I didn't die, I woke up Read online

  I didn't die, I woke up

  Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  Translated by Eduardo L Rosario y Diego Andrés Sánchez G

  “I didn't die, I woke up”

  Written By Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  Copyright © 2018 Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Eduardo L Rosario y Diego Andrés Sánchez G

  Cover Design © 2018 NyxFeratu

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  I didn't die, I woke up

  3 Tales of Death | Author: Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo | Cover page: Nyxferatu | Translation: Eduardo L. Rosario and Diego Andrés Sánchez Gutiérrez | For my 3 children

  Dumuzi

  In pace

  I DIDN'T DIE, I WOKE UP

  3 Tales of Death

  Author: Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  Cover page: Nyxferatu

  Translation: Eduardo L. Rosario and Diego Andrés Sánchez Gutiérrez

  For my 3 children

  Free us, Domine

  1. Ab initio

  Not long ago Frida and José Miguel had planned a trip to Veracruz, a trip that was not a vacation or a walk; it was a trip for a considerable time, just as its importance.

  The meticulous planning was not done together, because they were not together, they did not even know each other, they could not have any idea that their names would be linked by that trip, because in that perfect plan there was no ligation to anyone, in no way.

  Frida was 18 years old living a life that did not satisfy her old soul or her senses; that's why she was fleeing that day. She was running away from a beautiful family united like few others. She lived in a perfect home in the state of Morelos, Mexico; nothing more and nothing less than in Cuernavaca, "the city of eternal spring". Hers was an escape from the supposed happiness that made her an unhappy being. No, please do not ask me to try to explain this, the most reasonable gloss that I can provide is that, sometimes, we have everything that everyone wants and we crave that as impossible as imperfect in a world where nobody can have everything. I don’t know! The best thing would have been to ask her. Frida was like this all her life, always incongruous or difficult to the common understanding. Her brothers and sisters opened her eyes lovingly so that she would notice the thousand and one reasons she had to be happy and Frida saw them, yes she saw them, but she said she needed a little unhappiness, even if it's a small reason to spill at least a fair part of the tears that were bubbling in her body and that, because she was born privileged, she could not, much less should, keep containing.

  ***

  José Miguel had also had a difficult life; that is, normal! Not that Frida's was not, but Frida, as we saw, was incomprehensible; José Miguel's life was "normal" in his suffering, which was understandable. Or that it was in plain sight.

  He was seventeen then and had always had to fight for what he wanted. Being male among two others, he had to demonstrate a strength of character within a middle-class family (going down to low-class); I mean something that may be poverty in Europe and a comfortable life in Africa, if I may portray it like that. José Miguel did not have a father; not with him, because we all have one. He and his brothers were all what his mother had to "move forward", but she tried to respect his passions, yes. José Miguel wished to be a bullfighter, like any good young man of Huamantla, He wanted it and he fought for that... What? What the hell is Huamantla? True; Huamantla is what in Mexico is known as a "Pueblo Mágico[1]", a town with strong indigenous and colonial roots still visible in every cultural aspect, famous for happy and unhappy activities (not all the Magical Towns have this last characteristic, Huamantla does). An example of the unfortunateness of Huamantla is the "celebration" of the "Fiesta Brava[2]". The inhabitants of Huamantla, despite having other prides, boast of breeding fighting bulls, bullfighters, and of drunken throats that tempt death in a tracing of the Spanish Pamplona sadly known as the "Huamantlada". Roughly, that's Huamantla, a small old town, picturesque and ghostly within the old, picturesque and ghostly Tlaxcala...

  What is Tlaxcala? Enough! God! You have internet! Now let me continue...

  Suffice to say that José Miguel wanted to be a bullfighter, but, after his younger brother ended his life in a car accident, he could no longer pretend that he would make a living with something for which, to date, he had not shown any gift.

  ***

  Frida planned the date; the place, of course, was already established in her mind: in certain vacations she was in Veracruz with her family and she fell in love with that graceful earth pore, with its disoriented historical ghosts, of its seductive cultural wealth, its talkative people very open at all times to joy and pain; to the heat and the nortes which is what they call the icy storms that turn the secular port into a gray and threatening one. But, above all, Frida fell in love with the University that offered the career that she considered perfect for her personality. Her parents did not allow it, because of her character more than anything, since at her age she had been cited with more psychologists than with boys, despite being very attractive. Her parents considered her immature and incapable of living alone and they asked her to forget about that dream in exchange for one they built and gave door to others, but close to them, always close to them.

  From the day she met Veracruz, Frida kept every coin her hands received, and there were many. Instead of going to the University and the clubs like anybody of his age, she gave hours, which did not seem so, to detail routes, to know streets, houses, people... to find her place; the one who was empty without her, the one who could not exist without her.

