The room is empty. No one will come here. Nearby I hear my father in his final moments, so far away. Him and my beloved. Did he know this would happen? I was thinking of sleeping by his side. How did all of this happen?
When I met him, he was a tormented man. His relationship with his wife had never been the best. Having the opportunity to listen to a man torture himself because he never understood how he began a life as a father, as a partner at 16 years old and with no knowledge about life—I don't know. I think at that moment I finally felt someone understood me.
I come, like all the people in this area, from a completely stupid life. Nothing we did throughout our childhood and youth made sense. My mother, like every good representative of a mafia, was blessed by all the people around us. Fear kept us all in line—except him. My father, her husband. He had no fear at all. He had nothing. Following her designs, he lived with the sole purpose of obeying her.
Who to give money to? Who to collect from? It wasn't that she was an institution of usurers; it was much worse. She demanded, while simultaneously offering, and all those who received her attention, her favor, stayed on the positive side, hoping she would never come to collect from them.
I was a daughter she abandoned for many years. I watched as even some people taken into her family received better treatment. Over the years, a man appeared. Marriage. Nothing worth remembering. The binding was crude—a little hair, some birds tied until their death. The minimum to guarantee he would stay by my side. Everything seemed like it would last, except for the fact that I tried to adopt a child... I couldn't use my womb. I gave it to my teacher, my mother. With it, she gained a couple of extra years of life. Later, when I begged for a child of my own, she recommended sacrifices to a couple of entities. To invoke them, I had to sedate my husband. It was three in the morning when we began the ceremony. She was strong at that time. A simple sigh with the aroma of rot reached our bedroom. Her finger, twisted like the soul that carried it, entered his parts. There wasn't enough vitality. It took what he had, but we couldn't conceive that way. So it changed the purpose. With terrifying amusement, it began to enter where the third eye should be. It destroyed it and in its place planted a tumor that altered his desires. She told me she had eaten my child, and what remained was for me to adopt... That was the first night I cried without restraint. I didn't know what I expected in those times. She only demands the sacrifice, and I accept. Refusing is impossible.
Bringing someone into the world who would call me mother—that wouldn't be possible. Something small hiding in the shadows made sure every attempt failed. So I used the tumor so my husband would accept the adoption. Many animals disappeared so that my adopted child wouldn't see what remained of the biological one. I loved him and showered him as best I could. He never reciprocated. Maybe he saw some ceremony. I don't know. He and my first husband fled... I swear by the most sacred that I never did anything so terrible to them. I only wanted them by my side. I didn't allow Mother to do them permanent harm. Not like what I did with my second husband.
Convincing him to be together meant listening to all the poison he had accumulated in his years of marriage. He insulted me, of course he did. But I endured, patient. My attractiveness wasn't something that would improve over the years, nor would my beauty worsen. What I had to do was remain calm.
When we separated because he wanted to fix things with his wife, desperate, I went to my mother. The love-hate relationship kept me bound to her. Urgency allowed me to accept the terms. So a ball emerged on my forehead, and he discovered it was impossible to reconcile with someone who hated him.
The house has been silent for a couple of months now. My stepsister already smells our death with satisfaction. Father—the only one who remains intact—survived everything my mother did to him. With less than half his intestine, bones, and ailments, not to mention he constantly lost his reason. It seemed he would be the only one to survive the stupid actions of mother and me.
The store window sounds. I don't know if the visitor is human or not. No one will go to attend to it. I can barely move one arm, one leg, in a complete state of pain... The aroma of rot intensifies. It wasn't someone alive. I give thanks that the protection Mother set up still holds. It's tied to the life of the dogs we have. They'll only live a couple fewer days. We'll live a couple more.
I seriously doubt he wants to see me. Not after 10 years of actions that only my mother taught me to do and that I willingly adopted under the idea of finally having my husband where I wanted him: in the house and with no desire to contact anyone.
The ones at the store are gone now. I hear my mother screaming about the need to go close the door. I must comply. Just like the first time she asked me to begin diminishing my husband's will. It didn't take much. I'd make him notice what things bothered me and give him a good pinch, an ear pull, or hair pull—something to remind him it wasn't okay to say something uncomfortable or, ultimately, to say anything at all. Cemetery ashes were seasoning in every meal. It took us a little time to get used to that style. He was a little rebel who thought using stupid or irritating words showed his discontent. I knew he wasn't comfortable while I did this. The enchantments began to diminish his spirit. Sometimes it was in his food or during his sleep. Even the alcohol he drank had various liquids (from brains or spinal fluids) well hidden. He didn't have great willpower to begin with. He ended up believing he loved being by my side. We complemented each other, he said.
