Chinchorro

          Había una noche negra y no habían estrellas en el cielo. Estaba lloviendo poco. Conduje a mi casa de la universidad, donde asistí a una clase de noche, antropología. Esa clase, el profesor nos habló de una momia de América del Sur, el Chinchorro. Mientras pensaba en la clase, ¡algo corrió por la calle! ¿Un gato? ¿Un perro? Perdí el control del carro y casi choco con un árbol pero paré el carro justo a tiempo. Tenía miedo. Estaba sola en un bosque en una carretera en el campo sin un casa a la vista.
          Cuando mi corazón se desaceleraba, comencé a conducir, pero el motor del carro no funcionaba. ¡El carro no arrancó! Utilicé el teléfono celular para llamar a mi hermano para pedir ayuda. Sonó uno, dos…
<< ¿Hola? >>
<< Hola, Justin. ¡Es urgente que me ayudes! ¿Hola? ¿Hola? >>
          Pero el celular se apagó por que la batería se agoto. Entonces, oí un sonido… Fue un sonido de miedo del baúl. De repente, la luz del coche se apagó. Entonces, sentí algo en mi brazo, algo caminó lentamente arriba mi brazo. Cuando miré en el espejo, la mano de la momia agarró mi garganta. ¡Yo grité! Pero, llevaba mi collar y tan pronto como la momia me tocó el collar, que se convirtió en polvo. La luz del coche se prendió, y el coche se arrancó como nada ocurrió. Por eso conduje a mi casa. También, por eso, siempre llevo mi collar y por eso hay una aspiradora en mi carro.

           Es imposible pero es verdad, y se dice que la momia esta en el bosque todavía…

Esta foto es de http://saladehistoria.com/wp/2009/05/02/momias-chinchorro-2/

Change: short story

Change

     Today I spun in 5 circles, my eyes blurred, my head swam in only the way vertigo takes over. Then I spun in 5 circles more. And each revolution, each full circle renewal, the world changed.
The world, that big blue ball always spinning, always changing. Blink once and notice all the changes, this moment will never happen again. Did you miss it? Did you let it slip by or did you reach out your gnarled fingers and claw away at the fabric that holds together your space and time? What if you lied and didn’t blink at all, but kept your eyes wide with amazement or fear or indifference or arrogance? It doesn’t matter, everything already changed. And it just did it again, and again.

     That little nugget, niche, bubble where you curled the world around your finger, the little finger, the one most powerless to show the ease at which you control that little nugget, niche, bubble of your world, you don’t have control of anything. There are forces beyond your conception that shape the environment around you, from the movement of air due to changes in pressure inside your cozy house and the outside where a storm rages, the bacteria floating on that air current, the mouse lifting his nose to sniff your dinner as the air wafts by.

     You have no control. Not even of yourself. You are a bundle of chemicals that respond to other chemicals that are responding to the bacteria that just flitted into your nasal cavity, escaped the cilia that sweeps pathogens into mucus and down your throat. Your bundle can change with the release of one hormone, or the lack of another hormone. Maybe that’s just your physical body. We humans are sentient beings, our minds are above our mere chemical bodies. Ah, and what if you were injected with heroin or a thousand other chemicals, your mind is as lost as a mouse in a maze without the sense of smell.

     So you have no control, of yourself, of your environment, of the world. You are reactionary. And so you react. And you fall into the loops, positive and negative feedback, perpetuate the stimulus or shut it off. Eventually anticipatory, shut it off before the stimulus begins or starting before there is something to start with. This is chemical, this is responsive and yet revolutionary, you’ve changed something from that chemical self through reaction to make a significant difference. One revolution, one blink, one chemical, and the whole world changed from your one little nugget, niche, bubble. Butterfly flapping its wings, hurricanes rage, pressures change, air currents form, bacteria floats, internal chemicals recognize pathogens, you either live or you die.

     Maybe I should spin more often, or not. It doesn’t matter, everything will still change.

I lie: a short story

I lie

     Maybe its because I’m a writer. Maybe I just want the story to sound a little better. Maybe not. My life becomes sparkly when I add a word, one word for you, one for me. Sparkly like the reflection off the face of a watch when the sun shines off of it and I redirect it to form a circle just below your eye, just enough to get your attention, maybe scare you a bit, but in the end, not harmful at all. And certainly not the sparkle of a drop of shiny red, defined by the stark, swinging, overhead bulb, on the tip of a sharp and pointed knife. Such a high lying life would surely make my testimony untrustworthy. If you think I am lying, I will never discover your truths, and if I never discover your truths, I will never be able to tell your story. I have great, the greatest, respect for the truth, holding it at arms length lets me admire its beauty from afar and then examine it like a seasoned coroner examining a victim.
     Now you expect me to tell a story, and invite you to determine the truth and the lies within. Maybe you need me to tell you the true story of that little part of town where you grew up, but can no longer remember because the details have drifted away from your memory, hiding behind your present, chaotic life. Maybe you need me to lie to you about that time when you were 8 or 9, playing in that abandoned house with the neighborhood kids and how you left Milly, three whole grades below you, in the basement, all alone.
     Maybe you don’t need my stories. You wouldn’t be able to determine truth from fiction, not like this, not merely through the untrustworthy black pixels dancing on your screen, capable of changing with a simple click of your mouse and a tap of a key. And to you, the skeptical one who wouldn’t believe the truth if I etched it into the monolith of granite standing three stories high in Earth Sciences, and yet wouldn’t believe the lies either, to you, I will only lean forward and whisper in your ear the words you have been waiting your whole life to hear. And as I take a step back, you will look at me first with confusion, then anger when you will banish me from your life.
     Maybe days, maybe years later, you will be reading the news online, smiling smugly to yourself, and then you will remember my words. That is the moment you have a choice to earn redemption or forever be dammed. And in that moment, you won’t think about whether I had lied to you, shining light in your eye, or whether I had discovered the truth and shared the sparkle with you, because it doesn’t matter, my lying or not. It matters only that you believe me, and at that moment, you will believe me, and you will tell me your truths and I will tell your story and we shall see how many people believe you.

     Now come close because I will only whisper it once.

First draft: March 20, 2010
Inspiration: INTEG 221: Social Epistemology and Testimony and maybe some other ideas floating in the air

Light

     The lights in the city are bright at night. This has the advantage of illuminating interior spaces, but the distinct disadvantage of turning windows into mirrors when the peaceful, bright-eyed residence looked out into the night. The mirrors have some holes, where a street lamp creates a ball of light on the pavement, or when the headlights of a speeding car slam against the glass, but in general, the night beyond the walls is black to all those inside.

     Years and years ago, back and back and back, the sea covered this land. The light sparkled across the waters, playing in the waves, diving down to tickle the fish. It was much warmer then than it is now, tropical with life scrambling over each other, sleeping on top of one another, abundant. The great fish ate the small fish who ate the small crawling creatures who ate the creatures the size of specs who lived by being tickled by the sun.

     Imagine the solace, the silence, and the serenity of the shallow sea. A group of jellyfish flitting about the water column, allowing the waves and current to disperse them. Imagine something like a sea snail slowly pushing its foot out of its shell, slowly gliding across the sand in search of food. Imagine a colony of colourful coral swaying with the current, soaking up the sun and growing towards the light. Peaceful, purposeful, and playful.

When the lights were turned off and the sun turned on and day followed night, the city found a cold body laying on a fossilized bed of coral, sleeping past the break of day and never to wake again. And with all the light in the night, no one saw a thing.