Of characters and reflections

Daily life is filled with reflective surfaces. I’ll leave it at that. Still, in this very room through the nearly fully curtained window overlooking the street, and depending on the light from outside or inside or both, a reflection can appear — maybe from the bathroom, the kitchen, my bedroom, or elsewhere. Just so you know, they couldn’t keep me in a so-called institution because the doctors and nurses aren’t stupid and they realized that even if I was a little paranoid, I wasn’t a danger to myself or anyone else. They discharged me to manage by myself, and luckily I didn’t have to go to a home and live with other discharged patients who are supervised by a social worker because I’d just received a small inheritance from my dear mother, may she rest in peace, and with my usual budgeting and moderation, it will last me several years. Excesses make you lose your serenity, lower your guard, and you can suddenly find yourself facing an unexpected reflection in a mirror or the porcelain of urinals in a bathroom bar, in the windows of a bus or a small window pane you pass while walking and thinking about things without taking the precaution of lowering your eyes.

He was the fairest among us, the one bearing the clear irises and the dark deep pupils where all our secrets could be drowned, all our fevers could be cooled

He was the finest man among us. He dared to speak up in the market and at the temple. He molested the concubines of the legislators; he snatched the purses of the tax collectors

He was the daring man in our neighbourhood. After accomplishing his feats, a price was put on his head; the posters with the head and the price were posted on the walls. He was run out of the city with guns and dogs

He was the hardest among us. He bore the cold and the wind, the early rain and the sun like melted gold. He was almost skin and bone, as the peasants who came from the mountains to sell at the market told us

He was the loneliest man on earth. His words were not even listened to by anyone. It seems that his brain was melted by the ray of fate as soon as he was born. Even the traits of his face were eager to fly from our attention. Some among us even said he’d never existed

He died as a dog, the miserable, the doubly cursed; when they came asking for him, we had already forgotten him. When they asked what he said to us, we discovered he’d always spoken a foreign language

There was a man that dwelt among us for a time. Now he is gone.

But there were no doors, no windows to look through, to be opened, to let the light in  

The days passed over his gray head frenziedly

and the pervasive teeming voices of the times deafened him.

The brutal city youngsters awoke with anguish caught in their throats

giving them a craving for violence.

The smashing of the highest windows of institutional buildings led to massacres

In outlaying territories

vast, coloured peoples taken from their traditional nomadic ways produced countless broods that were plundered by civil wars, epidemics, slavery and hunger.

A bard of mixed race, whose youthful days were giving way to maturity, was the only one to approach the already senile wise man, and was the one who muttered the preceding facts to him.

He was the first True Angel

whose cold fire would one day decimate mankind, extinguishing those not fit for the new days.

A great inner compassion was distilled from his possessed words.

The wise man returned to his tent on the outskirts of the city and sat on the floor, forgett

Are almost the same size
to people who see them
drinking coffee
or walking along Bank

They sound the same
on the phone:
“Hello, is Gabriela there?”
—Which one, the big or the little?
“To whom am I speaking,
the big or the little?”

So say the usual suspects
companions of thick and thin
though nowadays
it’s more the thin
than the thick
if you get my drift

Gabriela the Little is as big
as Gabriela the Big
who’s getting less big
like all of us as we get old
though she’ll never be as short
even if she gets to be a hundred
as the short Chilean women
who say

“My my, she’s a tall one
that Big Gabriela,”
as they look up

But not that tall
There’re people here who are much taller
and people who are quite short:
like someone I know
who can’t find shoes to fit
or reach high shelves
and complains that big people
consume too many resources
take up too much space
pollute the environment
and waste a lot of energy

She told me little people drink
to compensate for their size

So I asked her
what happens in Japan
then?

“Yes but,
nearly all the short people I know
drink heavily”

we see on the bus
in this city so small and so square
the woman, the husband, the small kids
in the last seat at the back of the bus
talking in Spanish
and you like a stalker
listening to them
the youngest looks at the canal
and says “agua, agua”
pointing with his finger
A Chinese or Cambodian girl
smooths her skirt
strokes some artificial orchids
while talking with another girl
articulating strange birds in their tongue
Outside the bus the streets
drab and void
the graceless concrete buildings
not a soul in the streets
and a young Black man gets off the bus
waves goodbye to someone
we can’t see
So maybe it was worthwhile after all
to have crashed here
and suddenly, silently
surprise them
listen to them, see them
shamelessly

At least for us
All the people
down there
so far away
in the other hemisphere
materialize like a bit of sunlight
in these circumstances.