After a couple of months, I convinced him we had to leave his house and go live with my mother. It was necessary. The mind clings to what receives the fruit of its efforts. He shouldn't stay in his house. During the time he accompanied me, I made sure he was content with what I could offer him... Intimacy wasn't one of those things. At first, it wasn't so much of a problem. But as the cost of each binding increased, making things down there look as they're supposed to look required many sacrifices. And truth be told, there were no more wild animals in the area. The neighbors' pets weren't a solution either; they couldn't just disappear.
The aroma of rot intensifies. Before, we could deceive ourselves, say it was from old or poorly planned drainage. Now it's difficult. Not only does it smell bad—at times there's nothing. You can't perceive medicine, food, the scarce life that still remains here. But at moments, when we're careless, everything enters the nose. Even a couple of rooms away, the black tissue on the extremities, organs oozing through holes in the skin of the former street leader, feared in the area—now she's the most grotesque air freshener. Like any dedicated master, she can ignore it even when the smell and pain are extreme. She prefers to keep asking for her aberrant mixtures to stay alive. I no longer prepare them. We just make sure my father doesn't distinguish the tadpoles, dried organs of animals that crossed his path, leeches, and other horrendous everyday ingredients. We always celebrate his dishes. The poor man still believes he's a good chef, like his brother-in-law who made delicatessen from some disappeared person. He fled when she charged him ten years of his life as payment for the protection his sister gave him from going to prison.
The cold makes me focus. I have a little strength thanks to today's concoction. It's time to go close the shop. I think the sun hit my face for hours until I advanced the few meters left to reach the door. In that time, I saw my stepsister peeking out—sharp teeth, infinite greed, contagious. Her daughter seemed normal until her smile reminded you whose granddaughter she was. Still, I saw them holding hands, consuming in the small space of their palms what looked like a hummingbird. They looked so much like my illusions of having a life and a fairy-tale ending. Maybe I could have had that if my mother hadn't reached the age where her abilities stopped keeping her healthy. For years, her goal was to obtain power, at any price. The longevity of my family, their health—the few who were without blood pacts fled, scattered from the north of the country to the south of the continent... It was useless. Every so often they returned to pay tribute. The aberrations hiding around the corner of your gaze coerced them about what was best. No one could escape her hunger. No one.
The worst part of knowing you really don't have control of your life is when you discover that even what you thought you couldn't do, you have to do. I'm not talking about crimes—things so illegal that they encompass the existence of the infernal wreckage we became. No. For example, now I'm hugging the toilet bowl. I couldn't move, not even for food. The person hired by my family took care of leaving everything for us... As long as she wasn't here before nightfall, she agreed to come and help. I never asked what she saw. I also didn't care to know that, in the end, my family did have money to attend to my parents. And yet, due to concepts and requests from my mother, the one putting up half the money was him. He wasn't the best guy. Addict, alcoholic lost in illusions of the past. But he could change. How do I know? He did. After he left, after taking care of himself. Today I found out he achieved his goal. The one who could have been my son tells me this amid mockery. He arrived when Mother lost power. His soul never left, but she kept it at bay. I'm here, driven by the fear of smelling my vomit all night. Only like this did I reach my destination and empty the bile left in my stomach. I cling as hard as I can to keep from falling to the floor. My knees no longer support me, nor does my back. From here I can feel the grab bars my ex-husband installed. I forced him. He wasn't a carpenter or anything close. So I pricked his ego, pressured him with a few tears, a few tugs, maybe some hits. Obviously he was never going to hit back. I made sure to know him before that. How I wish I could have loved him as he was.
I've been lying here for a couple of hours now. I finally had to let go of the toilet. According to the doctors, my purple nails are a product of what I'm putting into my body. But the drops of blood—thick ones—that began to paint the toilet a color that wasn't healthy, let's not even talk about the blood looking like blood. They just left some marks, and there among them were... the faces that tormented my husband for several years. The childish laughter. He was around here. Maybe the protection was no longer effective. Yes, some eyes were watching, behind the pedestal. It no longer has human form. I don't know what my teacher did to his body. When I got the diagnosis, it had the same laugh. It doesn't seem to hate me. It just wants its mother. One day, in a moment of carelessness, with reality destroying everything I had built, I nursed it. Then everything was fast. The doctor, determined on surgery. The tissue affected by the small gesture wasn't the only thing damaged. But we didn't know. They just tried to stop this with chemo. Nothing that could harm what it carried. An unpleasant sensation makes me turn. It's sucking what drips from my middle finger. I tried to move, to get away from those features demanding revenge. I can't give it to you! I'm terrified of her! My hand slipped in the mixture of my mistakes, my illness. A small hit to the head, and I was incapacitated. I was reaching the final stage.
