A treat for our first Halloween! In this supernatural tale of one man’s sudden encounter with death, Cuban writer Esther Díaz Llanillo invites the reader into the ghostly space above ground, while a body still clinging to its senses reminds us that life, like many other projects, is always an unfinished business.
Through the Back Door*
They put me in that sack, leave through the back door of the building, and toss me in the alley. The sack is uncomfortable. The ground, hard. The alley, dirty, long and narrow, runs between two avenues. All of the windows are closed. No one is interested in the spectacle of bare brick walls. I stay as I am, with the weariness of waiting. The rain falls, the hours pass, and it lets up; no one pays any attention to the body.
Floating high above I see a beggar draw near, stake out a spot beyond the dumpster with newspapers and cardboard, and lie down to spend the night. Everything should be dark, but there is a full moon. A feline takes a running start and pounces. Its claws take hold of the burlap; I hear the dying squeal of a small, trapped rodent. Hidden by the shadow of the back door, two people embrace. A policeman walks by me, indifferent, taking a shortcut down the length of the straight alley. My body stays the same. Trapped in the sack. Time, without excuses, continues passing…
I can still remember that intense pain in the back of my head. I ask myself why I met such an absurd end. Was it a robbery? Revenge? I really don’t know. What could I possibly have that they would want (apart from my life)? Perhaps my father’s gold-plated wristwatch is no longer in the apartment. Perhaps neither is the money from the paycheck I cashed yesterday, or the computer where I finished writing my novel, nor the novel itself, saved on the hard drive. And what about the article that I didn’t finish writing and that I was supposed to turn in to the editor tomorrow? My personal papers were still in desk drawer (at least, they used to be). How uncertain life is when death is so real!
It’s late. Night drags on slowly and unceasingly. Silence. I think about the people who’ve disappeared, how lonely they must feel, and about my unburied body, inside the sack. I flitter up and down the alley. The beggar rests with the restlessness of the hungry, who still love life. A fetid stench creeps along the corners. Perhaps it’s the beggar, or the dumpster, or maybe… No, it’s too soon for that.
The night becomes long and feverish. I continue hovering while my body weighs heavily inside the sack, ever closer to the rocks on the ground, more at one with them. In a few hours it will swell, it will decompose and not even I will be able to recognize it. It bothers me that I can’t see myself neatly laid out in the middle of the alley, at the end of the line.
This night of insomnia has seemed to just go on and on. Luckily, I hear the morning street noises, and the rustling pile of cardboard and newspapers that opens up to let the beggar emerge. The sun lights up the city, but only shadows and an intense heat reach the alley, drying the dew from the walls like the touch of a glove. You can hear the noise of vehicles coming from the avenues on either end. People pass by slowly and wearily, carrying their hopes in their pockets. It’s a day of rest. The policeman is coming back. The silent starkness of the walls is broken by the precise voices of children who come in to play. One kid hides behind the dumpster. The other one runs, trips on the sack and falls face down on my fortunate body. The sack opens and shows my pasty face, with its eyes riveted on the sky. I hear the boy’s scream of surprise and his sharp voice piercing the walls and waking echoes down the alley.
“Officer, come quick! There’s a man lying there!”
In an instant all the windows open. In minutes people gather. Someone, from the second floor, identifies me.
“He’s the neighbor from upstairs. The journalist. It looks like he’s dead.”
More police come and seal off the alley. Crime scene investigators arrive, as does the coroner. They examine me. They seal my body in a black bag. They lift me. They place me in a white vehicle through the back door and they take me away.
*From About Spirits & Other Mysteries, forthcoming late 2016 from Cubanabooks. Translated from the original Spanish by Manuel Martínez.
Original photograph by Karla Demirel, “El Tiempo en Mi” (The time within me). 2015). All Rights Reserved. Karla Demirel (Guadalajara 1970) is a Mexican photographer. A member of the Igersguadalajara mobile photography collective, her work has been exhibited throughout Mexico.