  It is laughable, now, to say that Frida was fleeing towards unhappiness because, in honor of the truth and seeing it, as they say, "from the outside" one would say that she was looking for the opposite. But let's not forget that everything is a question of perspectives. She could see a deliciously depressing loneliness that would make her appreciate every material thing that surrounded her, living or dead. Her longed-for career in Art History would make her an expert titled in her hobbies. Inconceivably, people would pay her to listen to the ravings that "her" appreciation of the beautiful caused her.

  ***

  José Miguel, at that time, was analyzing the most viable of his decisions, the one that would give him a future and in which he would be comfortable: belonging to the “Heroica Escuela Naval Militar[3]” in Veracruz. He did all the rigor tests before going. He did not want to endure a disappointment there. He did not want to return with that jumble of defeat in his stomach that always bothered him when he left the arena and that he calculated would be intolerable in this new and definitive enterprise. He did not need to save his money, as his older brother studied and worked in such a way that no one had to worry about his mother; more than just keeping her busy and isolated from the plaintive memory of her "baby", more than just that?

  Rigoberto, the energetic and cheerful remaining brother of our protagonist encouraged him at all times. He helped him pack his bags and tell her mother ‘see you soon’ - no goodbyes. He definitely did not say goodbye forever, both convinced the woman that all this would happen faster than she feared, that the times would come when the liquid that would abound in that house would be the champagne of the toasts for successes in replacement of the tears of unwanted separation and, much less, accepted.

  (Oh yes, the Mexican dreams of toast with champagne, although he always toasts with tequila or pulque; I think it's because that's what tastes better around here, in the end).

&n
bsp; ***

  So it was that they left their homes, him: with kisses, blessings, longings, trust and good looks; and her: in silence, without tears or smiles, without a goodbye, without permission or apology, without entreaties or precautions, without resentment.

  Later their families discovered the powerful emptiness that a person leaves only among the people who love him or her, exclusively there.

  Their routes were still far away, she read and studied her plan, he nervously reviewed the list of requirements for the College. They could not sleep in that first part of the trip because they could not . There was so much to think about, so much to foresee, so much to admit, so much to forget. Their bodies collided at the Puebla Bus Station. She was with her eyes on a map of Veracruz and the printed page of a local electronic newspaper of her destination; he was rubbing his travel ticket in his stamp of the Virgen de los Dolores, for only an eternally disconsolate tearful mother could help him at all times; she could do for him what his own progenitor would do, if she were by his side. After the collision, those bodies did not notice each other, those bodies continued to rush after their souls. There could not be, therefore, an "apology", an "I'm sorry" or a "look where you're going", no. That collision was imperceptible to both. Their world did not admit more people than the one that they had in mind and that lived in the future, the future that was devouring them every minute without them noticing.

  The word "Veracruz" crowning the vehicle that would take them closer to that future, was what most came to join them a moment later, because, in seconds, the two looked at it with the same intensity and obsession. Their gazes let go the word until the boarding call reached their ears.

  The ticket with the correct date, June 6th, all went well. He, trained gentleman, gave way to her when they met in the first seat. She could barely notice his youthful beauty, and her eyes still looked at that being in which she was rushing to give life.

  He did notice her, she was visibly perfect for him, for a smooth Tlaxcalteca hybrid of gallantry and melancholy. Frida drew attention for her Gothic style, her beautiful eyes made up at will to appear a constant weeping and sorrow, her black clothes that did not hide the wild voluptuousness which her body had sculpted by itself. The most spectacular thing was her eyebrows, two thin, long, black lines that created the illusion of having been careful brushstrokes of God. It did not matter the state of Frida's mood, her eyebrows always stayed the same, and maybe it was because her thin face showed no traces of movement in any way.

  Her small, mouth clean of makeup, speech and kisses was visible even when the color of that skin resembled that of the rest of her face. «Face of arena sand», thought José Miguel as he looked at her, «eyebrows of an immutable beauty that awaits with masterly hidden hunger an "Olé!" to shed all his sexual heat with the air of a fan that would throw his broken and long black hair towards the thin neck that makes you want to catch to steal the first kiss of that obviously virgin face ». José Miguel emerged with the rehearsed grimace of a Casanova, after having so long postponed the act. Maybe he did have only one gift from the ideal bullfighter: the coveted "matador's poise"; making a single attempt to get the attention of that girl, he straightened up on his hardened buttocks. So, his small waist and formidable torso, in a thin brown knit sweater, made her turn back to him, in that instant, the always lost look of Frida...

  “Good trip" seemed to say mute the lips of her, while each letter of these words changed the tone of her cheeks.

  José Miguel did not know how to respond, or he did not want to do it so that she would record well the image that he had given only to her. Frida appreciated the beauty, and savored at leisure the huge black eyes saddened, the dark-haired face, the black, angular and bushy eyebrows, the thick neck, the thin chin under tender lips, with no doubt delicious, the abundant violet-colored and escarolated black hair, the all that made up the angel-man who had dreamed of guarding her eternally. Even if she would not see him again, his memory would be enough to serve as a model for the male figures that she would have to judge as beautiful.

