To @wakeupkitty, @solperez.

The rules exist to be broken. I kept thinking about the phrase carved into the wall. This was not a free territory; it was a hostile zone. People moved like automatons, with limp, burdensome lives, surrounded by dogs and bedbugs. The fountains offered putrid, green-gray water. Everything was gray on the outskirts. Colors were forgotten, like looking through a convex lens that forced you to see the world differently. I had no expectations. Only asphalt and blasphemies crawling from every direction. Dying was no source of pride; neither was living.

We had escalators we never used, never used beyond the tourist joke and the rusting, yellowed iron. The streetlights’ cables were like tangled, stupid manes. Poles and caterpillars in an immobile, sweltering spring. We had tall buildings, bankrupt hotels, and small boats that deserved their own story and their own grave.

We rolled tobacco to have something to chew. We chewed roots and planted children in wombs that were not so virginal. New automatons grew. The laws were rewritten, and the craft of painting and writing was restructured. Life in its agony and its highest expression. A media prisoner, with horrible paintings. Was it part of the art? My little seven-year-old prince could surpass it with ease. It would take him no more than two suns to create a work cleaner, more innocent, and more authentic.

I only write about what they force me to write. I slide the pen across the blank page. I think of you. Of your solitude, which overwhelms me. I wish I could wrap you in warmth and give you strength. Send you a flock of 856 pelicans. I raised them among dog teeth and mangroves. They have had hatchlings, and they have destroyed their own home.

We have earthquakes in this part of the world. The earth claims its children, extends death’s hand to them, and buries them with respect. The machinery of money hums; the machines never stop. The newspapers stage their spectacle, responding to the filthy game of freedom. We kidnap presidents at home. It is a job that brings high oil revenues and dividends. The world divided, you draw maps over deserts, release rabbits, and then beat them. Freedom has drawn itself a mime’s face; it can shed tears and remain silent. Rot, with its requiem of rupture.

We had the task of stacking all the wood. But they have stopped sending us fuel. Transportation has come to a halt. The cities have turned off their lights. Civilization has stopped. We have returned to hunting organisms, gathering snails and small weeds. The city is filling with zombies, like in the movies. But this is no movie; it is a harsh reality beneath the flowers growing distorted on balconies. Pieces of fiber cement fall. Doors fall. Flesh falls from the body.

It would be fair to break some rules. To become human again. To rescue the strokes. The canvas.

The cars can remain thirsty.

The pelicans have left. Their time is over. They flew away, cawing, breaking the silence. They will return next season, as a symbol that we exist.

Image created by me, based on a prompt in chatGPT