By Yubany Checo

Nadie recuerda haberla visto salir con sus compañeros de oficina ni ser recogida por algún hombre al final de la jornada. No había rumores de amoríos ni susurros en los pasillos sobre su vida personal. Su existencia era un enigma, un misterio que todos aceptaban sin cuestionar. Pero cada San Valentín, rompía su rutina de anonimato: flores y un peluche rojo aparecían en su escritorio, y ella posaba para fotos con una alegría que parecía sacada de otro universo, una máscara de felicidad que ocultaba un secreto oscuro.

Me gustaba revisar las fotos del grupo de trabajo para compararlas con las de otros años. Noté que su sonrisa no era espontánea más bien escondía una tristeza profunda. Esa noche, al examinar una de las fotos, me fijé en la dedicatoria de los regalos. Sentí curiosidad por saber quién enviaba las flores y el peluche rojo todos los años. Para mi sorpresa, no estaba firmada.

El peluche rojo permaneció varios días sobre su escritorio. Llegaba a la oficina más temprano que nadie y, por más ilógico que pareciera, sentía como si me observara. Me acerqué, lo giré en mis manos, lo apreté y parecía un peluche común. Sin embargo, la sensación que me invadió me recordó las veces que mi madre me encerraba en el armario: el frío de la oscuridad. Gritaba tan fuerte que, al cabo de un rato, ella entraba tambaleándose para azotarme con un cinturón de piel.

Las mujeres discretas siempre cautivaron mi atención. Las solitarias con aire de melancolía y contrariedad, rebeldes, sufridas, misteriosas. Ella era así, una mujer que podía darle un giro a mi vida, estancada durante tanto tiempo entre los estudios, el trabajo y cuidado de mi madre.

De camino a casa me detuve en la floristería y pregunté si podía obtener el nombre de la persona que enviaba los regalados cada San Valentín. Después de una larga explicación comprendí las limitaciones de privacidad y las implicaciones legales que enfrentaría. Mientras me iba, vi al repartidor que había entregado los regalos esa tarde y salí a su encuentro.

―¡Hola! ―saludó. Me aparté con él a un lugar más discreto.
―¿Recuerdas la entrega que hiciste a la oficina Torre Mar? Sonrió como si mi pregunta le parecía curiosa. 
―Señor, hago muchas entregas al dia.
―La de ayer lunes, un arreglo de flores y un peluche rojo tan grande como un bebé. Los autos de los clientes comenzaban a salir al parqueo, y sus luces me molestaban.
―Necesito saber quién lo envió.
―¿Qué dijo? ―repitió sin comprender. O quizás fingía no hacerlo. 
―¿Quién lo envió? ―me sentí vulnerable al hacer la pregunta.
Me sentí arriesgar mucho con la petición que le hacía.
―¡Esta loco! ¿Quiere que me despidan? ―respondió subiendo la voz. Levanté la mirada y respiré.
―¿Puedes averiguarlo en el sistema, supongo?
―Si lo hago, me despiden, ¿entiende?
Él estaba convencido de lo que me decía, así que le ofrecí dinero.
―Soy pobre pero honrado ―dijo, con una frase que me resultaba familiar. 
―Te los doy ahora mismo ―respondí sin dudar. Vi la indecisión en sus ojos y supe que estaba a punto de convencerlo. La noche prometía lluvia y las primeras gotas empezaron a golpear el toldo del establecimiento. Aunque el muchacho negaba con la cabeza, lo hacía con menos convicción cada vez. Doblé la oferta y todo quedó arreglado.

Regresé al día siguiente a la tienda y me oculté detrás de unos arreglos de flores hasta que vi al mensajero. Me interpuse en su camino y él se acercó para entregarme una hoja impresa. Le pasé el dinero sin formalidades; él contó el efectivo, asintió y se alejó.

El nombre del remitente era inusual (lleno de consonantes y escaso en vocales), y pasé noches buscando en las redes sociales sin poder concentrarme debido a los gritos de mi madre. Tenía que arreglarle el abanico, ya que los aguaceros, los mosquitos y el calor pegajoso de la isla la atormentaban. Miré el reloj y me di cuenta de que había olvidado darle sus pastillas, llevaba días sin tomárselas.

Las fotos de los hombres que encontré podían ser sus abuelos: veteranos de guerra y profesores jubilados. A ninguno de ellos los imaginaba enviándole flores, mucho menos un peluche rojo. Un artículo en un vespertino local sobre un ingeniero desaparecido semanas antes de su boda llamó mi atención, pero lo descarté. Aunque mi búsqueda no dio los frutos esperados, tenía otro plan.

Ese día llegué temprano a la oficina y dejé una nota sobre su escritorio. Horas después, ella me preguntó con desdén:
―¿Que harás ahora que lo sabes? Levanté la barbilla y la miré sin tener respuestas. No sabía qué más hacer. Ella tenía razón al decir que no había nada de malo en recibir flores y un peluche rojo. Me cuestioné y reproché mi actitud infantil: ¿cuál era mi problema con eso?

En los días siguientes, evitaba cruzarme con ella en la oficina, sintiendo una mala conciencia por haberla cuestionado sin motivo aparente. Sin embargo, la curiosidad me consumía, así que comencé a seguirla hasta su casa. Me estacionaba a cierta distancia para vigilarla, apagaba las luces del coche y, con las ventanillas entreabiertas, respiraba la brisa que venía del mar. A veces, el sueño me vencía y despertaba sobresaltado. Repetí la vigilancia por varias noches hasta asegurarme de que vivía sola. Sentí una chispa de esperanza.

En las semanas siguientes, traté de acercarme a ella con sutileza. Buscaba coincidencias en la cafetería, la saludaba y le hablaba de mi madre enferma. Mi plan funcionó. Me compartió detalles sobre su transición de la medicina a las finanzas y su escepticismo hacia el matrimonio. Aproveché para disculparme por lo sucedido y ella pareció no recordarlo. Hablar con ella se convirtió en una necesidad diaria; cuando no lo hacía, sentía como si me faltara algo vital. Empecé a soñar con ella y comprendí que se había vuelto imprescindible para mí. Me ilusionaba la idea de tomarla de las manos y besarla.

Durante ese tiempo descuidé a mi madre. A veces creía escucharla llamarme, pero el cansancio me impedía ayudarla. Fue una mañana cuando me llamaron a la oficina para informarme que una vecina, amiga, la había encontrado muerta.

Me sentí culpable por lo que le había pasado a mi madre y, en mi tristeza, anhelaba la compañía de la mujer. Después de mucho insistir, logré que me invitara a su casa. Supuse quería conversar sobre nosotros en un ambiente más relajado. Quería que todo fluyera, disfrutar de su compañía y conocer más sobre su vida, en especial la historia detrás del peluche rojo.

Su casa era pequeña, con poca luz, tal vez dos habitaciones. Era una en las afueras de la ciudad, cerca de los antiguos apartamentos construidos durante los doce años. La sala y la cocina estaban sin pintar y con manchas de filtraciones en las paredes. Las habitaciones tenían cortinas de lentejuelas en lugar de puertas. El aroma a incienso que emanaba de un mueble de bambú me envolvió. En el fondo, un cuadro oscuro mostraba a una mujer bordando un paño sobre el rostro de un hombre. Mi casa era más grande, y pensé que ahora, sin mi madre, podríamos vivir juntos.

La seguí por un pasillo adornado con agujas y conos de hilo, hasta que pasamos frente a una puerta cerrada con candado y finalmente llegamos al desayunador.

Ella buscó hielo y llenó dos vasos. Escuchaba voces que por un instante parecían lejanas y otras veces estar metidas en un lugar de la casa, pero no les presté atención.
El calor me empezaba a molestar. Los mimes entraban hasta donde estábamos acompañados de un olor a podrido que llegaba con el ir y venir de la brisa. Ella destapó una botella de ron caribe y pensé quería que nos relajáramos. Bebí y me solté los botones de la camisa, ella se levantó para ir a su habitación.

No tardó en regresar, ahora en tacones y vestida con una bata de seda estampada en negro y rojo. Las medias le subían hasta los muslos. Si no hubiera reconocido sus ojos, había pensado que era otra mujer. Su cabello estaba recogido en una especie de cola de caballo y los bordes de sus ojos delineados en verde. Lucia imponente.

Noté que sostenía un cono de hilo y aguja de coser. No le pregunté asumiendo que era parte de un juego erótico al que nos dirigíamos. Se acercó a mí.

―¿Que harás ahora? ―preguntó susurrándome al oído palabras en un idioma que no entendí. La confusión me enloquecía. Me tomó de la mano y la seguí torpemente derribando varios objetos en el camino y disculpándome como un adolescente borracho en su fiesta de graduación. Ella colocó su dedo índice sobre mis labios y con firmeza me pidió que guardara silencio.

Pasamos a su habitación. En un rincón, entre vi una fila de peluches rojos, todos sin ojos salvo uno colocado en un rincón apartado que me pareció el mismo que había visto en la oficina. Ella sonrió y volvió a decirme algo pero no entendí. Le respondí con una sonrisa que parecía incontrolable. En un rincón de la habitación noté un vestido de novias y, al lado, un maniquí vestido con un esmoquin. Sobre una mesa, un ramo de flores seca, una cristalera llena de bombones y lazos blancos, y al fondo, una sesión de fotos de novios y una vieja botella de champaña aun sin destapar.

Percibía todo borroso. Me sentí flotar y caí sobre una superficie blanda y giratoria. Abría los ojos, pero los destellos de luz en mi rostro me obligaban a cerrarlos de nuevo. Las sombras iban y venían y mis brazos yacían caídos a los lados. Estaba desnudo. Intenté levantar la cabeza, pero ella se montó sobre mí y entonces recordé mis sueños.

―Solo relájate ―dijo ella―, no te esfuerces, no te dolerá. Pero la palabra “dolor” agitó mi corazón y sentí algo frio deslizarse suavemente por mis parpados. Una, dos, tres veces. En realidad, no me dolía. Un líquido tibio empezó a recorrer mis mejillas hasta llegar a mis orejas. Aunque no quería admitirlo, lo reconocía por su olor. Traté una vez más de levantarme sin embargo mis músculos estaban tan relajados que no pude. Mi lengua pesada no podía articular palabras.

Escuchaba el tic-tac de un reloj, gavetas abrirse y cerrarse, y el sonido de objetos metálicos siendo colocados sobre una bandeja. Luego sentí algo considerablemente grande a mi lado. Ella empezó a tocar mis ojos mientras exhalaba sobre mi cara. Sentí sus pasos alejarse y los ruidos cesaron como si el mundo a mi alrededor se hubiera apagado. Mis dedos empezaron a moverse. Busqué a los lados con mis manos, sintiendo una textura de piel muerta, músculos secos pegados a huesos.

Intenté abrir los ojos, pero seguían pegados. Deslicé mi índice hasta encontrar un paquete de hebras finas como si fueran cabellos. Bajé con las puntas de mis dedos por lo que parecía ser la frente, los pómulos, ojos, nariz y una cavidad abierta llena de dientes. Entonces grité, llamándola por su nombre, sabiendo que estaba cerca, quizás contemplándome. De inmediato, escuché sus carcajadas, largas y cortas, pero igualmente estridentes.

―Esta vez funcionaran, mi amor ―le oí decir―. Espero un dia me lo agradezcas. Y grité más fuerte.
―El implante está hecho ―continuó ella―. Sabes, nada de decirme que no te casarás conmigo. Así son las cosas. Nacimos para estar juntos…sabes que no puedes hacerme enojar.

Empezaba a recobrar la fuerza en mis extremidades. La escuchaba hablar y sabía que no se dirigía a mí aunque no sentía a nadie más en la habitación. Estaba seguro de que solo éramos ella y yo. Volví a llamarla. Me haló de la mano con fuerza hasta ponerme de pie. Caminé como pude, tocando las paredes para no caerme. Imaginé que recorría un pasillo que ahora parecía interminable. Llegamos hasta unos escalones de madera. Un candado se abrió, seguido de las cadenas y las cerraduras que fueron removidas.

― ¿Qué mal hice? ―le pregunté, pero ella guardó silencio. Abrió una puerta y me empujó dentro.

El hedor a mierda, orina y carne podrida era insoportable. Varias voces se alternaban en largos quejidos. Sentí cuerpos arrastrarse, caminar pegados a las paredes y me quedé quieto por unos segundos. Di pasos cortos, colocando mis manos al frente para evitar obstáculos, pero terminaron cubiertas de fluidos y pastosidades.

―¿Quién está ahí? ―pregunté. Dos voces quebradas me respondieron.
―Bienvenido
―¿Dónde estoy? ¿Quiénes son?
―Tranquilo, ahorra energía y come― dijo una de las voces―. La necesitarás. No vayas a gritar porque ella se enfadará y vendrá a tomar otro pedazo de tu cuerpo para sus peluches.
―Ya tendrás tiempo para contarnos cómo te atrapó.

La comida está en el suelo, debo buscarla y estar atento cuando ella la arroje. No siempre alcanza para todos y no todo lo que está en el suelo es comida, aunque después de varios días, eso dejará de importarme.

​

Yubany Checo tiene cursos de escritura académica con la Universidad de Duke, escritura creativa en el Taller Literario Narradores de Santo Domingo (TLNSD y en la Asociación Dominicana de Ficción Especulativa (ADFE). 
Su primer libro de cuentos Pequeñas Sombras Humanas (2019) ganó el concurso del Ministerio De Cultura “De la idea al objeto” organizado por el TLNSD, disponible en Amazon. 
Dos veces ganador de NanoWrimo (2018, 2019), tercer lugar en el Concurso de Cuentos Casa De Teatro Internacional (2018), finalista en el Concurso de Cuentos de Alianza Cibaeña (2019), concurso Juan Bosch y Lauro Zabala de micro cuentos (TLNSD, 2019). 
Expositor sobre la narrativa de Virgilio Diaz Grullon en el marco de la 22va FIL Santo Domingo 2019 en la sala Virgilo Diaz Grullon del Centro Cultural Banreservas. 

