibujaban un descomunal y macabro rostro. Los puentes, como serpientes, también abrieron sus ojos. La noche seguía avanzando en total penumbra y con sus habitantes encerrados. Cuando asomaba la claridad del amanecer, a las siete en punto de la mañana, los rascacielos comenzaron a desplegar sus colosales estructuras cuales brazos demoledores. Las iglesias, sus inmensas tenazas. Las antenas, sus enormes aguijones. Los túneles, sus gigantescas fauces. Los estadios y las fábricas movieron sus corazas. Los puentes comenzaron a deslizarse monstruosamente. Las casas como formidables insectos también despertaron. Y todas las construcciones, muy despacio, se desplazaron, con sus habitantes dentro, engulléndolos, triturándolos, aplastándolos sin siquiera darles la oportunidad de algún alarido. Hasta que la ciudad con sus rascacielos, y con sus puentes, iglesias, casas, se sintió desierta, tranquila. O no. Porque al anochecer, llegó de nuevo la luz. Y en las fachadas de todos los edificios se podía ver en las luces encendidas a través de las ventanas, nuevas sonrisas placenteras y perversas, a la espera de que un nuevo grupo de humanos volviera a poblar la ciudad.

Hans Christian Andersen: Psychen

 I Dagningen, i den røde Luft, skinner en stor Stjerne, Morgenens klareste Stjerne; dens Straale zittrer mod den hvide Væg, som om den vilde der nedskrive, hvad den veed at fortælle, hvad den i Aartusinder saae her og der paa vor omdreiende Jord.

   Hør een af dens Historier.

   Nu nyligt, dens nyligt er os Mennesker for Aarhundreder siden, fulgte mine Straaler en ung Kunstner; det var i Pavestaten, i Verdensbyen Rom. Meget der har i Tidernes Løb forandret sig, men ikke saa hurtigt, som Menneskeskikkelsen gaaer over fra Barn til Olding. Keiserborgen var, som endnu i Dag, Ruiner; Figentræet og Laurbærtræet voxte mellem de omstyrtede Marmorsøiler og hen over de ødelagte, med Guld i Væggen prangende Badekamre; Colossæum var en Ruin; Kirkeklokkerne ringede, Røgelsen duftede, Processioner gik med Lys og straalende Baldachiner gjennem Gaderne. Der var kirkehelligt, og Kunsten var høi og hellig. I Rom levede Verdens største Maler Raphael; her levede Tidsalderens første Billedhugger Michel Angelo; selv Paven hyldede de To, beærede dem med Besøg; Kunsten var erkjendt, hædret og lønnet. Men ikke alt Stort og Dygtigt er derfor seet og kjendt.

   I en lille, snever Gade stod et gammelt Huus, det havde engang været et Tempel; her boede en ung Kunster; fattig var han, ubekjendt var han; ja, han havde jo nok unge Venner, ogsaa Kunstnere, unge i Sind, i Haab og Tanke; de sagde ham, at han var rig paa Talent og Dygtighed, men han var en Nar, at han aldrig selv kunde troe paa det. Han brød jo altid itu, hvad han havde formet i Leret, han blev aldrig tilfreds, fik aldrig Noget færdigt, og det maa man, for at det kan sees, erkjendes og skaffe Penge.

   "Du er en Drømmer!" sagde de, "og det er din Ulykke! men det kommer af, at Du ikke har levet endnu, ikke smagt Livet, nydt det i store, sunde Drag, som det skal nydes. I Ungdommen just, kan og skal man gjøre Det og sig til Eet! see den store Mester Raphael, som Paven hædrer, og Verden beundrer, han tager for sig af Vinen og Brødet!"

   "Han spiser Bagerkonen med, den nydelige Fornarina!" sagde Angelo, een af de lystigste, unge Venner.

   Ja, de sagde Alle saa Meget, efter deres Ungdom og Forstand. De vilde have den unge Kunstner med paa Lystighed, paa Vildskab, Galskab kan det ogsaa kaldes; og dertil følte han ogsaa i Øieblikke Lyst; hans Blod var varmt, Phantasien stærk; han kunde slaae med ind i den lystige Tale, lee høit med de Andre; og dog, Det de kaldte "Raphaels muntre Liv", sank hen for ham som Morgentaagen, saae han den Guds Glands, der lyste ud fra den store Mesters Billeder; og stod han i Vaticanet foran Skjønhedsskikkelserne, Mestre for Aartusinder siden havde formet af Marmorblokken, da svulmede hans Bryst, han følte i sig Noget saa høit, saa helligt, opløftende, stort og godt, og han ønskede at skabe, at meisle ud af Marmorblokken saadanne Skikkelser. Han vilde give et Billede af, hvad der svang sig fra hans Hjerte op mod det Uendelige, men hvorledes, og i hvilken Skikkelse. Det bløde Leer bøiede sig i Skjønhedsformer for hans Fingre, men Dagen efter, som altid, brød han itu, hvad han havde skabt.

