The Dreams

AS: Thrown out, but yelled at and pushed, they did not want me, at the very least I will admit just that. This is why I came back. At least that is why I will stay: the dreams…there go the cold hallways, steps as inhuman peaks at the end of the world, a counter without use, everything scattered everywhere. He tripped and fell over the sheets. Fell over the stupor of the omens and the riddle. They thought that he would drift off, so that he would not say anything further. He does not know that in the dreams, all there is to do is to speak, already fell asleep…

And I woke up, but I remembered nothing. There was too much air in the world, and it made itself feel too vividly. Yes, I had fallen asleep… And the darkness was like whole-cloth invested with oldest secrets barely on the tip of my tongue, and again they hung from that transient presence we call the moon, which called me — there I was with my head on my ripped bag, of a tired glance astray, but the cold warmth, with that cold warmth, finding again and again that place so far gone where all the blurred inscriptions linger, the moon carries its pale glow on its back, and also hides it and shares, puts it into play, lets me, an offer, but as I followed its trail, without the need for thoughts, only then if not then, over that dead quiet field, because the insects did not sing, and the dew, before that dawn at once near and impossible, the dew, marking the anticipation that rolled round in the embrace of the great humidity, the dew did not fall from the leaf, it simply received the tender radiance of that solitary moon, because there were no stars, only then if not then, the white glow above slowly began to grow: it was no longer a point, and I think it was never a point, but an opening, wide and with two extremes — like the seed, that figure without a name, still allowing by denying it, the light, before that near and impossible light, which is always borrowed from there, suspended and everything suspended, between the sky and earth, like when one takes a step that is not taken, and only then, if it is not then, I will wake up.

I don't know how much time passed. But what does the rhythm of the drum have to do with time? Yes, that's one of the questions in the dream… And I was already around the university, trying to finish a book, when suddenly it was as if there had been a change in the surroundings. As if the flowers had become foreign. And when I looked at them closely, I found shapes and colors there that I did not even think were possible. Even the weeds were new. Even though there were many. A plaque read: “work of the farmer—” …And the shock almost brought me to tears when I understood that a person had prepared this land to grow what had never grown before. But I couldn't believe the name. It was the namesake for the least possible person. It didn't make sense. I couldn't find the joke, I didn't know where to look.

The joke tells itself; and even the most knowing laughter is of a slight surprise.

I didn't find it, so quickly that I dried these glossy eyes. She appeared, as if by invocation. I found her. She had her usual expression, nervous, emptied, as if skimming the surface of her surroundings in a flight without reason or rest. I asked her, “What's wrong with you?…” And she said, yesterday I found a beetle overturned around here. But I didn't dare to get closer. I was afraid it was deceiving me, or that it wasn't quite dead.

“And why?” Es-cara-abajo. That would never have occurred to me. That's why I held back my true question: why don't you take charge, make something great of this field? Another question beat me to it.

Why can't I forgive you? And another one beat me to it. Why does it have to be a moral? And a jocular voice proposed: the most mysterious moral: there is always a moral to be had.

The moral dwelled in the distant dwelling, Ca, the dwelling moral in the distant dwelled, Re, the in the, in the, Ca, the in, the moral dwelled in the distant dwelling, Re

We can't forgive you for not making something great of your land, and why?

We believe the flowers reach towards the sun; They are only looking for their place in the light.

I woke. The sheets had stuck to my skin. Dry, my throat was dry. Twisted, I twisted myself more to check the time, but I couldn't read the numbers, Barraza 305 989 90 61 Colombia 01573 0 310 Clinico Wxt. 34210 10 194 E and P Massachusetts #2 1 617 670 3854 122 Ma 02335 Apt 12 Cell P 1 588 321 3609 E 1 588 3087 Lina M. 1 760 638323 3761

Greenhill Lina M. zdoe.L12.ca.us Passport Feb 2006 — Feb 22, 2011 Last page says, “but if you can’t reveal the best you know to the children.” I woke up. The ants march nowhere through the deep ravine left by those twin mountains, and through which a sluggish stream flows, a desire to become snow again, so cold it turns under the twisted trees that embrace the cliffs in impossible suspensions, so small the ants become, marching nowhere, each one that could be counted 01573 0 310 1 760 638323 3761, when was it decided that they were going to be so small? It would only be if you were to separate them from the mountain. And when was it decided that it was going to be so big? It would only be if you were to separate it from the ants. And the separation is like the deep ravine through which the sluggish stream flows. I was one of the little ants marching nowhere. But I became so dizzy with those trees hanging and swaying, I fell into the cold water. I woke up.

The damp sheets clung to my body so that I could not get up, but to do what? I woke up.

Now I felt nothing, nothing. Blackness in every direction. Only my floating. I floated, or I sank. I waited. I waited. And just like that, the tempered voice of a great teacher told me: ‘To say’ is to give birth; ‘Saying’ is giving birth. And I woke.