​​

By Joseph Martinez III


Gaby, sat on the living room floor at the coffee table.  She gripped the safety scissors, cuting three notecards in half, giving her six pages.  In careful and mostly ornate writing, she printed the three prayers she knew across five pages.  On the last page, she drew a happy face.  She folded one notecard in half to be the front and back covers.
    
Six-year-old fingers set and bound each page with a glue stick.  She wrote Prayer Book on the front.  “After you learn them, you won’t need the book.”  Gaby placed the booklet between the arms of her toy bunny, a stuffed rabbit named Puffles, to ensure it was the correct size.  “Tonight we’ll say the Our Father.”  She cleaned the table and carried Puffles and prayer book to her bedroom.

Her parents, Marc and Alyssa, watched Gaby walk down the hallway.  They followed her to her bedroom where Gaby placed the rabbit on her nightstand in a sitting position.  She opened the prayer book and set it between the rabbit’s felt paws.  “Follow along, Puffles.”  She made the sign of the cross on the bunny and then crossed herself.  “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.”  She held the arms of Puffles the bunny together with her left hand and put her right hand over her heart.  “I have to hold your hands for you so you can pray, too.”
    
Marc smiled and caressed his wife’s back.  “Gaby’s so precious,” he said, “Darling, go tuck her in.”
    
Alyssa walked to her daughter’s bedside where Gaby was already in bed, but kicking the sheets for more legroom under the covers.  Alyssa pulled the blanket to Gabriela’s neck.  “Grampa is smiling at you, sweetie.”

“Why, mommy?”  Gaby blinked her eyes.
    
“Because you prayed for him.”
    
Gaby tilted her head, “It’s not for Grampa, mommy.”
    
Alyssa grimaced, “Oh!  I’m sorry.  It was for Aunt Becky.”
    
“No, mommy.”  Gaby shook her head, “It’s for the Devil.”
    
Alyssa wanted to yell, scream for her husband.  She just sat on the bed.

Marc was in the doorway.  He squinted and held his eyes tightly, wondering if he’d heard correctly that his daughter was praying to Lucifer.
    
Alyssa brushed imagined bangs from her daughter’s forehead.  “Baby girl, why are you praying to the Devil?”
    
“No, mom.”  Gaby rolled her eyes.  “I’m praying for the Devil.”
    
Alyssa straightened the lace collar of Gaby’s pink nightdress.  “Okay, precious… why are you praying for the Devil?”
    
Gaby sat up and looked into her mother’s face.  “Because nobody likes him.  He must be very lonely.”
    
“But he’s a very bad man.”  Alyssa knitted her brow in mock anger.  “He deserves to be lonely.”
    
Marc moved to the bed and sat next to his wife.  He gently squeezed his daughter’s leg through the blankets.  “Yes, Gaby.  He’s the Devil.  He does bad things.”
    
Gaby rolled her eyes at her father.  “Daddy, he only does bad things because he’s sad.  Like El Goony Man.”
    
Marc rolled his eyes at his daughter.  “Gaby, El Goony Man is a wrestler.  He’s not the Devil.”
    
“And the Goony Man is not real,” Alyssa added, “wresting is just pretend.”
    
Gaby’s eyes opened in shock.  “He’s not real?”

“Ixnay on the ake-fay.”  Marc pinched his wife and interrupted, “Why don’t you check on Jaime?  I thought I heard him crying.  He probably spit out his pacifier.”
    
Alyssa curled her lip where she flared one nostril.  “Don’t dismiss me in front of our children.  Ever.”  She then turned to Gaby, corrected herself, “I mean, the Goony Man is on TV, uh, but he has friends that help him.  The Devil doesn’t have any friends.”
    
Gaby crossed her arms.  “That’s why he’s sad.  If he had friends, then he would do nice things.”
    
Alyssa was about to speak, but Marc interrupted, “Okay, Gaby.  You’re right.  Now you have to go to sleep.  You can tell us more tomorrow.”

Gaby lay down to go to sleep and pulled the blanket up under her arms.  “Yes, Daddy.”
    
Marc stood, “Good girl.”  He put his hand on Alyssa’s shoulder.  He whispered in her ear, “Let’s go, hon.”
    
Alyssa stood and walked out of the room and into the hallway.  She waited for Marc to join her.  She looked at her husband, “Why did you just tell her to go to sleep?  Don’t you know how big a problem this is?”
“Darling, you were going to argue theology with a six-year-old.”  Marc shook his head slightly and looked at the floor.  “I just thought we could do a better job if we waited until tomorrow.”
    
She crossed her arms, then nodded in agreement.  “Okay, maybe we need more time to think about what to do,” she stuck her index finger in his chest, “but you better not cut me off like that, again.  It diminishes my authority in front of her.”
    
“You’re right, I’m sorry.”  He shrugged and opened his arms to hug her.
    
She cocked her left eyebrow at him, “This is your fault because we don’t go to church more often.”  She turned and walked back to the living room.
    
---

The smell of roasted walnuts filled the kitchen.  Alyssa mixed several spoons of finely crushed pieces into a pot with cornstarch, cinnamon, sugar, water, vanilla, and evaporated milk.

Marc walked into the kitchen guided by his nose.  “I love that smell.  To what occasion do we owe this bounty of atole?”

“It’s December.”  She turned to him, “And it’s Gaby’s favorite Christmas drink.”

He winked at her.  “You’re going to bribe her for information.”

“No, I’m going to persuade her with kindness.”

“Jaime?

“Letting him sleep late.”

“Well then, darling, good luck.  I’m off to work.  I’ll sneak out so you can have some private time”

“Call me at noon.”

“I always do.”  Marc blew her a kiss as he walked out the door.

Alyssa took the pot off the stove before it began to boil.  Letting it cook for a while creates a thick film on top.  Marc liked it, equating it with pudding.  Alyssa thought it had the texture of skin and always threw it away.  “Gaby!  Hurry up!  I have a surprise for you before I take you to school!”

Gaby ran into the kitchen and took a deep sniff.  “Atole!  Is it nuez?  I love nueces!”  She pulled a chair and sat at the kitchen table.  “Nueces!  Nueces!”

“Of course!”  Alyssa slowly poured atole into Gaby’s favorite plastic red cup.  “With extra pieces.”  She used the spatula to spoon larger pieces from the bottom of the pot.  When the cup was a little over half-full, she set it in front of Gaby.  “Careful baby.  It’s hot.”

“Sí, mami.”

“So, Gaby,” Alyssa sat next to her daughter, “how long have you been praying to the Devil?”

“Praying for the Devil, mommy.”

“Excuse me, mija.  Praying for the Devil.”

Gaby blew on her atole.  “Awhile.”  

“Did you see one of Daddy’s scary movies?  You know you’re not supposed to, but just tell us next time and we’ll watch it with you.”

“No.  I just thought about it.”

“Ay, dios mίo.”  Alyssa rapped her fingernails against the table, “praying to the Devil.”

“Praying for the Devil, mom.”

“That’s right, baby.”  Alyssa puckered, “Why did you decide to pray for the Devil?”

“I told you.  Because he’s lonely.”

Alyssa scrambled for questions a first grader could answer.  “Did somebody tell you to?”

“No.”  Gaby took a sip of her atole.  It was still hot.

“Is there someone at school who likes the Devil?”

“No, mommy.  That’s why he’s lonely, remember?”

“Nobody told you?  A teacher?  The coach?”

“No.”  Gaby gently stirred her drink.

“One of the big kids?”

“No.”  Gaby tried another sip, this time using a spoon.

“Is it someone’s mom or dad?”
“No.”  The drink was just right.
    
Alyssa stopped guessing.  She closed one eye and ran a list of Gaby’s friends and associates.  She thought of one name, stopped, smirked, went pale.  “Gaby, dear?”
    
“Yes, ma’am?”  Gaby had finished the drink, tilted the cup to her lip, and scooped the softened, walnut chunks into her mouth with the spoon.
    
“Is it Mr. Puffles?”  Alyssa cleared her throat.  “Does Mr. Puffles talk to you?”
    
Gaby tilted her head and rolled her eyes at her mother.  “No, mami.  He’s just a toy.”
    
Alyssa scooted her chair closer to Gaby.  “Then why did you make him a prayer book?”
    
“Because,” Gaby wiped her mouth with her napkin, “it’s for pretend.”
    
  “Of course it is, baby.”  Alyssa stroked her daughter’s hair.  “I’m just worried that you like the Devil.”
    
Gaby got up from her chair, put her hands on her hips.  “We’re just friends, mom.”
    
Alyssa stared at her daughter.  She couldn’t remember when she was called ‘mom.’  Up to then, she was ‘mami’ or ‘mommy.’  Even in her birthday cards.

“Are you mad, mommy?”  Gaby asked.
    
“No, baby.”  Alyssa stood up from the chair.  “Go get ready so I can take you to school.”
    
“Yes, mom.”

Alyssa waited for Gaby to leave before studying the salt shaker, wondering if it wouldn’t shatter if she squeezed it.

---

Marc made his daily call home at noon.  “Hey darling, how did it go?”

Alyssa was back in the kitchen, squeezing the salt shaker.  Puffles was set in the center of the table inside a circle of salt.  “I called St. Augustine’s.”

“And?”

“The father said he doesn’t do exorcisms on people or toy rabbits.”

“I would think so.”

“He also said we should go to church more often.”

“Really?  Father Mike?”

“No, Father Raphael.”

“He’s the boring one.   Did you try anyone else.”

Alyssa stared at the toy rabbit.  “I went on the internet and found some information and a few numbers.  There was this one preacher.”

“And…”

“He could drive the demon out of Gaby and Puffles for three-thousand dollars.”

“Hon, you just do what’s best.”  Marc paused to let Alyssa yell, curse, scream, whatever.  The silence unnerved him.  He tried a little humor.  “But, uh, try to keep it in our budget.”

“Por qué estás siendo un pendejo?”

The humor didn’t work.  Marc tried the direct approach.  “What triggered you the most?”

“She called me mom.”

“She’s called you mom before.”

“She’s never called me mom mom.  She always calls me mami or mommy.”

“Yes, she has.  She calls you mom whenever she thinks you’re not listening.”

“It’s dismissive.”

“Sort of, I guess.”

“Like when you call me hon.” Alyssa paused to let Marc reorder his thoughts.

“No, darling, I call you hon when you’re too serious.”

“Whatever.”  Alyssa picked up Puffles.  “We’re going to church every Sunday from now on.  And we are going to make regular donations.”

Marc coughed.  “I’m not tithing to a random church.”

Alyssa responded in deliberate syllables.  “We are going to put something in the basket every Sunday.”

Every coin and bill they found was donated to the church until Marc convinced Alyssa to place it in Gaby’s angel bank.  At Candlemas, the account balance was not $666, but $40.11.  Puffles got a real prayer book and had a patch of St. Benedict sewn onto his back.  Veladoras of Saints Michael and Joseph were placed in every room.

After spring break, some of the forty dollars was used towards Gaby’s campaign for mayor of her class.  Her teacher, Ms. Weaver, called her class “Weaverville” with all the students as citizens.  Elections were held for every major office.  Gaby won by the wide margin of 25 to 6 on a snack-based platform.  She encouraged regular snacks throughout the day because that’s what was done at her daddy’s job and he was happy when he got home from work.  Ms. Weaver agreed to the initiative and placed a basket of nutritional treats on her desk.  Marc was flattered that he was asked to be assistant mayor.  Alyssa waited for something bad to happen to counter the good fortune.  The bathroom sink got clogged two weeks into Gaby’s term, and Alyssa was satisfied.
    
From that point, random good fortune was attributed to demonic pacts and misfortune was considered divine justice.
    
---

The night of Good Friday, Marc heard laughing from Gaby’s room.  He pressed his ear against the door.

Gaby yelled, “And the big bad wolf ate all the enchiladas!”
    
Her laugh had a deep echo.
    
Marc walked in her room to see Gaby playing with piglet finger puppets.  She had three on her hands.  He walked in and sat on her bed beside her.  “I like that ending better, mija.”
    
Gaby smiled at her dad.  “So does the Devil.”
    
“The Devil?”  That would explain the deep-voiced echo in the laughter.
    
“It was his idea.”  She pointed at her dresser.
    
Marc looked over at Gaby’s dresser.  “Is he there right now?”  From his angle, the only thing he could see was the top of his reflection in her mirror.  “I don’t see anyone.”
    
“He laughed so hard that he fell backwards.”  She rolled from side to side in a belly laugh.
    
Marc stood and walked to the dresser mirror, looking past his reflection, waiting for the jump scare.  He saw the reflection of Gaby talking to the piglets on her fingertips.  He reached towards the glass, slowly, like in every horror movie had ever seen, wondering which of the usuals would happen: his hand going through the glass like water; a monstrous hand grabbing his own and pulling him through the other side; grinning apparitions appearing behind him; or shadows slowly smothering him like oil. 
    
“Daddy?”  Gaby’s interrupted Marc’s paranoia, “Do you think the Devil likes verdes or rojos?”
    
Marc forced a tight grin to cover the palpitations his daughter had just spiked.  “I don’t know, Gaby.  He’s red, so probably the rojos.”
    
“He’s not red, Daddy.”  She pulled the puppets off her fingers.  “Don’t be racist.”
    
“I’m not racist, sweetie.  It’s just how he looks in all the pictures.”  If he hadn’t leaned forward onto the dresser from anxious giggling, Marc would have missed seeing the hand puppet of the big bad wolf lying on the rug next to his feet.
    
