The Transmigration of Bodies

People are fools, she said. They spend their whole lives getting stuck with pins and act like nothing’s wrong, they just leave them there, and then one day they go and scratch someone’s eyes out.

Mezcal, so good so true. Distilled filth to filter his filth inside. He slammed the glass on the table and poured a third. Shots made him a better man: his teeth whitened, his wit quickened, his stiff hair stayed kempt and acted like it gave a shit.

Better to scratch the wound than bandage it: those who lose a child shouldn't be consoled; parents die to make room for their kids, not the other way around. He wasn't being cruel, he just thought a gash that deep had to be respected, not swaddled over with cuddles.

The scene had the innocence of all unsettling things that take place in silence.

That's why we make enemies of our friends as soon as they start to drift, he thought, cos that way they get stuck with all our flaws, unlike when they're shared. Maybe brief friendships are best. If you pull out in time, the vices are all theirs.

When did we stop burying those we love with our own hands?

It’s always the other guy’s religion that’s a sect, isn’t it?

…but then came another blow and something in him disconnected, like he’d been detached from a rock and was falling through an open pit, dark and icy, a pit with no walls and no end.

We never know how much we actually hate one another, the Redeemer thought, until we’re locked in a room together.

He knew he wasn’t dreaming because his dreams were so unremarkable. If ever he managed to sleep several hours in a row, he dreamed, but his dreams were so lifelike they provided no rest: only small variations on his everyday undertakings and his everyday conversations and everyday fears. Occasionally his teeth fell out, but aside from that it was just everyday stuff. Nothing like this.

De repente empezó a salivar; su boca ya no era un desierto con zopilotes volando en círculos sobre la lengua, era una calle atragantándose, una alcantarilla desbordada.

Esto era como si hubiera dormido en un elevador y al despertarse las puertas estuvieran abiertas en un piso que no sabía que existía.

He always found it a miracle that anyone wanted his company. Women especially— men will cuddle a rock. When he first started getting laid he couldn’t quite believe that the women in his bed weren’t there by mistake. Sometimes he’d leave the room and then peer back in, and then peer in again, incredulous that a woman was actually lying there naked, waiting for him. As if. In time he found his thing: fly in like a fool to start, then turn on the silver tongue. Talk and cock, talk and cock, yessir. One time a girl confessed that Vicky, his friend the nurse, had given her a warning before she introduced them. Take one look and if you don’t like what you see don’t even say hi or you’ll end up wanting to fuck. Best thing anyone ever said about him. It didn’t matter that they never came back, or rarely. He didn’t mind being disposable.