Sitting somewhere, outside the classroom, on the grass, my gaze fixed on the ground. There was a leaf that didn't want to let go of its dewdrop. A fool is giving me explanations… I even feel sorry for him. He says that dreams borrow from repressed material. But what cannot be repressed is waking up; it is waking up. I woke.

I wasn't checking the time anymore, and somehow I had freed myself from the sheets. I was in front of my bedroom door, my hand on the doorknob, making the gesture I had used to open that door as I had opened it all my life, but this time it ultimately failed, it failed, as in a repetition that comes from I don't know where, and the threshold was no longer what it always was, but something unknown. Sleepwalking? My head hurts. I woke up.

A.S.: Flying! The dirty tears fall like lightning and I fly, I'm not lying, when I talk about the grime that runs where these noble cities founded on the fields, the "godless" fields and the concrete that melts into the ground, when I tell you that these voices from the open beg me with the world to let go of so many lamentations, am I not lying?

S.A.: No, but I'm deceiving you. From the safety of my antechamber I might even dream of some catastrophe. Could it be that I thought that was what I was missing? Considering the circumstances, it sounds like pure excuses. This submarine only surfaces when called upon, and it's a special occasion. When I passed by there, I didn't see much. But at least I can confess to you what I myself witnessed: there is no worse tragedy than Cartagena itself.

A.S.: And only the best, (the notebooks that keep track of their numbers inform me), only the best, I shall not reveal it. Perhaps that's why, speechless, gazing at the violet grace, my head aches, behind the portholes of this old submarine, and I lashed out against the forgotten corners of wooden drawers and brass knobs, scratching at the hidden vaults — I thought I was lost — sick, so many miseries when I focused on that strange violet grace, my throat tightens, oh well! My lip trembles — and the fist I clenched after the few hopes at the bottom of the abyss that this small desk holds, you're right! A murmur, and a dull thud, a locked treasure, the camera, and lustfully I cling firmly, I interlock my fingers, I suffer with anticipation — he gripped the weapon — he urgently aimed against the lost paradise in little less than an instant… The flash blinded him. And I even managed to glimpse the blank tape that the old machine showed me, but I woke.

Turning the doorknob halfway, and turning the doorknob halfway again, I managed to ask myself when I had fallen asleep…

But I couldn't even begin to think about it. Every time I chose the moment when I must have fallen asleep, it was clear that I had chosen one that was too far ahead, or too far behind, and that it was possible, but such a certain possibility, that I had fallen asleep a little earlier, a little later, until I had already reached the moment when I woke up.

S.A.: Ca, despropioni—so Re, cidopropilo—lu Ca, latrimetilamina—ci Re, propiteno—on.

Beyond the navel, is there a scar that can free you from the family? How to eat what I write? That must be the writer's question. Some say, live off it, make it your job. But they don't understand, eating is much more than a luxury, or a necessity. I hid under the shadow of those low clouds… each one had a body almost made of clay, and of any strong color. They ran tirelessly looking for little animals to eat, and they ate them with pleasure, in one bite, these humans. What really took time was the sacrifice. You couldn't eat alone. You had to gather enough people to offer them something of the little animal, and from there each one practiced the gathering differently. Perhaps because of this effort it was a half-hidden fact that these humans wanted to eat each other, but they neither admitted it nor fully succeeded. Sometimes they would exchange children, and that was enough for them… Where did their eagerness come from? It was as if eating always preceded the food, or was always delayed, eating never coincided with the meal, so they never stopped eating. Chaos. They ran and ran, and it was a tangled trail of blurred colors. A rainbow. And the more they ate, the bigger they became, and I already suspected, it was even said, that emerging from among the low clouds were two purple feet that never walked, and that belonged to the biggest human of all, with his head at the edge of the sky. What was he thinking? What was he eating? We never knew. From one moment to the next, the biggest one parted the low clouds with a delicate gesture. He carried a kind of nostalgia within him. Then, in one bite, he ate himself, sacrificing the sacrifice. We knew there wouldn't be so much running around anymore. I woke up.

But how could I have woken up if I hadn't fallen asleep at any single moment? The truth is, I only remember what happens after or before waking up. And so the door, so dark, wouldn't budge, and it was starting to scare me, what possessed me? But it was as if just when I was about to give up, I woke up.

The Virgin Mary wore fabrics in which she had never been seen before… And she wasn't standing on the arms of an angel, but on the waning moon. She must have appeared because the mountain was enjoying a slower, more delicate sunrise. But those fabrics… only one word came to me, greca. And that was the pattern they wore, rolling in a mesmerizing display. Greca, I had never heard it before. The word felt like a seed, perhaps a seed deep in the earth, so imperceptible: like the cycles of life and death. But why are you wearing those patterns? She didn't answer me.

The question resonates with each morning that dawns so slowly, with the indifferent tenderness of the sunrise: what will the Virgin Mary wear today?

The clothes the craftsman prepared for her… Because even if it's not her clothes, something has to be made.