The Houseguest and Other Stories

The daily exercise of suffering gives one the gaze of an abandoned dog and the colour of a ghost. - Fragment of a Diary [July to August]

Of course it was painful that it had happened in such a sad and disagreeable way, but things don't happen the way we imagine they will--they happen the way they must.

It was a true stroke of genius to measure suffering by degrees, to assign different categories and limits. Some say that pain lasts forever and never runs out; but I believe that past the 10th degree of my scale, all that’s left is the memory of pain, hurting only in recollection. At the beginning of my training I believed it was best to ascend the scale gradually. Very quickly I found this to be a poor experience. The knowledge and perfection of pain requires flexibility, a wise application of its categories and nuances, and an arbitrary rehearsal of its degrees. To move with ease from the 3rd to the 8th degree, from the 4th to the 1st, from the 2nd to the 7th, and then run through them in rigorous ascending and descending order . . . I hate to interrupt this interesting explanation, but there’s water beneath my feet.

I wanted this day to be over, to wake up without that knot in my throat, without the mind-numbing sense of being torn apart.

She wasn’t bad at all- to be honest with herself, she had to admit that she looked quite good, but how sad, what awful luck that this body, so well formed, would wither away in the shadow of solitude, without knowing a single caress, a single moment of pleasure. She couldn’t help lamenting it.

—Esta situación no puede continuar —le dije un día a Guadalupe. —Tendremos que hacer algo y pronto —me contestó. —¿Pero qué podemos hacer las dos solas? —Solas, es verdad, pero con un odio… Sus ojos tenían un brillo extraño. Sentí miedo y alegría.

Nos hemos buscado a tientas desde el otro lado del mundo, presintiéndonos en la soledad y el sueño. Aquí estamos. Reconociéndonos a través del cuerpo