One hundred and one

 

Translation by

Margarita M. Arboleda M.

CONTENT

Insomnia

Lack of Appetite

Pain

Tiredness

Sex

Paranoia

Death. Suicide?

Fear

Recovery

Before the Fence

“The eye that you see is not an eye because you see it.

                                                         It is an eye because it sees you.”

 

        Antonio Machado

INSOMNIA

 

 

I can’t sleep. It’s three in the morning already and I can’t sleep. Antonio went to bed early, around eight and now, at four in the morning, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep. He’s trying to forget about the time, but the clock on the nightstand keeps on reminding him of it—minute by minute—. What’s going on? It’s his ghost again. He doesn’t have many things to be concerned about, or at least that’s what he believes, his daughter is doing fine, and his wife, well, his wife is sleeping next to him. Then, what’s going on? Why hasn’t his brain turned off? That’s his only worry, he can’t fall asleep.

I get up and go to the bathroom. I come back to bed and I can’t stop tossing and turning. I lay face up, on a side, on a fetal position, face down. I lay in every imaginable position and I’m not comfortable in any of them. I close my eyes and open them again. I look for shadows on the ceiling and on the walls. I turn again—sigh—I think about all the things I have to do today; the bills to pay, my work at the factory, buying milk for Paula, go visiting my mother…I try to think about something nice, a beach maybe. A faraway, quiet place where the sun is on me, the breeze is ever present and the sea is always there. I think about this and I try to relax my muscles, my tired legs. I try, but I can’t. Antonio is tense, worried. He feels strange, his heart racing, and he doesn’t belong to that body of his. He’s tired and sleep doesn’t come to him and waiting for him makes him feel more restless. 

The minutes go by, one second after the other, and they remind him of the same: he can’t fall asleep. He looks at the nightstand watch and it’s 4:04 a.m. He closes his eyes and feels like a lot of time is passing…when he opens his eyes again, it’s 4:06 a.m. No way. He gets up and goes to the kitchen to drink some warm milk. His aunt says that helps you fall asleep. He drinks it, he get his tongue burned. Ouch, it burns. He comes back to the bedroom. His wife is deeply asleep. Sheep? Yes, sheep…it occurs to him that he can start counting them one, two, three, four, as they jump the fence. Wait. One of them stops. She can’t jump. She looks at the fence, her flock is on the other side and her sisters are on a line behind her. Beee…Beee…the fence is way beyond what her eyes can see. The sheep thinks about it. She meditates on it. There’s no way out. She must do something; she makes a decision, she crouches and crosses under the fence. 102, 103, 104…Antonio yawns; finally sleepy again. No, that’s not the truth. It was just a moment. His eyelids have forgotten how it is that you make yourself fall asleep. He then chooses to follow that weird sheep—she’s not a black one—she’s just a regular sheep on a field without a shepherd. Wait a minute: he is the shepherd, and the wolf, well, the wolf is his wife.

One Hundred and One is complete and seeking an editor.
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