Marc didn’t tell his wife anything about what happened that night.  He did, however, spend some hours looking on the internet on how to close mirrors.  To settle his mind, he waited until Gaby was asleep before putting an egg under her bed.

---

Three months and two dozen white eggs later, Alyssa had finished continuing education classes on parapsychology and demonlogy.  She dropped the one on Introduction to Wicca because it wasn’t about witchcraft but used the free, fourteen-day trial coupon for an online exorcism course.
    
Gaby and Jaime were at a Summer retreat/catechism class so Marc took the day off so he and Alyssa could come up with a new plan of action.
    
She had made some simple sandwiches for lunch and set the serving plate in the center of the dining room table.  Marc placed two small dishes and poured them each a glass of hibiscus tea.  They sat to eat and talk.
    
Marc put two sandwiches on his plate while Alyssa was saying grace.
    
She reached across the table and put his sandwiches back on the serving plate.  “You’re still not taking any of this seriously!  Our daughter has invited the Devil into our home!  She started by just talking to him.  Now, she says they watch movies together and play games on her tablet.”
    
Marc quickly crossed himself and reached for the sandwich he had already taken a bite out of.  “Hon…I’m sorry.  Preciosa…it’s been several months.  Gaby doesn’t tell her friends at school about it.  She hasn’t told anyone in the family.  At this point, I think he’s just an imaginary friend.”
    
Alyssa stood and slapped her hand on the table.  “Have you ever heard of a child, any child, having the Devil as an imaginary friend?”
    
“Maybe she got the idea from a cartoon or a movie.”  He grabbed another sandwich.  “I remember seeing him in Looney Tunes.  I even think he was in Chapulίn Colorado.  I think.”
    
“Since she was born, she watches only what we watch.  She listens only to music we listen to, and she reads only the books we buy her.”  Alyssa tightened her hands into fists and pushed them into the table as she sat down.  “We didn’t invite the Devil into this house and I don’t know how he got in here!”
    
Marc finished that second sandwich and took a good gulp of tea to swish his mouth clear before speaking.  “That’s just it.  He has to be an imaginary friend because the real Devil would be in here doing all kinds of evil things…to you, to me, to us, to anyone who visits.”
    
Alyssa reached over to caress Marc’s hand.  “Maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re wrong.”
    
“Mi amor,” Marc put his hand on top of his wife’s, “I got a promotion last month.  Why didn’t the Devil have me fired?”
    
Alyssa pressed her hands against her face.  “I was thinking about that and I believe that he is tempting us with success.”
    
“Then I’m going to buy a lottery ticket tonight.”
    
“Cabrόn!”  She pulled at her hair, “This is the Devil we are engaging.  The father of lies, prince of hell, the ultimate evil force.  He will do anything to take our little girl!”
    
“Maybe our daughter just wants someone who believes in her imagination!”  Marc almost lunged forward but caught himself, “I mean, maybe she’s just acting with us.  Maybe she wants attention.”
    
“I know it is the Devil.”  She crossed her arms with her fists digging into her armpits.  

“We will know by next August with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, won’t we?”

---

August never came.  On Fourth of July weekend, the police report read that a female driver of a blue SUV exited a restaurant parking lot.  Her driver’s side view was blocked by a wall, so she moved slowly down the entryway.  She could not remember why she did not back up when she saw the oncoming car, just that her foot froze on the gas pedal allowing her vehicle to block the right lane of a two-way street.
Marc was driving under the posted 50 mph speed limit.  When the lady in the blue SUV moved in front of him, his options were to either drive into the wall on his right, swerve left into oncoming traffic, or slam his brakes and skid into the taller SUV.  He turned the car slightly to the right, so when he skidded, his side would take more of the impact.
    
The morning after the accident, the wall blocking the woman’s line of sight was immediately torn down.  Eventually, the city reduced the speed limit on that street from 50 mph to 30 mph.  The ER doctors reported that the driver of the SUV sustained no injuries, but was shaken by the incident.  
    
Marc’s back injury was due to his body being turned when he struck the driver’s side door upon impact.
    
Alyssa’s neck lacerations were caused by the seatbelt scraping across her skin as she looked down into the back seat.
    
Jaime was secured in his five-point harness, and sustained a few bruises on his chest.
    
The EMTs on the scene determined that Gaby would have survived if she hadn’t unbuckled her seatbelt to get her toy rabbit which had fallen to the floor of the car.

Alyssa decided the funeral should take place as soon as possible, even if they were on crutches.  Marc convinced her to hold off for two weeks so they could give their daughter a proper burial.  Jaime wanted to keep Puffles, Alyssa wanted to throw it away, but Marc convinced them to put in the coffin because that’s what Gaby would’ve wanted. 

After the service and the wake, Alyssa had them go back graveside and spend some private time with Gaby.  The roads of the cemetery were roads in name only.  Most of the remaining asphalt had broken into pieces that settled awkwardly into the ground.  The heavy showers of the week only made the trek more difficult.  They decided to park in the lot and walk.  Marc liked rain and intentionally forgot the umbrella at home.
As they approached Gaby’s grave, Jaime pulled on his mother’s dress.  “Some man is standing next to Gaby.”

Alyssa watched as the man reached into his pocket and removed a strand of black beads.  It was a rosary of obsidian.  The polished black sheen gave the impression that it would crack under the slightest pressing, but he held the rosary in a fist so clenched that his hands turned red.
    
Jaime saw an outline of wings.  A small tuft of gray feathers peeked from under the man’s topcoat.  “Hey mister,” he tapped the man on the back, “are you an angel?  I bet you’re an angel.”
    
“Jaime,” said the man, “I was His first angel,” Lucifer pocketed the rosary and continued, “and your sister is number three-billion, four-hundred and twelve million, six-hundred and seventy-three thousand, two-hundred and nine.”
    
Jaime’s eyes widened.  “Wow!  Really?”
    
Lucifer patted him on the head.  “Yes, really.”

Alyssa looked at Lucifer quizzically, stunned more by the precision than the relatively low number.  “Uh, excuse me, Sir, but…”
    
Lucifer interrupted, “I know that doesn’t seem like a lot, and, well, it’s because angels are made, not born.”
    
Alyssa’s eyes widened.

“For almost two years, she was my grace.”  Lucifer looked at the small headstone.  “She was my joy.  And now, I’ve lost her.”  Tears beaded on his left cheek.  “She was so good.  Beautiful.  Amazing.  She didn’t deserve this.”

Marc cleared his throat, took a step towards the Devil, “Why?”

Lucifer squinted his eyes.  “Why, what?”

“Why did you take away my little girl?”

“I didn’t.  I couldn’t.”  The Devil stopped for a second with his mouth slightly open.  “I don’t have that authority.  And definitely not that kind of power.” 

“But you kill people all the time,” Alyssa spoke curtly, “you are evil.”

“Why would I kill her?”  Lucifer was genuinely stunned.  “Where did you think she would go when she died?   As long as she was on Earth, I could see her.”

Alyssa choked words through froth.  “You visited my daughter?”

“I saw her win the mayoral election of her class,” he chuckled, “and every night she said she wouldn’t go to sleep until she saw me smile.”

Marc stepped next to his wife.  “Did you fix the election?”

“Gosh, no.”  Lucifer looked into Marc’s eyes.  “I only help the weak.  She was smart and assertive.  I admire the independent.  They don’t need me.”

“But you still cause people to die.”  Alyssa nudged her husband on his side, 

“Murders…robberies…wars…” 

Lucifer pursed his lips in an angry pout.  “Auto accidents?”

Alyssa echoed.  “Auto accidents.”

Marc’s eyes widened.  “Auto accidents?”

“I don’t make anybody do anything.  You do what you want to do.”  The Devil turned defensive.  “I didn’t invent guns or cars and I definitely did not make that lady get behind the wheel.”  Lucifer quickly glanced downward and took a quick breath.  “And,” he looked into Marc, “it wasn’t my idea to give you free will.”

Alyssa leaned into the face of the Devil.  “You were the snake.”

“Yeah!”  Marc stepped next to his wife.  “I mean, you were there.  Right?”

“There was no Eden.”  Lucifer looked at Jaime, who was sitting on Gaby’s gravestone, making mudpies out of the loose soil.  “Paradise is an everlasting state of love.”  He closed his eyes.  “There was no Adam…no Eve…no Lilith.  But there sure as hell are a lot of jealous Cains and arrogant Abels still around.”  He snapped a tear off his cheek.  
“That’s what set Gaby apart from all of you.”  The Lord of Darkness wiped his eyes with the knuckles of his thumbs.

Jaime stood and offered Lucifer a mudpie.

Lucifer smiled, hid the mudpie in his coat, and made gobbling sounds while pretending to eat it.

Marc wanted to pat the Devil on the back and tell him everything was going to be all right.  He just kept his hands to his sides and pressed them against his legs.

Alyssa used the awkward moment to pull Jaime to her.  She turned, “We should apologize to Gaby.  It was disrespectful to fight here.”

Lucifer stepped to Gaby’s grave and knelt at her marker.  He reached into his pocket for the obsidian rosary.  The Devil looped the beads through well-manicured fingers and pulled his hands apart to form a holy cat’s cradle.  He relaxed his fingers to cup it in his left hand.  He gently set the rosary on the cross that had been carved in the stone above her name.  He manipulated the beads into the shape of a small heart and pressed it firmly into the cement.  No sizzling, no smoke.  “Goodbye, Gaby.  See you never.”

“Mister Lucifer,” Marc pulled Alyssa to his side. “I think Gaby would like it if you came to visit her once in a while.”

Alyssa nodded.  “I don’t think that could do any harm.”

“Thank you, but she’s not here, anymore.”  The Devil looked up into the drizzle.  “This is just a marker for memories.”  He started walking away.

“Bye.”  Jaime waved.  “Bye-bye.”
    
Lucifer tipped his black fedora and walked across the loose earth of wet graves and disappeared into the horizon.
    
There were no hoof prints in the mud.  The earth did not tremble and crack under his step.  The grass did not ignite from the heat of his hellfire.  He left neither stench of sulfur nor smoke of brimstone.

His walk did not leave pools of fire, only size-nine footprints filled with rain.
​
​

The Wasp and the Roach: 6 Methods to Escape Extermination

The Emerald Cockroach Wasp, Jewel Wasp, or Ampulex Compressa, are solitary insects. Endoparasitoids, entomophagous parasites, cannibals. The wasps sting cockroaches, the Paraplaneta Americana. The poison turns their hosts into zombies to be hollowed out by the wasp’s larva. The wasp’s first sting is aimed at the cockroach’s thoracic ganglion to induce a biochemically transient paralysis. The second sting is aimed at the head ganglia of the cockroach, disabling their escape reflex. Most pests are attacked by at least one type of specialized parasitoid. Parasitoids perform an important ecosystem service. In the process of generating their offspring, they suppress pest populations. 
 In May 1940, the Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planter’s Association sent Dr. R.E. Turner to the French Pacific colonial archipelago of New Caledonia to retrieve A. Compressa. Cockroaches threatened colonial economic interests in the Hawaiian Islands, and so the invasive Jewel Wasp was introduced as a form of biocontrol from the far west of the Americas and east of Europe. 

Escape Vector 1: Into the Mind 
My brother, Maverick, called me again. I was on campus picking up a research poster I had presented earlier that day on the history of the Mexican folk song “La Cucaracha.”  His voice shook, and he asked if I could give him a ride. I immediately agreed to pick him up. He was an hour away in the middle of Dallas. He had been undergoing ECT treatments for bipolar disorder recently. On top of the electricity, over the past decade, his brain had been cooked well by antipsychotics that made him ridged in the body and slow in his head. He did not have his car because his license had been revoked. Earlier that week, he had been walking up and down the street with his shirt off, unable to explain his state. My parents had called the police.  

That morning, I sang to conferencegoers as they passed.  
“La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha…”  

I would let them finish the lyrics if they knew them. Most people sang the lyrics that they knew, the white lyrics.  
“La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha  
Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah…”  

We would laugh when I sang the rest, the Villista version popularized during the Mexican Revolution.  
“Ya no puede caminar   
Porque no tiene, porque le falta   
Marijuana que fumar.”
  
I wanted to be the one to pick him up. I did not want him to go back to the psych ward. I have done my time cocooned in those white walls. After I was released, I applied to grad school. I had to prove that I was not insane or that the word was arbitrary.  Around that time, Maverick took a one-way ticket to Hawaii. He called it a paradise and talked about “Kaddie,” a mixture of Ketamine and Adderall. Apparently, Maui Wowie was not strong enough for him. 

Some say that marijuana and other pre-Hispanic medicinal traditions elicit psychosis. Maybe they bring our attention to how little things make sense. Several Spanish-speaking women ruined my hook and sang the lyrics verbatim. I had the most rewarding conversations with them. I sang the lyrics probably 15 times, and by the end of the conference, the lyrics whistled through my calavera. My antennae were visible; maybe that was why people were drawn to my poster. One asked nervously if I was of indigenous or Spanish descent. My research topic and how I look are thrown off by my last name - Campbell. At least nobody asked me directly if I was a white Anglo-Saxon protestant, a W.A.S.P. But it was obvious that they did not care about this; they each scooped generous helpings of my flesh and spread it across their attention spans until I was hollowed and bleached stark white under the bright lights of the conference room.  

“La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha  
Ya no puede caminar  
Porque no tiene  
Porque le falta  
Flesh on their bones” 

I told the conferencegoers, “Cockroaches are a part of the Blattidae family; Linnaeus chose this name because of its Latin prefix, Blatta, which can be translated to “He who shuns the light.” I just wanted to go back to my darkened apartment and remember that I had flesh on my bones, but I thought of my brother running through the streets looking for a dark space to hide, and I knew that I needed to find him wherever he was and tell him where the darkness was. 