Edgar Burroughs: The Resurrection of Jimber Jaw

CHAPTER 1

Credit this story to Wild Pat Morgan, that laughing, reckless, black- haired grandson of Ireland's peat bogs. To Pat Morgan, one-time flying lieutenant of the AEF, ex-inventor, amateur boxer, and drinking companion par excellence.

I met Pat Morgan at the country-club bar, one of those casual things. After the third highball we were calling each other by our first names. By the sixth we had dragged the family skeletons out of the closet and were shaking the dust off them. A little later we were weeping on one another's shoulders, and that's how it began.

We got pretty well acquainted that evening, and afterwards our friendship grew. We saw a lot of each other when he brought his ship to the airport where I kept mine. His wife was dead, and he was a rather lonely figure evenings; so I used to have him up to the house for dinner often.

He had been rather young when the war broke out, but had managed to get to France and the front just before the end. I think he shot down three enemy planes, although he was just a kid. I had that from another flyer; Pat never talked about it. But he was full of flying anecdotes about other war-time pilots and about his own stunting experiences in the movies. He had followed this latter profession for several years.

All of which has nothing to do with the real story other than to explain how I became well enough acquainted with Pat Morgan to be on hand when he told the strange tale of his flight to Russia, of the scientist who mastered Time, of the man from 50,000 B.C. called Jimber-Jaw.

We were lunching together at The Vendome that day. I had been waiting for Pat at the bar, discussing with some others the disappearance of Stone, the wrestler. Everyone is familiar, of course, with Stone's meteoric rise to fame as an athlete and a high-salaried star in the movies, and his vanishing had become a minor ten-days' wonder. We were trying to decide if Stone had been kidnapped, whether the ransom letters received were the work of cranks, when Pat Morgan came in with the extra edition of the Herald and Express that the newsboys were hawking in the streets.

I followed Pat to our table and he spread the paper out. A glaring headline gave the meat of the story.

"So they've found him!" I exclaimed.

Eduardo Vaquerizo: Peor que la muerte

Se lo llevaron esta mañana. Daba un poco de pena las últimas semanas, sentando en su silla frente a la ventana, apenas sin poder moverse, dejando que los rayos del sol de la mañana le calentasen la piel, esa piel arrugada, tan vieja. Sin embargo su cabeza estaba bien, no podía casi hablar, pero eso era por el pecho, el pulmón que le quedaba casi corroído del todo no le daba aliento suficiente con el que hablar. Mentalmente estaba sano, muy sano. Mi padre siempre había tenido la cabeza llena de números, de ideas, de esas raras, aquellas que florecían en los viejos tiempos. Sabía incluso leer, fíjate en esos viejos tomos amarillentos, colección nova, antiquísimos. Solo pensar en desgastar la vista en ellos me cansa. Aunque ahora estaba muy separado de los tiempos era divertido. Se pillaba unos rebotes morrocotudos viendo la tele, empezaba a despotricar contra la programación actual. No sé qué tiene de malo, a mí me gustan las ejecuciones, son divertidas y educativas, y la niña también le gustan, se ríe mirándolas.

Por una parte da pena, a pesar que estaba ya muy mal, era lo único que me quedaba de mi juventud, aquellos años locos y felices, me gustaba sentarme frente a él y recordarle mucho más joven, los dos paseando por el retiro un domingo, viendo los títeres, el sol, las barcas, mucha gente riendo. Por otra parte, tenía que hacerlo, es lo normal, además de él dijeron que tenía un coeficiente 1,4, muy alto, no se puede desperdiciar un coeficiente 1,4. Yo apenas llego al uno. La niña, jugaban juntos... hoy me ha preguntado por él, ¿Dónde está el abuelo? Pobre, tendrá que aprender que yo soy lo único que le queda.