"What if we make sure he leaves us the pension?"
How I'd like to go to my mother's room to reproach her for putting that idea in my head. I knew he wanted to leave me the pension. He never tried to leave me helpless. But my mother was very greedy. He could spend his last years in some sanatorium or, with a little luck, in some hospital for those whose brains tell them there are things where there are none. And that was the problem. I heard her day and night because for my mother, the act of not seeing her was absolutely no impediment to keep pressuring. If she wanted something, she'd make sure you knew about it. And that was the problem. I think it was more fear, perhaps, that led me to play along. And now we're both here—me on the floor, her making her body seem at rest while her mind battles in horrible fights it won't win. Neither of us deserves to be here anymore.
In the morning they found me and took me back to bed. Of course they insulted me, accused me of not living up to what my mother wanted. I didn't care anymore. Just yesterday I was able to see him. I lied about knowing the date and having the luck to coincide with him for his medications. The reality was that I had caught the last canary left in the house. Its vitality gave me the date. And I dragged myself step by step, soaking the blanket I was using to keep from freezing. The street at times became a place without light. There I heard whispers from those we had invoked and who were trying to drive my husband crazy until that fateful day he couldn't take it anymore.
When I told him I was waiting for him with his medications, I'm sure he discovered how bad off I was. Still, he agreed to see me. No one in the family knew about this meeting. If they had known, they would have asked my mother to use her last strength to try to hold him a little longer. The reality and my mother's strength were that she had none left. When all the effects of the invocations and apparitions were at their peak and he was about to lose his sanity, his brother—seeing the one who raised him as if he were a vagrant in clothing and appearance—took him to the capital city where they contacted someone who reversed everything we had been doing. No one who knew the spiritual world would have been able to bear seeing what happened to us. It was seeing creatures open our skulls, take out our souls, and begin to slice them. Many of these were stronger than when we created and invoked them. We had only sought something to steal his sanity, but they ate very well and came with the hunger of having had months of food taken from them. They gorged themselves on us. I tried to keep my body together as much as I could. It was preferable to accept the punishment than to do what the other involved did. That excessive ego made her believe she could face them all. She was no longer very strong, and these were products of magic made specifically to return the damage to us. There I saw how much damage we did.
Not everything had been so bad, but my mother wanted his pension, and I stupidly followed her requests. I was so sure that the best thing that could happen to him was for me to take care of him, for him to be with me. That's why I wanted to see him. I dreamed of the idea that we could be together even in the final moments. I know I won't make it to the month they told me for the next treatment. It's not bureaucracy; my body won't hold out until then... even if I get there, my soul won't be there. I don't have much strength left to keep it attached to my body. Soon I'll only be a shell of someone who will go to all the therapies, take all the medicines, sleep every night, and eat everything put in front of her. I'll be being tortured like my mother is right now. Yet I saw him again—as happy as he could have been without me.
I was so close to him I could have placed any of the fetishes we had made—and there were animal ones and human ones. Most would have had enough strength to hold him, to make him come to the house, to make him have enough pity to accompany me in my last days. But I knew I would leave before my mother, and if I didn't stop this, she would make sure to hold him long after I was an inert body. And there was the problem: I didn't want him to stay to take care of her. I only wanted him to have an unfortunate meal and for me to be able to care for him with my last strength. But I accepted his rejection of me. I also rejected any kind of external assistance he wanted to offer me. I don't know if it was kindness in the end, or if it was simply the selfishness of keeping him away from my mother's hands.
I fear I won't even have the chance to hear about his surgery. While everyone screams at me, I can hear the beetles—dung beetles of death that have been collecting the fragments of my soul. They're beginning to emerge from the edges of the eyes of those who look at me and judge me. None wanted to follow my mother's profession, but they wanted the benefits. I killed myself to help them, and now all who are here can only contemplate without understanding all the demons emerging from their bodies. They don't understand: as soon as I leave, everything that has kept them bound and the benefits they've been receiving—they'll be collected. There won't be a happy ending for my family. Well, for one of them there will be, even though I'll never see him again... All the beings come against me at this moment. I have neither the strength nor the desire to fight. How I regret not seeing you die before me! That would be the most beautiful thing to see before this infernal torture. Goodbye, my beloved! The harm I did you was to keep you by my side. I never doubted those decisions.