Vector 2: Self Destruction or the Resilient Multitude
After the conference, a Chicana playwright with a Wikipedia page visited our graduate class and asked us what we wanted to talk about. Everyone wanted to know more about her work. Still, I asked her how to survive without having our identities flattened by academia. She gave a brittle laugh, and I guessed that the question came off as naive. She said she was an artist and did not know how to help me. But she said that theater and research could be worldbuilding; her work in schools, prisons, and writer’s workshops created something that could not be commodified, moving us “Towards A Politic of Collective Self-Defense Instead of Individualized Self-Care.” She told me that funding for ethnic studies was rising, to tell other cockroaches where the money was, or to give away my excess stipends when I could. I thought grimly about how pest control companies like Orkin primarily fund the study of cockroaches. How could I save my spirit for my family? In a protean scramble, am I to be impervious to the passage of time? Am I to feed on the decay that comes with it? Universities extract more than can be repaid in currency and career. I wanted to tell her that it felt odd that a bug was under such bright lights and intellectual scrutiny. It was about the hours I spent being dissected and dried for preservation and further examination while my family and friends aged into creatures living in places that I found hard to recognize. I did not know how to say that, and I do not think she knew how to do it either.

I thought about Audre Lorde. 
“For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”

Could someone with six hands and antennae find a way?  Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, 
“If time is a turning circle, there is a place where history and prophecy converge—the footprints of First Man lie on the path behind us and on the path ahead.”

Flying down the highway, away from the university, I felt that there was nothing but linearity and that I was too late. I found Maverick outside of a closed-down Sherman Williams. The faded logo painted the world pink. He reeked of alcohol, and his eyes were glazed from some supplementary downer. Like me, he does not trust medicine from people who do not need it. But I have learned to talk and write, rationalize my individuality, and always prove that I can do things without prescriptions. He could not answer my questions; I knew that he would be going to the psych ward the next day for going AWOL, for running amok. He knew that, too.  

Driving to my apartment, he asked if I would stop for water. I agreed and gave him my credit card. He spent fifteen minutes in the gas station. I called my girlfriend and asked her to pick up fried chicken. My family used to eat fried chicken every Sunday after church when I was young. I wanted to be sure that the alcohol he was stealing would not be taken on an empty stomach. Maverick returned with his pants full of boxed wine, somehow proud that he had not used the money I had made grading and writing papers for fifteen dollars an hour with no insurance. I was somehow proud of him for refusing a lousy gift, even if he relapsed. I knew where he was going the following day. Orange unit, he returned like clockwork. An orange had been inked on his ankle to match a Christian woman he had met while on suicide watch together. She had paid for the tattoo. She wanted to be married soon, with an expensive dress. My brother does not work. I do not think he can work.  


Vector 3: Paradise
He chugged the stolen wine while sitting in my rolling desk chair, which I spend so much time making money in. He spun around, laughing loudly, listlessly. I gave him the nicotine vaporizer to try to calm him down. He could not stop laughing. He asked me to punch him in the face as hard as I could, and I told him I would after he hit the vape. He told me not to be offended but that I couldn’t knock him out. I told him I did not think I could, that I may be too chicken to try and hit him. He was crying. I wanted to distract him and asked if he wanted to hear my presentation that morning. He agreed and asked if we had anything to eat. I gave him the chicken as I began my presentation with my poster on the ground before us.  

“So, do you know the song La Cucaracha?” 

I tried my hook. 
“La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha…”

He ate the chicken while staring behind me at something or nothing.  
“This fucking chicken is undercooked. Mom and Dad still buy it every Sunday, and it’s fucking getting worse every time we get it.”  

“I remember when we would eat this chicken and sit around after church, and Dad would talk about the sermon.” 
 
“Yep. And it’s gone up over five bucks in our lifetime. People tell me that I’m still young.”  

“You are.”  

“My demons aren’t. They’re old and can’t be killed.” I rolled my eyes.  
 
“Oh, like Beelzebub or Mephistopheles or something.”  

“No, like greed, guilt, and violence.”  

“Oh, you mean Moloch. The same demon likely spurred on the Spanish Colonists…”  

As I continued forward, he was left behind. He began to whimper, but I kept my presentation going. An intense focus on research has conditioned me to remain steady in my delivery and to disregard my feelings and those of the people around me. Lovely linearity. He was eating while he cried, spinning in my chair, a self-fulfilled prophecy. He spoke through mouthfuls of chicken.  

“I am in hell. I think my show has reached its finale. It's your time in the spotlight, isn’t it?”  

I glanced around my apartment.
I smirked. “Hell isn’t so bad.” 

He huffed. “It isn’t Hawaii.”

I sighed. “What is with you and that place?”

“It was paradise.”
    
“For whom exactly? You lost your mind out there. Hawaii, to you, is an idealized paradise used by imperialist neoliberalism to maintain sovereignty over the indigenous people through tourism and agricultural exploitation. You wore Hawaiian shirts and learned the creole, but they knew you were a tourist haole mestizo addict from the States.” 

I immediately felt like biting off my tongue. Who am I to throw the first stone? I shook my head. He did not speak. I stuttered. 
“Remember all the chickens on Kawaii? I bet they are better to eat than this GMO garbage.”

He began to pull at his clothes, sweating and moaning. He undid the watch on his wrist and tossed it onto my poster, ripping a hole in the paper from the weight and the metal. I recognized it as my watch, which I had saved up for years ago. I had left it at home when I went to college. It was made of polished metal that warped the reflection of the wearer.  The impact of the watch and the torn surface of the poster board stopped me for a moment. The poster had not rippled; it had ripped. I slipped the watch on, but he had refitted it to his thicker wrists, and it slid down my arm.

“Why don’t we go see our family in San Antonio? I am sure Nana will want to see us. That’s what makes it hell, a world without bonds. We almost lost you in Hawaii.”

 I slipped off the watch and looked up to hand it back to him, but he did not meet my eyes. His were closed. He had bits of the paper chicken box stuffed in his mouth, and he had been shoving the plastic fork into his gums. Blood pooled on one side of his bottom lip. I carefully took the shredded paper box and the bloody fork away from him. I put on his shoes for him and helped him to his feet.  

​
Vector 4: Cast Out and Away
He scuttled around as I flew above him, buzzing in the otherwise silent streets outside my apartment for about an hour. I still held the watch. He followed a few feet behind me as we walked. He hissed, clicked, and growled, unwilling or unable to talk, except when a jogger or biker passed. Then he would yell in their face until they sped off. I kept checking to see if he was still behind me. I noticed that he had lost both shoes and was wearing dirty socks. I could not let him be found like this.  

“La Cucaracha, La Cucaracha  
Ya no puede caminar  
Porque no tiene, porque le falta  
Las dos patitas de atras”  

I told him that I needed to call a ride and wait. I told him I did not want him to be seen like this. He did not stop and walked past me. I followed behind him, and I called after him. He did not respond. I followed him for another hour on foot. He walked slowly, and all I could think about was going to sleep. I had office hours the next morning and fifteen pages to write by the day after. I thought about getting fired for not doing my work. I thought about my research and how I was behind. I convinced myself that the “dead” in “deadline” was literal. I thought about everything, missing everyone and everything other than me. It is what I have learned to do. Just as Maverick has learned to run, I have run to the learned. Both methods offer the same result: separation and extermination. The duration and the speed of death are what differ. Survival is a brittle laugh in a fugitive space. As I followed him through the night, I became convinced that he was not trying as hard as me to survive and that he did not deserve his life. I flew behind him, iridescent, and watched his glossy red-brown back twitch in the streetlights.  I called after him.  

“If you keep stomping around drunk out here, you're going to get dizzy. Just come back to my apartment. I don’t want to have to drag you.” 

“What?”

“I don’t want to have to drag you back.”  

As if sensing a change in air pressure, he pivoted, charged toward me, and bowed up, creating the illusion that he was larger. He put his ear to my mouth, listening for me to renege. He did not look at me and whispered quickly, as if pouring out a secret he had kept with him his entire life.  

“It’s not the wine that’s made me dizzy. It’s you.”   

I was silent. 

“Your words are poison. Your writing is poison, too. Every idea you have is poison. I know what you are doing. You can’t fool me. You made me sick. You did this to me.”  

I did not ask what he meant; I already knew. I did not move because I knew that he was going to be violent. The Chicana playwright with a Wikipedia page warned us with Sun Tzu, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” Unfortunately, the usage of this wisdom is not limited to revolutionaries but also sell-outs that are pacifists until they are scared. Maverick leaned back and kicked me swiftly in the stomach. I stumbled backward and coiled. He looked at me without recognition.  
​
As a child we had a family dog. He was huge, and my father would sic him on me. My dad called me “chew toy,” and the dog would chew on me until I bled. He told the dog to attack me one day, but I was fed up. I stuck my fist down his throat and let him chew on it as I punched him in the side until he whimpered. I cried, and I turned to my father. He looked horrified as if I had poisoned myself. He asked, “Do you think you went too far?”

I lunged at my brother and felt my fist collapse his flesh, and it felt like punching the family dog all those years before. I felt something in my stinger break.  

“Ya no puede caminar.”


Vector 5: Pessimism, Bad Faith in Weltanschauung 
My brother went to the ER that night and Orange Unit the following day. He was treated for a suborbital fracture and a laceration above his eye where I had stung him. The next day, I walked out to the scene of the fight. Our watch sat in a pool of dried blood. He had left it for me to find. The face was broken, and the hands no longer moved, but it ticked away the seconds even still. I held it to my ear as I drove to the university.  

I broke my pinky - my stinger. I did not land the punch right. It took me a week to go to a doctor. I was walking on campus, my face pulsing from the pain that I felt I deserved. Typing for so long had left my hand aching, and I felt flush. I could not type anymore. Looking around at the students and the well-placed trees, I felt strange. My eyes welled up with tears. I had never noticed how beautiful the campus was, my umwelt, how everything was so bright and clean.    

Why would I think this? A more rational question might have been, “Why would I not think this?” Was I becoming a W.A.S.P.? Was I already a wasp? Was this paradise? I remember how my brother spoke about Hawaii. It was about time I had my pinky checked out.  

I went to the University Health Center. I waited in line wearing my brother’s hand-me-down, wrinkled Hawaiian shirt, and broken watch on my wrist. A nurse came to the counter and told me they had no appointments that day. They asked me to wait to see if an appointment would open before the end of the day or to come back tomorrow. I got up to leave, telling her I needed help that day.  

“But sir, you have already waited a week, why can’t you wait another day?”

I could not explain to her why I had waited a week to get treatment without sounding insane. I did not know how to say I could wait for the rest of my life to fix my pinky. But I could not wait there. 


Vector 6: Metamorphosis
I shed the Hawaiian shirt and dropped the broken watch. I flew, with buzzing translucent wings, to the nearest superstore. I bought myself a new watch.


​

Alex V. Cruz, a Paterson-born speculative fiction writer with Dominican roots, writes short fiction in both English and Spanish. Graduating Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University, he holds a degree in Creative Writing and Hispanic Studies. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU. Notably, Alex is an alum of Clarion West 2022 and a member of Tin House's 2021 Young Adult Workshops. His works have been published in notable online magazines such as Quislaona: A Dominican Fantasy Anthology, SmokeLong, Acentos Review, LatineLit, with two forthcoming stories in Azahares. He is an active member of the Dominican Writers Association, passionately supporting fellow Dominican writers by teaching free publishing classes. Alex is dedicated to sharing his knowledge and empowering his community of writers. Join him on Instagram, Twitter, and Threads using the handle @Avcruzwriter.

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For the first time in seven years of conducting the Somos en escrito Extra Fiction Contest, we have first places winners in both English and Spanish story-telling. A different judge presided over each competition. The top winners will receive a $100 prize; they and the runners up earn publication in Somos en escrito Magazine.

The judges this year are Ernest Hogan, perennial arbiter of English languages entries since the contest started, and Roberto Perezdiaz, who assessed the Spanish language entries. Hogan is considered the godfather of Chicano sci-fi literature; Perezdiaz is  a publised writer in his own right and a career translator.
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The top winner for an English language story is:
Jan Karlo Lopez for The Pepper Inspector.
​
​His autobio reads: “…a pathological liar turned writer. His self-published short-story digital anthologies and physical Zines have generated over a thousand dollars in revenue. Some of the profits were used to purchase school supplies for Oak Cliff (Texas)  teachers, or donated to a foundation that buys shoes for underprivileged kids in Oak Cliff, and the rest was either spent on food, drugs, or traveling.” Jan Karlo is Oak Cliff born, raised, and resident but leaves as often as financially possible. He has been published in Open: Journal of Arts & Letters, In Parentheses, LIT magazine, and Thirty West Publishing House which nominated his story for Best of the Net. 

Runners up:
Colton Campbell, for The Wasp and the Roach.
Joseph Martinez II, for Angel at the Wake. 
​​

First place in the Spanish language competition is:
RaXel Gallegos, por Calmate un chingo.

​According to her autobio, Raxel is: “…an Afro-Indigenous masewalli /human/2spirits/Indigiqueer, currently learning how to become complete within the incomplete-ness of colonial obstructions. An aspiring anti-colonial, de-colonial, and re-Indigenizing educator. They have used IN XOCHITL IN CUICATL as a methodology to integrate non-canonical contemporary Indigenous literary works; no longer giving into arguments of whether Indigenous literatures have literary value within English and Spanish academic circles. Their/her/his/ writing style no longer respects the imposition of grammar as a form of mental policing that keeps minds within the parameters of colonial writing systems; for them, commas, tildes, and letters are nothing else but an ornament.”  