Nos hemos quedado sin su pensión, y volver a trabajar, no.. no lo logro, lo he intentando todo menos venderme.... tampoco es que me fueran a dar mucho, pero ahora las cosas cambiarán, tendremos dinero hasta para un médico y un colegio.

Es triste, no debería estar contenta, al fin y al cabo a él le hubiera gustado ayudarnos, me lo decía, que, si no fuera por la parálisis, por el asma, se levantaría y le ajustaría no sé qué cuentas a no sé cuántos opresores. No se daba cuenta el pobre de los beneficios de esta sociedad, la competitividad que nos hace mejores. Me acuerdo cómo se cabreó el día que Juan se marchó. Luego me arrepentí, por el dinero claro, pero entonces me sentí orgullosa de él. Hacía poco que había llegado a casa a vivir con nosotros. Juan se había mantenido al margen, refunfuñando, yo sabía que aquello no duraría, que Juan no tardaría en cabrearse de haber traído a mi padre a casa, a pesar de que su pensión era mayor que su sueldo de economista o quizás por eso mismo. Siempre se metía con él, cuando no le oía, claro. ¡Viejo de mierda! Era lo más suave. El viernes vino tarde, bebido, él y los de la oficina habían estado de cañas. Sabía lo que iba a pasar, lo sabía, sin embargo le dejé entrar, no sé por qué, quizás porque no me sentía tan desamparada con mi padre en casa. Entró y la emprendió a golpes con todo, incluida yo misma. No era la primera vez, solo que la rabia era mayor, los golpes más sañudos. No sabía ni dónde estaba, tendida en un charco de mi propia sangre bajo la mesa de la cocina, sin embargo lo vi perfectamente. Erguido, todavía fuerte pese a su vejez, plantándole cara a Juan, a la mala bestia de Juan. Bastó una mirada para acojonarlo, yo sentía la furia de mi padre, una furia que no era solo contra Juan, de alguna manera él era un símbolo de todo, la amargura de su vida actual. Fue rápido con el taburete, golpeó a Juan justo en la cabeza, partiendo el plástico, como disfrute de ese momento... a pesar que sabía que Juan se marcharía llevándose su sueldo, el futuro de la niña. Un momento de felicidad por años de terribles sacrificios. Con la pensión y el sueldo malvivíamos, solo con la pensión fue duro, muy duro.

A veces lo pienso... ¿Descansarán? ¿Sentirán? ¿Qué será de sus pensamientos tras la muerte? Dicen que no sienten nada, están muertos, pero dicen tantas mentiras, como que aquellas sustancias con las que trabajó mi padre eran inocuas. Tantos años después le comieron por dentro destruyendo sus nervios, sus pulmones, pero no su cabeza, su mirada altiva y clara aún en la silla de ruedas mientras lo limpiaba, le daba de comer, como desafiando a la misma muerte.

Herbert George Wells: The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost

The scene amidst which Clayton told his last story comes back very vividly to my mind. There he sat, for the greater part of the time, in the corner of the authentic settle by the spacious open fire, and Sanderson sat beside him smoking the Broseley clay that bore his name. There was Evans, and that marvel among actors, Wish, who is also a modest man. We had all come down to the Mermaid Club that Saturday morning, except Clayton, who had slept there overnight--which indeed gave him the opening of his story. We had golfed until golfing was invisible; we had dined, and we were in that mood of tranquil kindliness when men will suffer a story. When Clayton began to tell one, we naturally supposed he was lying. It may be that indeed he was lying--of that the reader will speedily be able to judge as well as I. He began, it is true, with an air of matter-of-fact anecdote, but that we thought was only the incurable artifice of the man.

"I say!" he remarked, after a long consideration of the upward rain of sparks from the log that Sanderson had thumped, "you know I was alone here last night?"

"Except for the domestics," said Wish.

"Who sleep in the other wing," said Clayton. "Yes. Well--" He pulled at his cigar for some little time as though he still hesitated about his confidence. Then he said, quite quietly, "I caught a ghost!"

"Caught a ghost, did you?" said Sanderson. "Where is it?"

And Evans, who admires Clayton immensely and has been four weeks in America, shouted, "Caught a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad of it! Tell us all about it right now."

Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.

He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course, but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost. I don't think it will come again--ever."

"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.

"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.

And Sanderson said he was surprised.

We laughed, and Clayton looked aggrieved. "I know," he said, with the flicker of a smile, "but the fact is it really was a ghost, and I'm as sure of it as I am that I am talking to you now. I'm not joking. I mean what I say."

