Sofa

by me

I remember when sister Gertrude came to us with the story about viejo Roberto's other family. I only recall her distressed face when she asked me: "what is going to happen with Melissa, manito?" She told us about José, he went to Maracay for school and he met his own brother there. This would be their first encounter. "They had the same name, the same surname, it was a crazy thing. They even attended the same lecture.”

“Manito, Melissa can't go through a divorce.” —And we are talking about the 90's, when practically everyone in Caracas was going through a divorce and all caraqueñas (and caraqueños) were laying on Chirinos' sofa. Nevertheless, sister Gertrude was a conservative and pragmatic woman. "She had to go over this matter with her daughter Melissa without hesitation or guilt." she said. "She is the wife, the other one is the mistress, or… just the other", clucked sister Gertrude. 

Time went by and everything was left in the past. Viejo Roberto's son became best friends with his brother. None of them were considered bastards, everything was peaceful and bright, until Melissa started dating her nephew in law and started to rest her head twice a week on Dr. Chirinos' divan. You know what they say, if you have bad thoughts about family the only thing that is left for you to do is to think on Dr. Chirinos, the psychiatrist, and sitting in his caraqueño's sofa. 

Manifesto of the Communist Party ( Capítulo venezolano )

All of us, who were the cream of the crop of the communist party, are no longer communists. All of us, who were strafing rangers' houses or police nests, are no longer the watchers, the bank robbers, nor the kidnappers. Nothing gave me happiness; nothing calmed me nor gave peace to my soul. Those of us who believed that we were Eden's gardeners, and because of that believed we would have taken care of those laboratories that were located deep in the garden, became entrepreneurs, business people, you know? We all know Robin Hood’s myth about stealing from the rich to give to the poor, we had been selling the soul of the highest bidder to keep Eden into Genesis Corporations. You know, from the very earliest childhood, you know - the earliest everything everything everything everything you know. We are no longer the cream of the crop, we are worst.

Us who once were but no longer are, will be us whom will not be as we are, but we were not what we will be. 

We started giving everything, all of us, even the land of childhood's dreams. Because we had to learn to cripple, we mounted a .45 and applauded murders of murderers, we had to put the bullets in the comb, to put the bullet into a watermelon, into our own mother's leg, to bust a slug into something already rotten, to put everything on the table, a chicken and a knife. There's something, there's no one anymore. We had to set the table to set up death and life.

Now we are just singing anthems and all of them sound the same. New things, new things like old shoes buried in the depths of a mountain of garbage destined to oblivion.