Runners up:
Alex V. Cruz, for Pajanú.
Yubany Checo, for Peluche
​

By RaXel Gallegos

​Me desperté con un dolor de muelas,
Y el precio pa’ sacarlas sigue alto

Cuando era joven nunca confíe en los dentistas gringos
les valían padres los dientes y solo te sacaban el dinero

    —grandpa’! Y si lo llevamos con las makinas? Pa’ q’ le ayuden
    —tus pinches makinas ni q nada! Tráeme las pinzas me lo voy a tumbar!
    —but grandpa’ es su wisdom tooth
    —y cuanto pinche wisdom me dio!

Nunca confíe en los humanos, que les importaba más el dinero que el dolor ajeno. Yo que voy a andar confiando en makinas sin alma, igualadas, desgraciadas . . . pero si confío más en esas cosas que en los matasanos!

Llevo dos-tres trecenas con este dolor. El cerebro se me hace agua. Ni agua con sal a la mano, ni agua dulce ni agua salada, pura agua amarilla cae del cielo. 
        —grandpa’, what if we go to Tenochtitlan? They have really good medicine people! They use their hands for surgeries and no machines!
        —ya estoy muy viejo! Este cuerpo ya no me alcanza pa’ regresar . . . pero ustedes pueden ir . . . demi no se preocupen . . . yo ya voy pal spirit realm . . . ya luego me convocan . . . ahorita ya no me alcanza el alma

        —grandma! 
        —a quien le llamas grandma chamaque! 
      — los Muwekma ya regresaron de las Africas, con el knowledge del halfmoon! and others have returned with the seeds. Hay círculo el Domingo, pa' que este ready viejille!
       —orale, pues avisale a todes! ¡Qué la alianza se reúne en Sunday! It’s resurrection Sunday! 

It is resurrection Sunday: I'll never forget the day Black Jesus came back. So young and powerful. Standing against the State: Duality, Jesus Jones from Tennessee. Because Sunday always comes.

I'll never forget the war. I'll never forget. Niñx corriendo, animales corriendo . . . their machines take my job like they took my mother’s job. Tanta gente sin trabajo, tanto nativo sin trabajo, los cholos sin trabajo, los filipinos sin trabajo y los indocumentados con un chingo de sueños . . . Y pues gente sin trabajo, es gente en ocio, y gente en ocio es gente que no tiene nada y sin nada nos quedó todo. Pinchx gente soñadora. Soñaron tanto que nos pusimos las pilas pa’ construir casas con basura y cuando mandaban sus makinas, no importó porque era basura y basura hay en todas partes y la imaginación y tiempo nos sobraban. El pedo fue cuando usaron toda la fuerza de la ley . . . mataron a tantos, a tantos nos quitaron los úteros, removieron cerebros, tomaron mujeres y niñx . . . los hicieron makinas . . .  para tener a los bebés de la supremacía . . . en sus sueños turbios de colonizar el espacio, los desiertos y los océanos . . . en sus sueños turbios esperando a exterminarnos . . . y esperaron y esperaron en sus tanques en montañas lejanas, en desiertos, en cohetes, en ciudades bajo el mar, esperaron a que muriéramos como cucarachas en tierras nucleares, contaminadas, esperaron tanto a que muriéramos

que los pendejxs se quedaron sin aire en sus makinas donde soñaban que solo elles tenían derecho a vivir, donde nuestras matrices tenían bebés sin almas, los mismos que se los tragaron vivos . . .

Y entonces fue cuando el viento y la madre mandaron un mensaje. Lo recuerdo claramente, la economía decayó, los bancos cerraron, el pánico tenía a muches peleando por comidas enlatadas . . . En menos de tres años ya había sociedades militarizadas, había gangs, gente pensando en colonizar otra gente . . . y es que no conocíamos nada más, y es que había círculos pero no pa’ todxs, aunque los mexicas siempre nos invitaban a danzar . . . recuerdo que corría de abajo pa’ arriba trying to find food, protect myself from others, but then I found the children, babies abandoned in a hospital where most humans had been replaced by machines . . . makinas can’t feed babies . . . Makinas can't take care of babies . . . In the early 2000's my mother told me a story about how babies survived the big earthquake from the 1900's. The babies in the hospitals survived days, weeks, months with no food or water. Babies are strong and know how to enter survival mode. Babies survive everything except the lack of warm arms around them.

When I found the babies in the hospital, the doors were locked under a crisis mechanism in case there were wars . . . o algún tipo de catastrofe natural. The doors and windows estaban lokeadas con paredes de acero so no one could come in or out . . . I entered the place looking for medicine, antibiotics for a cut in my hand after a dog attacked me and I grabbed un pedazo de vidrio con la mano pelona . . . one of the windows didn't shut correctly and no one had tried going into the hospital . . . Pharmacies are easier to enter. I found what I was looking for when I heard children laughing. I thought I had lost my mind. I thought the spirits were playing with me. I was afraid, I'm always afraid of spirits, they just say too much and too little. children laughing in a world where wombs were taken . . . I found soulless children. They were so tiny. The older ones were taking care of the babies and they all took naps together. They were giving love to each other in a world that had put our children in cages . . . I hadn't seen a child since 2037, when the government decided only the rich could have children but nature denied them fertility so they took ours . . . The children weren't afraid of me . . . They shared their food with me . . .  and that night I had a dream . . . My grandma showed me her children playing, my mother asking me if I were to have children . . . ok . . . it was a nightmare, but I understood what I had to do. So I took my phone and googled it . . . I know i know, some people back then thought that if Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples are left alone with our fates  into our own hands . . . they thought that we would just die, but we kept everything going . . . we are so capable that all this time electricity has been free. So I googled: 2spirit powwow . . . I left the children to go there. Before, leaving children unsupervised would’ve been neglect and probably I would’ve been taken to jail . . . but when the market failed, everything else failed with it. I think the point is, I was forced to find help, and I could only go to the people I trusted the most, the Indigequeers! Because they know things, because they dream big. 

The responsibility of having to take care of children made me allied to others and others became allies of the cause, we were all worried about them. And by them I mean you and your siblings Quetza . . . by them I mean you . . . After some years el pequeño Quetza, con dieciséis años me llamo vieja: 
       —Vieja, calmate un chingo!

Estando enferma y cansada de tanto pinches hacer. Me senté, a morir en las alucinaciones de la fiebre. Calmate un chingo me dijo el morro . . . calmate un chingo . . . y entre las alucinaciones vi que ya no había porqué correr . . . pa’ qué militarizar, pa’ que desgastarnos, pa’ que seguir en survival mode, pa’ que? . . . I heard Jesus Jones say: Sunday always comes! I heard Tricia Hersey whisper: stop working and start dreaming . . .
    
Después de tres días, reviví. Y me puse a bailar y me puse a ver el cielo lleno de smoke y el agua ácida cayendo del cielo. Y en 2077 mandé a Quetza por nopales a México-Tenochtitlan, en donde se hizo una gran alianza Indigenista en donde naciones enteras soñaban con tomar todo el continente y las islas back; the land back dream became a reality. And yes, the land was left infértil, but las naciones Mayas ya vivían en el 501 desde hace 56 años, lo que hacía falta eran alianzas across Turtle Island, el Anáhuac y Abya Yala. Y hacía falta plantar nopales. Poco a poco la gente se relajó y siguió soñando nuevas realidades sin militares, sin armas . . . nos pusimos las pilas pa’ sembrar . . . 

Pinche muela me duele un chingo:
        —Quetza!
        —Grandpa!
        — andale no tengo tiempo pa’ tus tonteras . . . anoche soñé . . . it is time Quetza. Listen carefully, child. I can’t go to the circle but you already know what to do. Take these letters and the elders will read them. And when you return we leave Turtle Island. Ya no me quedan energías.
        — Si vieja!

Ya no me quedan energías, pero en mi juventud no tan joven me calme un chingo y disfrute la vida. Cante canciones y baile en fiestas y vi morir a muchos, pero también vi retoños de nopales y frijoles en tierra infértil, retoños que crecen de los cuerpos caídos en las calles. Destruimos el cemento y el pasto volvió. Y ahora que han traído las semillas y que nos han compartido el knowledge de halfmoon, me voy en paz. Me voy en paz. Me convertí en padre-madre de 12 hijes como mi abuela, me convertí en abuel@ de perros, gatos, cucarachas y cualquier bicho que los niñes traían . . . me relaje un chingo, mientras nos dejaron como perros pa’ morir, pero no paso . . . pero no paso:



​Pa’ mi muchachx Quetzalcoatl de Xesús: 

Me relaje un chingo, gracias mi chilpayate! Que Tonanzin, Tonatiuh, el viento y el agua te bendigan. ¡Me ponen un altar mendigos o les vengo a jalar las patas en las noches!

Que si Martita quiere, que siga aprendiendo otomí, el idioma de mis madres. Y si X38 quiere mandamelo a Tenochtitlan! Ya vez que se le se le dan los idiomas al xamake. Y que en mi tumba escriban los nombres de mis madres y mis padres y sus naciones. Para que el día en que me visites y te pregunten quien eres les diras ke ere’ mi chamacx. Quetzalcoatl de Xesus hije de padre-madre Xel, hije de Maya (Mam- de nombre Juan por 7 generations), de abuelas Pame-Guamare (Otomi- Doñas por seven generations). Quetza, que he visto el futuro en mi dolor de muelas, que se relajen un chingo que vamos en la generación 9 y que el último día, será el día en el que el sol no brille más. 

Quetza, yo se que querías que escribiese más cosas del mundo de antes, pero este viejo  ya tiene 120 años, la memoria ya no me da pa’ más. Disfruta la vida y a ver si ya en estos días el agua vuelve, no se les olvide hervirla y no se te olvide alimentar a las lombrices pa’ fertilizar la tierra. Y diles atodxs que como me chingaban con que comerse las cucarachas era mala idea y ahora son los mejores tacos de la ciudad!

Con amor, 
Tata Xel 

​

RaXel Gallegos is an Afro-Indigenous masewalli/human/2spirits/Indigiqueer, currently learning how to become complete within the incompleteness of colonial obstructions. An aspiring anti-colonial, de-colonial, and re-Indigenizing educator. They have used IN XOCHITL IN CUICATL as a methodology to integrate non-canonical contemporary Indigenous literary works; no longer giving into arguments of whether Indigenous literatures have literary value within English and Spanish academic circles. Their/her/his/ writing style no longer respects the imposition of grammar as a form of mental policing that keeps minds within the parameters of colonial writing systems; for them, commas, tildes, and letters are nothing else but an ornament.  ​

I heard the story of The Children of Llullaillaco, and the thousands that preceded and followed them. I wept for them, though it was hundreds of years ago, and I was angry for their bodies, kept from their families in life, in death, and hundreds of years after. But in between all that, I thought of their mothers.

The mother of El Niño, what she might have felt, when her baby was taken that day. She always knew he was beautiful, from the moment she held him in her arms, he was the most beautiful thing to her, and he would have been even if the elite declared him ugly. But they declared him beautiful. Was it because she looked at him like he was? If that was the reason, would she have taken it all back, treated him as a monster, if just to let him live?

They say that the families of the poor should have been honored, honored that their beautiful peasant children looked like they could be the children of kings, honored that their precious sons and daughters would be sacrificed, to save the true royal blood that graced the earth. How could you not be grateful, they said as they bound the children like slaves, that we get to kill your child?

The mother was not grateful. Another may have been able to lie to their children, to fake a smile until they were out of sight. He is just a child, just a baby, and she cries, she screams and fights even when they beat her into the ground. She knows she might not see tomorrow for her outburst, but she will not let her baby go, no, not without him knowing that this is wrong, that she didn’t want this, that he should have lived and been happy. She will take his place, she will carve out her own heart for the gods, place herself on the altar to appease the wealthy who crave the blood of her son.

El Niño cries, and in a moment, he is gone. His mother is not dead, not yet. But she wishes she was.

In five hundred years she will be called a barbarian by white men who steal from the grave of the child she lost. A woman who knows nothing will call herself El Niño’s protector and mother, and keep him from his true family.

The mother of Llullaillaco will find comfort will be knowing her son died knowing she loved him, and that knowledge made him fight, fight until his very last breath, even as the wealthy dug drugs between his lips and forced him to chew, even as they fed him meat so he felt like a king in those last moments, with the cold unforgiving mountain suffocating him, even with his mind swirling frantically, he knew he had to get back to his mother’s love, that she didn’t want this. He died knowing this was wrong.

There were other children, who died a little more peacefully, perhaps, and there were others who lived safe and sound. I imagine another mother of Llullaillaco, wrapping her arms tightly around her ugly, royal-born child, who would have been sacrificed if El Niño had been ugly too. She does not want to watch, but she does, as El Niño fights for his life, his ribs breaking against ropes that tie him down as he tries to get up.

She does not weep. She will not, until later, when her baby is asleep. She will cry and thank the gods for giving her this ugly child. And deep down, she will hate herself all the same. If ever there is a day her son grows, and is horrified by the altar and the blood on his mother’s hands and the drugs and the ropes, she will scream and beg his forgiveness, tell him she had no choice, that she was a monster, yes, she would be called a barbarian by the white men who dug up bones that didn’t belong to them, but she loved her son, loved him enough to kill another child if it meant keeping him safe.​

by David Estringel

It was 3:21 AM and the main corridor of the Letheville City Asylum’s east wing was silent save the random, faint clacking of an unseen computer keyboard coming from an open doorway behind the nurses’ station counter and the rhythmic ticking of the old, analog wall clock that faced it, which was securely tucked away behind an iron cage, constructed specifically to its dimensions. Slowly, a lone, tall figure in a white, slim-fitting lab coat—Joseph de los Santos, LCSW, the Director of Clinical Services—with a legal pad of the same color (maybe a shade or two duller) tucked securely under his left arm, made its way down to the isolation rooms; the hypnotic clacking of hard leather soles atop the terrazzo floor punctuating the air’s stillness. Loud pounding rolled and echoed down the hallway like distant thunder, increasing in volume and vibration as he approached the magnetic security doors that quivered at the violence contained behind them. He continued on without interruption in volition or gate, as the clamor (from isolation room #2 to be exact) summoned concerned looks from the mental health techs on duty and covert peeks of patients from behind the darkened cracks of numbered doors. Again, again, and again, the pounding continued, each strike more explosive than the next…until Joseph swiped his access card across the wall-mounted reader. Then, silence.
 