Harold Kremer: El combate

Fue en la guerra de los Mil Días. Raúl Sánchez, con una bala en el estómago, caminó durante tres días y tres noches. Se arrastró por montes y selvas hasta llegar a Buga. Entró a su casa, besó a su madre, a sus hermanas y se desmayó. A los dos días despertó. Vio a sus compañeros de guerra y preguntó por su madre y sus hermanas. Nadie le respondió. Preguntó por qué estaba allí en el campo de batalla. Le respondieron la verdad: iba a morir. Le dieron un calmante y volvió a dormir. Al despertar se encontró en su casa. Preguntó por sus compañeros. "Cuando ibas a partir a la guerra caíste enfermo", le dijo su madre. Raúl cerró los ojos y murió.

Elizabeth Gaskell: Clopton House

Elizabeth Gaskell, by George Richmond

"I wonder if you know Clopton Hall, about a mile from Stratford-on-Avon. Will you allow me to tell you of a very happy day I once spent there? I was at school in the neighbourhood, and one of my schoolfellows was the daughter of a Mr. W --, who then lived at Clopton. Mrs. W -- asked a party of the girls to go and spend a long afternoon, and we set off one beautiful autumn day, full of delight and wonder respecting the place we were going to see. We passed through desolate half-cultivated fields, till we came within sight of the house - a large, heavy, compact, square brick building, of that deep, dead red almost approaching to purple. In front was a large formal court, with the massy pillars surmounted with two grim monsters; but the walls of the court were broken down, and the grass grew as rank and wild within the enclosure as in the raised avenue walk down which we had come. The flowers were tangled with nettles, and it was only as we approached the house that we saw the single yellow rose and the Austrian briar trained into something like order round the deep-set diamond-paned windows. We trooped into the hall, with its tesselated marble floor, hung round with strange portraits of people who had been in their graves two hundred years at least; yet the colours were so fresh, and in some instances they were so life-like, that looking merely at the faces, I almost fancied the originals might be sitting in the parlour beyond. More completely to carry us back, as it were, to the days of the civil wars, there was a sort of military map hung up, well finished with pen and ink, shewing the stations of the respective armies, and with old-fashioned writing beneath, the names of the principal towns, setting forth the strength of the garrison, etc. In this hall we were met by our kind hostess, and told we might ramble where we liked, in the house or out of the house, taking care to be in the 'recessed parlour' by tea-time. I preferred to wander up the wide shelving oak staircase, with its massy balustrade all crumbling and worm-eaten. The family then residing at the hall did not occupy one-half - no, not one-third of the rooms; and the old-fashioned furniture was undisturbed in the greater part of them. In one of the bed-rooms (said to be haunted), and which, with its close pent-up atmosphere and the long-shadows of evening creeping on, gave me an 'eirie' feeling, hung a portrait so singularly beautiful! a sweet-looking girl, with paly gold hair combed back from her forehead and falling in wavy ringlets on her neck, and with eyes that 'looked like violets filled with dew,' for there was the glittering of unshed tears before their deep dark blue - and that was the likeness of Charlotte Clopton, about whom there was so fearful a legend told at Stratford church. In the time of some epidemic, the sweating-sickness or the plague, this young girl had sickened, and to all appearance died. She was buried with fearful haste in the vaults of Clopton chapel, attached to Stratford church, but the sickness was not stayed. In a few days another of the Cloptons died, and him they bore to the ancestral vault; but as they descended the gloomy stairs, they saw by the torchlight, Charlotte Clopton in her grave-clothes leaning against the wall; and when they looked nearer, she was indeed dead, but not before, in the agonies of despair and hunger, she had bitten a piece from her white round shoulder! Of course, she had walked ever since. This was 'Charlotte's chamber,' and beyond Charlotte's chamber was a state-chamber carpeted with the dust of many years, and darkened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic chapel, with a chaplain's room, which had been walled up and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in the chaplain's room were old, and I should think rare, editions of many books, mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden's 'All for Love, or the World Well Lost,' date 1686, caught my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half-lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open it; but the lid was too heavy, till I persuaded one of my companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do you think we saw? - BONES! - but whether human, whether the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran off in partly feigned, and partly real terror.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Inmanencia / Inmanence

Nunca hubo una muerte más anunciada.
Gabriel García Márquez, Crónica de una muerte anunciada

“Será un nuevo éxito”, comenta excitado mientras lee sobre la pantalla del ordenador las palabras que los electrodos captan directamente de su cerebro.