  Their plans hit their reason hard when the robust driver turned on the engine of the bus, they could not think more about the person who was at their side, they should not. José Miguel glanced at the rest of the passengers and smiling, his lips sealed, he wished that what they were there for would go well for everyone. He waited a few seconds for the answering smile that would make him feel that they wanted the same for him : only two after the collection, a child in the arms of his absentminded mother, and a man in a business suit; enough, more than enough.

  Frida got tired and turned her back to him an hour after starting the trip, José Miguel did the same; as much as they could in that small space. Maybe because they had not slept well, maybe because their energies were infected with fatigue; the two were deeply asleep. No dreams, no more images, no more plans, no more world.

  The dream of both was interrupted by a strange wave of invisible energy, it was hot a second and in three it was already cold. It had touched every inch of them and seemed to have moved their hair and changed their heart rate. The eyes opened at the same time, the bodies jumped alike and the glances met with the same silent question.

  “Did you feel that?”

  Given the obviousness of the response there was no further comment on the matter.

  “"I think we're arriving, right? I felt the temperature change.”", she began.

  “"I don’t know, I've only been to Veracruz once, I don’t know if we're arriving soon because I fell asleep and lost track of time.”" responded José Miguel, resuming his conqueror performance. "”Yeah..."” Looking at the road Frida recognized the place. “"I think we are three quarters of an hour away, I am not sure, I have not traveled this road a lot, that is, in reality".”

  “"What do you mean"?” He asked her, smiling.

  “"In dreams I have already come here several times".”

  Their laughter filled the peaceful atmosphere of the bus with life, the people and the rest of the planet were reappearing as they returned to reality.

  “"I understand what you're saying"”, he continued with ease. “"I do not know the route, the destination of course even less, but some time ago I saw myself here and... Good thing it's not just a dream anymore! Right?”

  “"Not anymore”", she smiled, glad.

  One more gift had brought that strange energy, both looked even more perfect for each other, as the talk progressed, all the details became insanely beautiful, they did not find a place in that other being that had something unpleasant or unacceptable, the desires that had been placed together on that bus were being crushed by the one who demanded to feel the other, to touch that new dream with every inch of the reborn skin.

  That was, without doubt, the beginning of something that they knew they would live one day and that came for both prematurely, and out of all calculation.

  The talk was about the place of their ideals, also about the personal details that made them know each other a little more. She was the best guide that he had known and he, the most passionate audience she would have expected.

  “"You know this place very well, Frida".”

  “"I studied it so much".”

  “"You even bring all this lodging information, it's fabulous! I think I'll stick with you to get a cheap place to stay in before being accepted into the School".”

  “"Of course! Then we will not feel so lonely".”

  “"I do not know if you believe me, but for the first time, in my whole life, I do not feel so alone".”

  “"Why are you looking at me like that? Do not do it".”

  “"How?”

  “"Like that, as people look when they fall in love".”"What's wrong with that? Your eyes are not too shy either"."We're here! Prepare your things! " "Will you help me with the lodging? I promise not to look at you the way you say"."Silly, you are the owner of your eyes, of what they see and the way they want to see it, also of the idea that you make of it. I can tell you that
the sea that we see appearing between the buildings is gray and disgusting, but if you insist on seeing it greenish-blue and beautiful, this is how it will always be for you". "Well then, I maintain that that sea is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life"."You are not looking at the sea, José Miguel". "Maybe I'm seeing it". If the reader has ever fallen in love, and of course he has done it, since he reads, he will know perfectly what José Miguel saw and everything he felt to have painted a face of a total fool that bothered and flattered Frida at the same time."...Sorry to laugh, I'm not used to this kind of conversations, I'm not used to anything I've lived since I left home...come on, let's get ready to get off the bus, and do not worry, of course I'll help you get your lodging, you'll see, I know a hostel, cheap and it's beautiful; It has garnet painted walls, according to the last satellite image, and it's an old house, one of those with high ceilings and adobe walls, have you seen them? ""Of course, I'm from Huamantla". "Sure, I do not know Huamantla, really. Anyway, as I was saying... "

  ***

  Frida and José Miguel, as their names come together in our narration, as they joined together from that moment, suddenly there was nothing else in Veracruz that was more important than being close to each other. They found the guest house that Frida had been looking for and, it was just as she had described it, very comfortable and economical. It was the best they could find and, in any case, they were too inattentive to do anything else. When they had to separate the first night, when they had to give themselves up, when they were supposed to sleep peacefully, they did not. That is, they slept separately, but the minds were ceasing to be virgins before them and the sleeping parts of their bodies began to shout "PRESENT" like little children who want to be noticed by their teacher.