Looking through the observation window in the heavy, metal door, Joseph knocked three times, catching the attention of the mental health tech leaning against the wall inside, who kept watch. Tilting his head back in acknowledgment, he pushed himself to a standing position by pressing his back against the hard surface behind him. He was a bald man with a thick, muscular neck and a body to match. His height was average (at least half a foot shorter than Joseph) but seemed shorter due to his stout stature. Breaking the silence, one last pound sounded, seeming to shake the bolted pictures on the walls and the unit clock’s metal grill. “Hey, A.J., quiet night?” Joseph cracked, opening the door—a slight smirk beginning to curl at the right side of his mouth.
 
A.J. chuckled, rubbing his stubby fingers across the smoothness of his scalp. “Yeah, chief, real quiet. We’ve been counting sheep waiting for you to finally get here.” He lumbered over to Joseph, extending a fist bump in his direction in dire need of reciprocation. “Seriously, chief, tonight’s been off the hook! All kinds of crazy shit happening in the unit. All the units, really. And don’t even get me started on this guy,” A.J. confided. “If you have like an hour, I can give you the deets on what went down after you left earlier.” He let out an exaggerated exhale, rubbing his scalp, again, and shaking his head. “Yeah, really crazy shit.”
 
“Literally, I hear.” Joseph quipped. “I got report from the charge nurse when she called me in, and Dr. Sullivan touched base on the drive over.” Turning toward the observation window in door #2, he noticed dripping spit and smears of blood on the glass. “God, I hope that’s spit on that window.” Turning back to face A.J., he saw the tech’s eyes glued to the door over his shoulder, followed by a palpable wince that set Joseph’s eyes squinting.
 
“Yeah, I don’t like the odds on that, buddy.”
 
“Right. Well, how about you keep those ‘eagle eyes’ on me while I am in there, huh?”
 
Exasperated, Joseph approached the door, hearing errant stirs on the other side. A heavy quiet had settled in the air that somehow felt more unsettling than the commotion that heralded his arrival on the unit. Eyes fixed on the filthy, square-shaped glass, Joseph approached the isolation room door with key in hand. He unlocked the door, slowly opening it, preparing for the possibility of the patient’s mad dash for freedom. Sliding his thin frame through the open crack, he scanned the room, registering nothing in his line of sight except a sheetless, plastic-covered mattress on the floor and erratic flickers from the fluorescents overhead. The room was bare but crowded with the competing smells of fading antiseptic cleaner, body odor, and excrement. Hearing a shuffle to the left of him, Joseph turned his head and spied a slouched figure standing in the corner, staring at him, fixedly, through oily strands of black hair with even darker, piercing eyes that latched deeply into him like hooks. “Are you ready to die, Doc?” the soiled form asked in a guttural voice, breathing heavily, nostrils flaring.
 
“Not tonight,” Joseph answered, unflinchingly, closing the door behind him, “and I’m not a doctor, Dante. I’m a psychotherapist; there’s a difference. You keep calling that, and I always correct you.” Moving closer to Dante—just within arm’s length—Joseph observed him. He was unwashed and appeared to have been for some time (probably days), evidenced by his smell and the thin layer of grime that slicked over his skin. His eyes were bloodshot and starkly pronounced by the dark circles that had engulfed them. His face—oddly handsome in its own way—was angular, severe, and drawn. “I wasn’t summoned here in the middle of the night to have my life threatened, Dante. We’re better than that. Aren’t we?” There was no response. “Surely, there are better things you could be doing right now. Maybe, I don’t know…sleep?”
 
“Fuck sleep,” Dante said coldly, his eyes wildly darting up and down Joseph’s form, which stood at the ready before him, clipboard in his left hand and a click pen in his right, jotting down musings and fragments of the current moment.
 
“Essentially, I have; otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.” Joseph continued scribbling down notes, while talking to him, following the train of his own cognitions along blue lines across the page. “You have gone to great lengths to get our attention. So? We’re listening. What happened tonight? Everything was fine before dinner—or at least quiet—when I left.”
 
A brief period of silence passed. “I’m not getting a shot! The son-of-a-bitch that tries to stick me with that shit will be sorry! I mean it!”
 
Joseph’s hazel eyes, behind a pair of vintage black horn-rimmed glasses, stoically rose
from the surface of his notepad and met Dante’s. “You tore up your room, urinated on your mattress, bit a tech, and defecated in the hall outside your door,” he retorted. “You are getting a shot.” He quickly slid his notepad under his left armpit with a smooth twist of his wrist. “It is, however, up to you how much that process is going to hurt,” Joseph advised, clicking his pen the slipping it into the front breast pocket of his coat. “So, take a moment to check yourself, and don’t make matters worse for the staff…or you.” Or me, he thought to himself.
 
Dante fell silent, averting his eyes from Joseph’s, slowly sliding down the corner to the floor, cupping his sweaty face in his dirty hands. “Fuck sleep,” he sobbed, almost inaudibly, behind trembling fingers. Joseph was intrigued by the sudden shift in Dante’s mood, which was not at all out of character, but its acuity was, revealing a side of him that he had never experienced before.
 
Edging a little closer to Dante, Joseph squatted down before him, instantly struck by the overpowering stench of feces and urine that emanated from Dante’s ripped, paper scrubs. “I think that’s the problem, Dante,” he assured in a neutral tone. “Nursing says you haven’t slept in days. Four, I believe, and you’ve refused to take anything for it. You’re exhausted and things are feeling out of control right now. How could they not be? We can’t, however, help you if you don’t let us.”
 
“Fuck sleep…Fuck me,” Dante whimpered, curling himself up in a tight ball, disappearing into the safety of the darkness of the corner he occupied, finding comfort in the feel of hard, cold plaster against his shoulder and little anywhere else.
 
Joseph calmly observed the defeated heap before him with its back hunched, tangles of black clutched between whitened knuckles. Unsure if he was jolted more by the depth of anguish conveyed by Dante’s tears or persistent stench, Joseph leaned in. “What’s happening here, Dante? This isn’t you.” He waited for a response, but none came. Just sobbing. “Dante,” Joseph said softly, placing his right hand on Dante’s left shoulder, “talk to me.”
 
“Look!” Dante ordered, the dirtied fingers of his right hand swiftly wrapping themselves around Joseph’s wrist. “Don’t give me a shot, man! Don’t make me go to sleep. I’ll die if I go to sleep. I’ll die!” His dark eyes pleaded through the mass of oily curls that obscured his face; the blackness that surrounded them seemed to become more void in the isolation room’s pallid glow, made even more unnerving by the random flickers overhead.
 
Holding Dante’s gaze, Joseph coolly turned his wrist, which was constrained in the tightening grip, upward toward Dante’s fingertips and whipped it outward, stepping backward into a standing position. Looking down at his throbbing hand, he was overcome by the urge to rub it, but the soiled cuff of his white lab coat dictated otherwise. Pulling his notepad from under his left arm, Joseph inched toward the door, flipping and scanning pages. “It’s quite normal to lose control like this when you don’t have adequate sleep, you know. Further complicating matters, you haven’t been quite selective in terms of taking your meds, antipsychotics to be exact. Haven’t for a few days now,” he revealed, pulling his eyes from his notes, and catching Dante’s stare again. “I’m afraid Zyprexa only works if you take it.”
 
Dante turned away and stared at the floor, rapidly rocking back and forth and mumbling.
 
“Dante, if you don’t talk to me, I can’t help you.”
 
“You can’t help me,” Dante insisted, shaking his head, eyes fixed upon the floor beneath him. “No one can.” He looked back at Joseph, tears streaming down his unwashed cheeks. “I’m going to die here and you’re just going to let it happen.”
 
“Are you telling me that you plan on hurting yourself?” Joseph questioned, concernedly.
 
Dante’s sobs quickly turned to laughter, yet another unsettling shift that rested upon Joseph’s ears. “I am not going to do anything.” Using his arms to support himself, he positioned his back against his obscured corner of the room with his head tilted upwards, the angles of his face exposed as his hair fell backward, highlighted by the play of shadows around his angular features. He extended his legs outward, forming a V-shape, and with a calm voice stated, “I’m not going to do anything.”
 
“But someone else is?” Joseph inquired, not oblivious to the emphasis Dante placed on his previous statement. Dante’s voice was cold, as was the stare that disturbed the darkness of his corner of the room.
 
“Maybe.”
 
“Who then?” Joseph stared, quizzically, at Dante, trying to make sense of what he was saying, playing over previous sessions to find some semblance of sense. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he began to nod. “Ah,” he ejaculated, “your demon.” Joseph brought his hands behind his back, their fingers clutching his notepad. “Tell me about…him…her…it?”
 
“You know. You know it’s a ‘her.’ I told you so. Many times.” Dante scoffed. “Man, I tell you shit, you write shit down in those fucking notes of yours, but you don’t fucking listen.”
 
“Dante…” Joseph began.
 
“No! You wouldn’t keep asking me this shit if you did!” Dante admonished. “If you did—I mean really did—you wouldn’t keep me trapped here.” Tears began to well in his eyes. “You’re just making it easier for…”
 
“Her.”
 
“No…them.”
 
Lifting his glasses from the bridge of his nose with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, Joseph rubbed the burn of the late hour from the inner corners of his eyes. “Okay, Dante, I feel a bit lost here,” he admitted, pulling his fingertips away, allowing his glasses to drop back down in place. “Them? Who is ‘them’? I thought it was a ‘her.’”
 
“There is a lot you don’t know. Huh, Doc?” he queried in a mocking tone, then after a brief silence, started to chuckle. “Then, again…there’s a lot you do…Huh, Doc?”
 
“Am I to assume that is what they are…she is…telling you?”
 
Slamming his palms on the floor, fingers digging into cold terrazzo, Dante leaned forward and growled, “I don’t need to be told anything.” His eyes glaring and then softening, he pulled himself back into his shadows. “I know things, too, Doc. Seen things. Things that’ll make even your shit turn white.”
 
“I don’t doubt it, Dante,” Joseph responded, volunteering a validating nod, “but I managed to make it out of grad school in one piece, so I’m fairly confident my ‘shit,’ as you say, will be fine.
 
Dante continued to stare at (maybe through) Joseph in complete silence, the slightest hint of a tune lingering around his lips.
 
“So, there is more than one thing now, one demon?” Joseph asked, as Dante chuckled. “So, you’ve been seeing more than one? Hearing them?” The chuckling continued. Sensing the beginnings of a fluster, Joseph gave his neck a slight pull to the left to give it a crack. “Have you heard or seen her recently?”
 
Dante smiled as if the corners of his mouth were being pulled to the back of his head, pushing what there was of his hollow cheeks upward, narrowing his eyes into blackened slits. “I always hear her, man...It’s always been her,” he admitted, his voice divulging hints of an unholy union of longing and fear.
 
“Do you hear her now?
 
Dante nodded with an unwavering stare.
 
Pulling his pen from his coat pocket, Joseph gave it a quick click, bringing his notepad to the ready in front of him. “What is she saying?”
 
“Nothing.”
 
Bemused, Joseph looked at Dante. “Nothing? Hmph. No news is good news, I suppose.”
 
“She isn’t saying anything,” Dante countered, as tears began to stream down his cheeks. “She’s humming…like shit’s gonna go down and she’s just gonna watch or something. I don’t like this, Doc. Hearing this isn’t good. It can’t be good!”
 
“Is that normal for her…you?” Joseph questioned.
 
“No, it’s not, I said! Man, this isn’t right. It’s not right!”
 
Lowering the tone of his voice, Joseph slowly assured, “You are safe, Dante. You are safe here. Alright? Just focus on me. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” Joseph searched Dante’s eyes for a sign that his message hit home. Dante quickly nodded that he understood.
 
“Well, when was the last time she did talk to you?
 
“After bed check earlier tonight.” Dante wiped the tears from his cheeks with the back of his right hand, then ran its fingers backward through his dampened hair, revealing a pale face that seemed ravaged by fear and exhaustion. “Look,” he started, clearing his throat, “I’m good now. I’ll be good. Just no shot, okay?”
 
Joseph brought his pen to the breast pocket of his lab coat, giving it a solid click before it vanished. “I know you’re good, Dante, but that’s not up to me. In the doctor’s hands, you know? I’ll talk options with him, but I can’t make any promises,” he assured as Dante nodded, silently. “First, though, I would like for you to tell me what she said to you earlier to set you off.”
 
“She said…” Dante began, looking downward, wiping more tears from his eyes, “…if I sleep, I die. It’s the same. Every night.”
 
Looking at Dante directly, Joseph felt a softening in his chest. He had worked with the man suffering before him for months now and, while Dante’s moments of decompensation had always been challenging to manage, it was always clear that Dante was cognizant and hyperaware of the ever-shifting and terrifying world that was happening around him—one he could never seem to escape. No escape. “I see how this is affecting you, Dante. How scared you are. Believe me when I tell you that nothing is going to hurt you here. A.J. is literally on the other side of this door and can be in here in a second if you need him: he’ll be watching you every minute. I promise. I really do feel like things would be so much better for you if you could get some rest. Tomorrow can be completely different if you would just let us help you.”
 