Tardó mucho en descubrir su verdadera vocación. Por fin, a sus veinticinco años, estuvo seguro: se convertiría en escritor. Su ataúd no lograría disuadirle; se considera un hombre firme, de gran determinación. Ciertamente ninguna experiencia tiene del mundo: ha ido creciendo en su caja, ajeno a la realidad exterior. No será impedimento. ¿Acaso no describió Julio Verne lugares nunca vistos? Además los tiempos se alían con él: ahora la literatura aboga por una introspección que a menudo roza el onanismo. Y a él, en su estrecha “muerte viva”, le sobra tiempo para pensar.

El editor parece satisfecho; sus libros se venden como churros. Encontrada la fórmula, escribe uno tras otro como quien, en efecto, saca uniforme masa de una sobada manga pastelera.

Está orgulloso: ha logrado su sueño. Pero las pesadillas se repiten cada noche. El huracán arranca las paredes de su frágil casa, le arrebata sin esfuerzo el ataúd cual liviano pijama. Las páginas de sus novelas vuelan dejando un inconfundible rastro de tufo a podrido, a carne manida. Y él, desnudo e indefenso, es arrastrado por una multitud de voraces hormigas. Aunque ya no es exactamente él sino un malogrado feto con rizada cola de cerdo; un engendro fruto de demasiada consanguineidad y endogamia. Quienes antes le aclamaban huyen cubriéndose la nariz con sus pañuelos.

Debería estar satisfecho: ha alcanzado su sueño… Pero sospecha que, a diferencia de los grandes autores, a quienes sus obras sobrevivieron, él, presuntamente inmortal, habrá de asistir a la desaparición de sus propios hijos. Quizá fue una ilusión. Quizá esté definitiva y realmente muerto. Muerto del todo. Muerto como un cadáver ordinario, uno cualquiera. Quizá la fiebre tifoidea se lo llevó de verdad a los siete años. Quizá haya comenzado a corromperse ya, lenta pero inexorablemente, por dentro.

Stephen Crane: The blue hotel

I

The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a shade that is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its position against any background. The Palace Hotel, then, was always screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling winter landscape of Nebraska seem only a gray swampish hush. It stood alone on the prairie, and when the snow was falling the town two hundred yards away was not visible. But when the traveler alighted at the railway station he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel before he could come upon the company of low clap-board houses which composed Fort Romper, and it was not to be thought that any traveler could pass the Palace Hotel without looking at it. Pat Scully, the proprietor, had proved himself a master of strategy when he chose his paints. It is true that on clear days, when the great trans-continental expresses, long lines of swaying Pullmans, swept through Fort Romper, passengers were overcome at the sight, and the cult that knows the brown-reds and the subdivisions of the dark greens of the East expressed shame, pity, horror, in a laugh. But to the citizens of this prairie town, and to the people who would naturally stop there, Pat Scully had performed a feat. With this opulence and splendor, these creeds, classes, egotisms, that streamed through Romper on the rails day after day, they had no color in common.

As if the displayed delights of such a blue hotel were notnsufficiently enticing, it was Scully's habit to go every morning and evening to meet the leisurely trains that stopped at Romper and work his seductions upon any man that he might see wavering, gripsack in hand.

One morning, when a snow-crusted engine dragged its long string of freight cars and its one passenger coach to the station, Scully nperformed the marvel of catching three men. One was a shaky and quick-eyed Swede, with a great shining cheap valise; one was a tall bronzed cowboy, who was on his way to a ranch near the Dakota line; one was a little silent man from the East, who didn't look it, and didn't announce it. Scully practically made them prisoners. He was so nimble and merry and kindly that each probably felt it would be the height of brutality to try to escape. They trudged off over the creaking board sidewalks in the wake of the eager little Irishman. He wore a heavy fur cap squeezed tightly down on his head. It caused his two red ears to stick out stiffly, as if they were made of tin.

