A few days ago one of our Italian friends
at the University asked me about “Narcos” the new TV show released in the UK
recently. She is from the south of Italy, so she makes no problem about the
constant references that other friends make to her about the mafia. There is no
fuss for me either, when the same friends make some references about our
Colombian history as drug dealers. That’s why when she asked me about that TV
show, my answer was laconic but sincere: it is just more of the same.
I don’t want to sound like a weeper, but
from some time now, I feel like if Latin American problems have been situated
in the bottom of the list for the rest of the world. I don’t really know if
that is bad or good, but what I think is that is important to show the
complexity of our history and its violence for a century or more.
Further than a mere exercise of language,
this is a transition to another language.
My idea is to create stories about the
history narrated from one of the most interesting websites about Colombian
reality: verdadabierta.com. If some economic profit comes from this (not that I
expect any), such profits should be given to the victims in Colombian conflict.
Landfill
A big black bird flies through the sky. You
can see the circles it describes in firmament. I try to follow it with my eyes,
but sometimes it disappears under the dense clouds that rise in the morning.
I’m alive.
They ditched me late in the night, but
perhaps because they were drunk or perhaps because I wasn’t the only one, they
thought I was dead, like the others. I’m not. I’m stuck. I can’t feel my legs;
they are like something dead that I have to haul. I tried to crawl but I'm very
tired. Some dogs are barking in the distance.
There is no pain. Not anymore. I can't bear
the smell, though. That smell is calling the chulos. There are more now, flying over us in circles. I remember I
watched on the TV some chulos flying
over a dead deer; the commentator has said that they can feel the heat that rises
from the rotten carcasses. I'm not the only one.
From anywhere, dump trucks came full of
debris from destroyed buildings. Blue walls, red roofs, green toilets, yellow
storeys, black curtains are falling over us. Everything that has been built in
my country is falling over me. But even now, I can see the sky.
Through an aperture I can see that the chulos are flying away. Wait! Wait!
Can't you see me? Wait! Come for me, take me. I'm dead! I'm dead!