“Man, you don’t get it! Nothing you guys do can keep them…she is always with me, you see, whether you or A.J. are here or not!”
 
Holding out his palms, Joseph stepped forward. “Alright. Alright. No one is trying to upset you here. Look, you have been with us for almost nine months, now. Your bipolar disorder was wildly uncontrolled when you got here and your psychosis quite acute. The voice you heard—I assume it’s the same one—convinced you your wife was trying to kill you, even convinced you to stop eating. Remember that?”
 
“She was trying to poison me! That shit was everywhere…in everything. My food. The coffee cups. Toothbrush. Everything was poisoned.”
 
“And this voice…she told you your wife was doing this?”
 
“To protect me.”
 
“Help me understand this,” Joseph insisted, scratching the top of his head. “This voice
threatens you every night, progressively making you more and more unstable, causing you to be restrained and locked up—here—in isolation, but she wants to protect you? I’m sorry, Dante, but that just doesn’t register.”
 
“Then, fuck you, Doc!”
 
“What I think,” Joseph started, inching his way to the door, “is that these thoughts of yours, these things you are hearing and seeing, have become too overwhelming for you, too much for one brain to handle. Now it’s hard for you to determine what is real and what isn’t—so much so that it’s too hard to keep things straight.”
 
Dante scoffed. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
 
“Explain it to me, then. Neither of us is going anywhere any time soon, so we have plenty of time to paint a picture here.” Joseph could feel himself becoming weary of the absurdities and contradictions laying out before him, noticing the smell of his sarcasm starting to compete with what Dante had to offer. Grounding himself, “What comes from holding onto this idea of a demon, Dante? How can something that wants to hurt you, hurt your wife, be good? How could it want to protect you at the same time? Do you see how that doesn’t—can’t—make sense?”
 
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Dante screamed, repeatedly slapping his palms against his ears. “God dammit! Shut up!”
 
Two knocks sounded from behind the door, as a head with a thick neck peered through the observation window. “Everything alright in there? Do I need to go in there?”
 
Dante stopped hitting himself, keeping his palms firmly pressed against his ears, seemingly to drown out something. “No, A.J., I think we are good here. We’ve just been talking, and things got intense, but they are good now. Nothing to see.” Turning to Dante, Joseph asked, “Right?” Silently, Dante nodded in acknowledgment.
 
“Alright…if you say so, chief. Sorry…psychotherapist…Kinda falls with a ‘thud’ on the ears, doesn’t it?” A.J. finished, disappearing from the square glass into a cloud of muffled laughter.
 
Addressing the window, Joseph humorlessly answered, “Thanks, A.J. We are good.” He turned to face Dante, a smirk already beginning to stretch across his face. “Keen timing, that one. Let me tell you.”
 
As a smirk started across his face, Joseph looked over at Dante, who was now, somehow, sitting upon the plastic-lined mattress on the other side of the room, his back to the wall, legs straight out, feet rolling outward and inward. His hair was pulled back, tucked behind his ears as if in a humble attempt at grooming. His face was emotionless like the hollowness of his eyes. His smirk dissipating, Joseph could hear the distant squeaking of metal-on-metal creep into the room, possibly from a passing medication cart in the main corridor, making its early morning rounds. “Sorry about that. He was just concerned, but I’m sure you can understand why.” Joseph approached Dante, feeling as if a shift had occurred in the room. Somewhere. Standing just a few feet from the long edge of the mattress, he continued, “What did you hear just now? What made you so upset?”
 
Dante leaned his head back onto the wall behind him and closed his eyes, bringing his hands up to his head then sliding them down his face, pressing his fingertips deeply into his flesh. “She’s still humming. She won’t stop.”
 
“Help me understand this, Dante. Why do you think she is doing this?” A sudden chill took over the air in the room, making its way through Joseph’s coat. Crossing his arms, he looked about for an offending air vent. Spotting it, he realized that he heard nothing to indicate that the HVAC was blowing.
 
“She’s angry that I am still here. We’re no good to each other here.”
 
“As opposed to out there?” Joseph pointed to the windowless wall to his right at the theoretical world outside. “We know what you have been capable of ‘out there.’ You hurt a lot of people, Dante, especially your wife, who—may I add—is lucky to be alive. I don’t think the city streets are quite ready for you yet.” Joseph scanned Dante’s face for any semblance of remorse (or even a reaction) but identified none. “Is that what you wanted, Dante? Want? What she wanted?”
 
“I told you,” Dante grumbled coldly, “that bitch was trying to kill me, so…I did what needed to be done. Would have ended things—right there and then—if the damned bitch hadn’t screamed so fucking loud.” A glint seemed to stir in his black eyes, as he cocked his head. “I just hate leaving a mess behind.” That painful grin now stretched, coldly, across his face.
 
Put off by his patient’s cavalier attitude, Joseph, rubbing his arms with his crossed hands, admonished, “Is that so? Well, it appears you have no idea what a favor she did for you—the both of you. If things hadn’t worked out the way they did, you would be in jail right now, not in here. If you ask me, the chances of getting out of here are far, far better. That won’t happen, however, if you don’t get better.”
 
“I didn’t ask…Doc.” Dante’s smile had disappeared. “We need to be out of here, now. I can’t be who I am supposed to be locked up in here with your useless doctors and useless talk that change absolutely…fucking…nothing!” The hollowness of his eyes had returned.
 
“And what is it, exactly, that you are supposed to be?”
 
Dante jutted his chin outward toward Joseph. “Check your papers. I’m not repeating myself, man. You are wasting…my…time.”
 
“Humor me,” Joseph challenged, digging his heels into the floor.
 
“A brujo, man. I’m a brujo,” Dante bragged, extending his arms outward, “a witch of the likes you’ve never seen.”
 
“And she’s…”
 
“Mine.”
 
Joseph walked toward Dante, stopping a few feet from the mattress’ edge, squatting down, and resting his arms on his knees. “So,” he started, “we’re back talking about this?” Nodding, he brought his fingers up to his chin and gave it a rub. “I must admit, I didn’t see that one coming.”
 
“Well, you know,” Dante leaned inward as if to say something in confidence, “I hear that, after so many years, you people—therapists and the like—start to lose your touch. You know… apathy…fatigue…bitterness. That final realization that no one cares that you are a martyr because no one fucking asked you to be in the first place.” Dante tilted his head to the left, bringing his right index finger upward, pressing it into his cheek, adopting a pensive yet mocking expression. “I believe they call it ‘provider decay.’” Straightening his head and leaning further forward, he warned, “No coming back from that, I am afraid. Guess your kudos will have to wait for the afterlife.” Dante slinked backward toward the wall, not releasing his gaze from Joseph’s, the tip of his tongue clamped between his front teeth.
 
“Really now?”
 
“Yes, asshole. Crack a fucking book.”
 
Joseph’s eyes scanned Dante’s form, noticing a rigidness had set in that was not there before, as if he were ready to pounce at any moment. He chuckled, “You know, I do remember you talking about your being a witch, Dante. You have talked about a lot of things since you have been here but, frankly, not all of them have stuck.” He turned and walked toward the door, waiting for a response, but he got none. “But the subject has come up again, so let’s discuss. Shall we?” Turning around to face him, Joseph saw Dante lying flat on his back, hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. “What does she have to do with it?”
 
Dante turned his head toward Joseph and yawned, rolling his eyes. “Power, man. It’s all about power. Power to do what you want. Power to get what you need…Power to break out of the fucked-up script that was written for each of us by a fucked-up God that has no alternate ending.” Dante licked his lips, raising himself on his elbows. “I make her happy…she makes me happy: that’s the deal.” He lowered himself, again, resuming his vigil of 12x12 inch ceiling tiles—a tear rolling down his left temple.
 
“Alright. I can understand how being here for so long can make you feel like you are powerless. I get it, but you have more control than you think or even know. Not the kind, however, that you have been exerting as of late, tonight.  That tack will just result in you being here—in a room like this one—having discussions you don’t want to have like this one with me.” Joseph moved toward the door, then leaned back against it. “I do need you to remember, though, that all of us are here to help you, regardless of what you feel, see, hear…or think about the efficacy of the treatment you receive here.”
 
“I need to get out of here! None of you can do shit for me!”
 
“And I’m telling you that you can’t look down your nose at the treatment you receive here if you cheek most of the meds we give you and hide them in your shoes.” Dante glared at him, hostilely, with a clenching in his jaw that transformed, slowly, into a knowing glance, which Joseph returned. “So, I have asked you this before and you never really given me a clear answer: Why don’t you use these powers you say you have to get out of here? I assume your demon has them as well, or you get them from her. Why doesn’t she set you free?” The squeaking of metal wheels reached Joseph’s ears again, disturbing the tension in the air that had filled the room.
 
A cold silence fell. “We are not here to dance for you. You are nobody to challenge us like that. I will leave here when the time is right, and she will pave the way; I just have to bide my time, that’s all. But, when the time comes, it won’t be nice, and it won’t be tidy like you all want…You’ll see.”
 
“You keep saying ‘she.’ Does this ‘she’ have a name? Surely, you have to call her something.”
 
“Nothing you need to know,” Dante countered, fingering a rough patch of paint on the plastered wall. After a few seconds, he turned to face Joseph with a look of resolve on his face. “but I will tell you.”
 
“That’s very forthcoming of you, Dante, and a bit curious. Why now after all this time?”
 
Dante, starting to grin, revealed, “Because she will be leaving soon.”
 
“And you with her, I assume.”
 
Dante sat up on the mattress, staring at his feet that were rolling inward and outward. “No, no…I’m needed here…for a little while longer at least…Things are just starting to get…interesting.”
 
“Seems curious that this demon of yours would just up and leave you just like that. That’s strange, no? I mean, you make your relationship with her sound so…intimate.”
 
Pulling his attention away from his feet, Dante turned to face Joseph. “I’m not going to be alone, Doc,” he stated, shaking his head. “No…no.” Dante turned back to his feet, nodding and biting his lower lip. “Nope. Don’t you worry…about that.”
 
A sense of discomfort sunk into Joseph’s stomach, hearing those words come from Dante’s mouth. While there was very little that was appropriate in what Dante had to say up to that point, there had been few times with Dante—or any other patient, really—where he had sensed a threat to his own safety. Yes, he had been verbally and physically threatened before, but this was the first time he had ever entertained the idea—even though for just a split second—that he might not be able to handle it. “And her name?”
 
“Six.”
 
“Six? Six. That is a very unusual name. Thanks for sharing that with me. We both know you didn’t have to…So, Six is going and something else will be taking her place?”
 
Shaking his head, Dante answered, “No. She is just stepping back for a while.”
 
“What for?” Joseph asked.
 
“Someone has business here and they are eager to be done with it.” Dante pulled his head to the left, peering over his shoulder, seeming lost in thought. “He’s been a long time coming, actually, from what I hear…Elusive like quicksilver,” Dante raised his palms up into the air and wiggled his fingers, “through your fingers…Tricky. Tricky. Trick. Trick. Trick. Trick. Trick.”
 
Unsure of what he had just witnessed, Joseph squinted as if that action alone would clear his mind of the motley questions flying around in the dark. “So, it’s a ‘he’ then. At least we know that…What is he called?” he asked, stoically.
 
Dante just laughed, rolling his eyes back in delight. “Why don’t you tell me, Doc?”
 
Joseph crossed his arms, legs slightly apart and firmly planted, letting out a small chuckle. “There is nothing to tell, sir. There are no demons, Dante. No witches. No conspiracies. Certainly, no games. Not in this mind.”
 
Dante sat, erectly, then swung his legs around over the edge of the mattress and faced
Joseph. He opened his mouth to speak but found himself unable to form words. He felt the icy trailing of what felt like razor blades sliding up both sides of his back, then crawling over his shoulders, stopping at his chest, where stabbing sensations dug their way into his skin. Despite the frigid grasp that had taken over him, he felt an intense heat at the back of his neck, as he heard a voice whispering into his ear from behind. He smelled a stink of death and rotting meat that seemed to cut its way through the room like a hot blade. Dante’s eyes seized with terror but found the will to cast them Joseph’s way in a silent plea; his voice still failing him.
 
“Dante? You okay?” Joseph asked, moving closer. “What’s happening? Talk to me.”
 
Dante, staring wide-eyed, slowly turned, again, to his left but never lost sight of Joseph. He began to nod, mustering up a “Yes” just under his breath, then nothing else. Dante remained silent, never pulling his eyes from Joseph; however, his thoughts appeared to be elsewhere. For a few minutes more, the two occupied the vacuum in the room, until…
 
“Well, it looks like you are done talking, Dante, so we will wrap this up for now.” Joseph slowly stepped backward toward the door. “I’ll talk to the doctor about your shot. I don’t think chemical restraint is what you need right now, but you do need an emergency dose of your scheduled antipsychotic; it’s what you normally take by mouth, so don’t worry about that. Okay?” Just as Joseph turned to go for the door handle, he saw Dante sneeze. “Bless you,” he said.
 
Dante closed his eyes, which were tearing now. “Can’t you hear him whispering?” he asked. “He’s behind me, just whispering…whispering, whispering, whispering, whispering, whispering.” Intermittently, his eyes would veer off to the left—a smile starting to slowly creep across his cheeks.
 
Intrigued, Joseph pulled his hand away from the door handle, then brushed his right index finger across his nostrils to address a nagging itch. “Excuse me?” he questioned.
 
The smile continued to grow.
 
“No, Dante. Like I said before, I don’t hear anything. You are hearing these whispers, now?” Joseph inquired but with no response, as Dante turned, again, to his left and began to nod. “Alright then. I am going to leave now. The nurses will be here in a second with your injection. Just take it and don’t fight them, okay? We will talk more later today.” Joseph grabbed the door handle and gave the window three taps with the knuckle of his right index finger, nodding to A.J. to open the door, so he could leave.
 