Gabriel García Márquez: Amargura para tres sonámbulos

Gabriel García Márquez by Alejandro Cabeza

Ahora la teníamos allí, abandonada en un rincón de la casa. Alguien nos dijo, antes de que trajéramos sus cosas —su ropa olorosa a madera reciente, sus zapatos sin peso para el barro— que no podía acostumbrarse a aquella vida lenta, sin sabores dulces, sin otro atractivo que esa dura soledad de cal y canto, siempre apretada a sus espaldas. Alguien nos dijo —y había pasado mucho tiempo antes que lo recordáramos— que ella también había tenido una infancia. Quizás no lo creímos, entonces. Pero ahora, viéndola sentada en el rincón, con los ojos asombrados, y un dedo puesto sobre los labios, tal vez aceptábamos que una vez tuvo una infancia, que alguna vez tuvo el tacto sensible a la frescura anticipada de la lluvia, y que soportó siempre de perfil a su cuerpo, una sombra inesperada.

Todo eso —y mucho más— lo habíamos creído aquella tarde en que nos dimos cuenta de que, por encima de su submundo tremendo, era completamente humana. Lo supimos, cuando de pronto, como si adentro se hubiera roto un cristal, empezó a dar gritos angustiados; empezó a llamarnos a cada uno por su nombre, hablando entre lágrimas hasta cuando nos sentamos junto a ella, nos pusimos a cantar y a batir palmas, como si nuestra gritería pudiera soldar los cristales esparcidos. Sólo entonces pudimos creer que alguna vez tuvo una infancia. Fue como si sus gritos se parecieran en algo a una revelación; como si tuvieran mucho de árbol recordado y río profundo, cuando se incorporó, se inclinó un poco hacia adelante, y todavía sin cubrirse la cara con el delantal, todavía sin sonarse la nariz y todavía con lágrimas, nos dijo:

“No volveré a sonreír”.

Salimos al patio, los tres, sin hablar, acaso creíamos llevar pensamientos comunes. Tal vez pensamos que no sería lo mejor encender las luces de la casa. Ella deseaba estar sola —quizás—, sentada en el rincón sombrío, tejiéndose la trenza final, que parecía ser lo único que sobreviviría de su tránsito hacia la bestia.

Afuera, en el patio, sumergidos en el profundo vaho de los insectos, nos sentamos a pensar en ella. Lo habíamos hecho otras veces. Podíamos haber dicho que estábamos haciendo lo que habíamos hecho todos los días de nuestras vidas.

sin embargo, aquella noche era distinto; ella había dicho que no volvería a sonreír, y nosotros que tanto la conocíamos, teníamos la certidumbre de que la pesadilla se había vuelto verdad. Sentados en un triángulo la imaginábamos allá adentro, abstracta, incapacitada, hasta para escuchar los innumerables relojes que medían el ritmo, marcado y minucioso, en que se iba, convirtiendo en polvo: “Si por lo menos tuviéramos valor para desear su muerte”, pensábamos a coro.

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Old Woman Magoun

The hamlet of Barry's Ford is situated in a sort of high valley among the mountains. Below it the hills lie in moveless curves like a petrified ocean; above it they rise in green-cresting waves which never break. It is Barry's Ford because at one time the Barry family was the most important in the place; and Ford because just at the beginning of the hamlet the little turbulent Barry River is fordable. There is, however, now a rude bridge across the river.

Old Woman Magoun was largely instrumental in bringing the bridge to pass. She haunted the miserable little grocery, wherein whiskey and hands of tobacco were the most salient features of the stock in trade, and she talked much. She would elbow herself into the midst of a knot of idlers and talk.

"That bridge ought to be built this very summer," said Old Woman Magoun. She spread her strong arms like wings, and sent the loafers, half laughing, half angry, flying in every direction. "If I were a man," she said, "I'd go out this very minute and lay the fust log. If I were a passel of lazy men layin' round, I'd start up for once in my life, I would." The men cowered visibly—all except Nelson Barry; he swore under his breath and strode over to the counter.

Old Woman Magoun looked after him majestically. "You can cuss all you want to, Nelson Barry," said she; "I ain't afraid of you. I don't expect you to lay ary log of the bridge, but I'm goin' to have it built this very summer." She did. The weakness of the masculine element in Barry's Ford was laid low before such strenuous feminine assertion.

Old Woman Magoun and some other women planned a treat— two sucking pigs, and pies, and sweet cake—for a reward after the bridge should be finished. They even viewed leniently the increased consumption of ardent spirits.

"It seems queer to me," Old Woman Magoun said to Sally Jinks, "that men can't do nothin' without havin' to drink and chew to keep their sperits up. Lord! I've worked all my life and never done nuther."

"Men is different," said Sally Jinks.

"Yes, they be," assented Old Woman Magoun, with open contempt.