“Before I can tell you what he said?” Dante suddenly teased. “What fun is that? We need to make sure your trip down here was worth your while. Come,” he insisted, extending his left arm, rapidly curling his fingers inward. “Surely, you have time to humor a patient, just this once.”
 
Motioning to A.J. to hold off on opening the door, Joseph stepped forward. The air seemed to disappear, as the leering figure before him continued to beckon and smile. “I really think we are done here, Dante. We’ll talk later.”
 
“No!” Dante bellowed. “Time for you to listen,” he managed to say calmly, recomposing himself.
 
“Just for a bit. Then, you can go.” He motioned, again, for Joseph to come closer.
 
“I’m fine here, actually,” Joseph assured. “So…talk.”
 
“Not one for foreplay, are you?” Dante reproached, goadingly clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “All work and no play…Fine. Have it your way.”
 
“And?”
 
“Well, for starters, it is quite disappointing to see how you’ve ended up,” Dante declared, looking Joseph up and down. “So much promise, such a fine mind, and all those…gifts: all wasted in a place like this, day in, day out. I mean, you’re at what, twelve…fourteen hours a day? Here? What are you avoiding, Joseph? What are you running from?” Dante began to laugh a laugh that was distinctively different than before—one that was much deeper, more spiteful. “Such the hypocrite. I mean, really, Doctor…heal thyself.”
 
Exasperated, hands on his hips, Joseph shook his head. “I think that’s enough, Dante. Verbal abuse is not on the menu tonight, especially from someone who can’t seem to remember their toileting skills.” Too far. Recollecting himself, Joseph knew he had overstepped a boundary.
 
Dante laughed even harder than before. “Now, now…professionalism feeling a little tight in the crotch, is it? No matter. It’s doing me a world of good to finally see a crack in that austere veneer of yours. There’s always a chink in the armor. Isn’t there?” The two stared at each other, motionless and silent. “Shame on me. I’m losing sight of why we’re here…What happened to you? The world was yours for the taking and this is the path you choose?”
 
“I have no complaints.”
 
“Having no complaints and not complaining are two very different things, Joseph. So, so sad to see how you have given up.”
 
“Hardly. I am doing exactly what I want to do and helping those who want it in the process. I am sure that is within your capacity to understand, despite whatever this is that you are doling out right now. So, if there is nothing else…” Joseph turned to leave.
 
“Dante raised his left index finger, “Oh! Just one thing…Mom sends her best.” Dante’s grin stretched from ear to ear.
 
“Does she now?” Joseph challenged, using all his effort to maintain a cool exterior.
 
“Oh…have I offended?” Dante sarcastically inquired. “An even sadder case, if you ask me.”
 
“No one did.”
 
The grin continued. “Poor thing. Ignored by her parents. Abandoned by her father. Saddled with raising a sad nothing like you. Her youth, stripped away by one cruel twist of fate after another. Well, no matter…we have our own plans for her.”
 
The dull ache in the pit of Joseph’s stomach turned into a stab, shaking his resolve to the point of making his legs start to tremble. It had been less than a month since he had gone to South Texas for his mother’s funeral, and the void he felt—inside and out—had been more than he ever thought he would ever have to deal with. Homing in on Dante’s repugnant smile, he said, “And this is supposed to be frightening, I suppose? Eh, Dante? Cause this scene, here. It’s been done before and much better. Trust me, knowing about her death is hardly something to be impressed by; I was gone for almost a week, which the entire unit was aware of. So, you will pardon me if I am not laid to waste by this sad attempt to reduce me to jelly. Now, as I said, I am going.”
 
Dante, looking down at his chest, felt the piercing fire of black claws sinking into his pectorals, as large, black, leathery hands tightened their grip. Letting out a gasp, he raised his eyes toward the ceiling, noticing a dark form rise from behind him in his peripheral vision. Staring him down with eyes even blacker and colder than his, the large figure towered over him, smiled, and then began to growl through bloody, yellow teeth, as its attentions were slowly pulled across the room to Joseph.
 
Knocking once more on the observation window, Joseph signaled to A.J. that he was ready to leave. A key from the outside unsecured the lock with Joseph beginning to step through as the door opened—a familiar chill clawed at his back, trying to pull him back in. Turning around, he saw Dante with that agitating grin.
 
“‘Til we meet, again…sweet meat.”
 
Shaking his head, Joseph turned back around and walked out, just as he heard another
sneeze from behind. Hesitating, a “Bless you!” escaped his lips. He heard soft sobbing in the background.
 
“Joseph.”
 
Outside the door, hand on the external lever, Joseph looked in. “Yes. What is it?”
 
“That wasn’t me.” Dante’s smile was gone, replaced by a look of shame and disbelief in his eyes. Tears began to well and stream down his cheeks, as he shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”
 
Joseph stared at the man crumpled on the mattress and closed the door, pulling at the door handle to make sure it was secure after he heard the lock catch. He walked down the corridor, which was dark save the dim glow of overhead fluorescents; the sound of his hard leather soles sounding down the recently mopped floor, reverberating off the unit’s pale grey walls. The heaviness in his stomach lingered, as the sound of Dante’s sobbing grew more and more faint as he got closer to the nurses’ station. Looking for a nurse to leave a message for the doctor, he found no one. Rounding the corner, he made his way to the medication window, which was closed. Pulling out his mobile phone, he texted a message to Dr. Sullivan, supporting the recommendation for the administration of emergency medications for Dante, suggesting continued one-to-one observation at least until the treatment team could meet later that afternoon.
 
The time on the wall clock registered 5:06 AM and the unit rang silent save the occasional stirring of patients in their rooms. He continued down the corridor, flanked by a symmetry of numbered doors that disappeared into his periphery; the clacking of his soles seemed to fade as the sound of humming perverted the air’s stillness—a humming from isolation room #2.
 
Entering the men’s room at the end of the corridor to the right of the elevator, he approached a line of five white, porcelain sinks under a large expanse of mirrored plexiglass. Stopping at the middle one, he rested his clipboard on the sink to his right, then turned on the faucet before him, throwing cold water upon his face to jolt himself out of the dizziness that was starting to overcome him from a lack of sleep and hunger. Heal thyself. The water was invigorating on his skin, taking a portion of his breath away with every splash. Grasping a greedy clutch of brown paper towels from the dispenser on the wall, he buried his face deep within his palms, absorbing the moisture that stung his bloodshot eyes and nostrils, holding his head still for a moment. Pulling his face away, he crumpled the damp mass in his hand and tossed it in the dispenser’s depository. Leaning forward with his hands on the sink, he stared into the makeshift mirror to center his thoughts and ground his body. His reflection revealed a tired man who, tonight, looked older than he was with an emptiness in his eyes that he had put great effort into in the past to avoid encountering again. So much promise wasted in places like this...What happened to you? He was snapped out of his reverie as the fluorescents overhead flickered, casting glares on the plexiglass that seemed to make his reflection look hepatic, distorted, almost alien. With a long exhale, he released the lip of the sink and turned to leave, his reflection seeming to linger a split second longer than it should to watch him walk away.
 
Exiting the elevator on the fifth floor, Joseph walked down a corridor of treatment rooms, then toward his office in a separate suite that was separated from the rest of the unit by magnetic doors. Before he could grab his access card to swipe the door open, the squeaking of metal wheels made their way closer and closer, creeping up behind him. Turning, he saw an older woman, probably in her sixties, dressed in an unshapely beige custodian’s uniform. Her hair was long and grey hair, pulled back into a bun. Her face was plump—but haggard-looking—with a single, remarkable feature—two sunken eyelids, where her left eye used to be. “Long night?” she questioned with a slight but noticeable Spanish accent, as she drew closer, the rhythmic squeaks of her mop bucket punctuating the silence in the corridor.
 
“You could say that,” Joseph answered, managing to muster up something that looked like a smile. “I haven’t seen you before. Joseph de los Santos,” he said, extending his right hand, “…and you are?”
 
“Luz,” she responded, giving his hand a firm shake. “And, yes, I just started a couple of weeks ago.” She rested the handle of her mop, which also functioned like a steering wheel, against the wall. “Strange night, no? Not right at all. On the units, I mean…Oh, I’m sorry! You have to be here so late…or is it early?” She looked up at Joseph, as she was considerably shorter than him (at least by a foot and a half).
 
“Both, actually. A long night has turned into an early start. Goes with the territory, I am sad to say.”
 
She stepped closer toward him with the muffled, familiar sound of glass beads and metal—chains and charms—clicking against each other beneath her uniform. “I tried to clean your office, but my master key doesn’t work on your door,” she curiously stated, sounding more like she had asked a question.
 
“No. I supposed it doesn’t,” Joseph confirmed. “Lots of confidential papers on my desk.
 
You know…Everywhere, really. It can be quite a mess in there, actually. Better that I tidy up myself.”
 
“Of course.” Luz grabbed the mop handle. “I am here if you decide otherwise. People need people, especially when things get really…messy. But you can handle your business. I’ll bet you can do whatever you set your mind to. Surprise yourself sometimes, too, no?” She smiled at Joseph and shuffled her way back down the hall. Turning around, she ended, “Don’t let tonight shake you. You are a smart man. You know what to do. I’ll be around, though…if you need a hand,” then disappeared into a treatment room.
 
Joseph looked musingly down the hall, taken aback by such a new and unusual face. Using his access card, he entered the office suite and made his way to his office, which was as dark as pitch save the desk lamp he always kept on. Closing the door, he took off his lab coat and hung it on a hook that was fastened to its back, then unbuttoned the cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt, rolling them up to his elbows, exposing curious glyph-like tattoos of varying sizes on the undersides of his forearms. Locking the door and leaving the lights off, he headed toward his left next to a bookcase that was overly stuffed with diagnostic manuals and old textbooks from his university days. Just past it, he paused at a large, wooden door with a crucifix above its frame. He reached into his right trouser pocket and pulled out a key, then, clutching the doorknob, took a deep breath and unlocked it. Sweet meat…sweet meat… sweet meat. Finding himself dwelling on why those words seemed to affect him so, he shook his head, as if to shake off a bad dream, and entered the room. He was surrounded by a cool darkness and echoes of lavender and smoke. Feeling the door at his back, he leaned into it, letting out a deep exhale through his knows. Worry settled on his brow, as he felt the hint of tears wanting to well up in his eyes. He brought up his right index finger and his thumb up beneath his glasses and rubbed his eyes, restraining the jumble of emotions that he could feel expanding within his chest. Fumbling forward in the dark, the smell of candle wax and cold wicks teased his nostrils. Reaching back into his right pant pocket, he withdrew a white disposable lighter and lit a flame, casting a dim, warm glow upon the walls of the room. Against the wall across from him was an old wooden table, draped with a black linen cloth that was topped with a censer with a new charcoal block, scattered bits of charred herbs, and a visibly used black candle with hardened drips of wax that was positioned on the tabletop’s center. Quickly, he lit the wick before the lighter’s metal guard got too hot.
 
Grabbing a corked bottle, a vial, and a shallow dish from a cabinet underneath the table that was hidden by a flap of the black cloth, his lips began to move. He placed the items on the table, then used the back of his right hand to wipe sweat from his now furrowed brow. Uncorking the bottle, he tipped it over the dish, tapping clumps of powdered eggshell onto it. He opened the vial, emptying a dram of holy water on top of it, then used his right index finger to swirl the mixture into a thick paste.  Around the candle, he drew motley glyph-like symbols in a spiral fashion with the white compound, his moving lips now producing soft murmurs. He thought about how much he regretted taking call that night and everything he saw and heard in the unit (the isolation room…and the men’s room). He thought about all the years, wasted, that he had to pretend to be blind and deaf to the ‘other’ world around him: all for the sake of not attracting attention, for staying safe. Instinctively, he quickly gave thanks to his spirits for the privacy of his alter room and the spell that shielded it (and him) from prying eyes—human or otherwise. If one knows your name, they all do, his mother used to say. They are not a threat if they think you don’t believe. He thought of the burden the legacy of brujería and kitchen witchery his mother (and her kind) left behind and all it had taken from him. He thought of his own weakness in dropping his guard, which ultimately betrayed him. That wasn’t me…It wasn’t me.
 
Joseph grasped the knife handle with his right hand, flipped open the sheath’s snap, and used his thumb to push the leather covering off, revealing the gleam of silver peeking through the murk. Holding up the blade high, as if making a command to the heavens, Joseph extended his left arm before him with his palm facing upward. His mumblings (now audible) charged the room: Black to black, a devil I attack!...Black to black, a devil I attack!...Black to black, a devil I attack! With immovable intention, he brought the knife’s edge down with a slice (not too deep nor too shallow) letting trickles of hot, red blood splash and drip down the candle’s black, waxy surface. Continuing to chant (now in a whisper), Joseph’s awareness—and acceptance—that his masquerade was over grew along with the burning in his palm. His mother’s fight was now his own; he only hoped that he would fare better in the end.
 
Black to black, a devil I attack…Black to black, a devil I attack…Black to black, a devil I attack.

​David Estringel is a Xicanx writer/poet with works published in literary publications like The Opiate, Azahares, Cephalorpress, DREICH, Somos en escrito, Ethel, The Milk House, Beir Bua Journal, and Drunk Monkeys. His first collection of poetry and short fiction Indelible Fingerprints was published April 2019, followed Blood Honey and Cold Comfort House (2022, little punctures (2023), and Blind Turns in the Kitchen Sink (scheduled for late 2023). David has also written six poetry chapbooks, Punctures, PeripherieS, Eating Pears on the Rooftop, Golden Calves, Sour Grapes, Blue, and Brujeria (coming soon). Connect with David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidaestringel.com.