Jon Ureña's Blog, page 4
March 18, 2025
The Scrap Colossus, Pt. 15 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
At the intersection between the Antonio Valverde and Pintor Berrueta streets, I leaned over the graffitied railing to watch the two feet of greenish water flowing below, where countless small waves collided. The sight of muddied pebbles and an aluminum can rippled as the watery creases glided in undulating curves of light and shadow. Every second, the universe’s CPU calculated millions of minute interactions along this insignificant stretch of river even if they passed unattended, and remained barely comprehensible to the few that stopped to look.
“Hypnotic, isn’t it. Always moving but never going anywhere. Just flowing along whatever path was carved out for it centuries ago.”
I had waited three days to hear that voice once more. Elena had tied her almond-blonde locks into a ponytail, save for a few strands that framed her face. Afternoon sunlight bathed her forehead and crown, igniting her hair into warm, shimmering gold. The light caught her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, revealing their smooth texture, while her pale blues shone cool and glassy in the shade beneath her brow. A gradient descended from the illuminated ridges of her collarbones to the zipper of her black hoodie.
Elena tilted her head slightly, and along her bare neck, the right sternocleidomastoid contracted and relaxed as if alive, outlining the dark hollow between the muscle and the graceful curve of her throat. I imagined my gaping maw encircling her slender neck, teeth pressed hard and sinking into her spasming, taut flesh, pulse thumping against the tip of my tongue, then I’d clamp down and yank, severing veins and arteries, ripping sinews and muscle that would stretch like melted cheese before snapping. I’d chew on her succulent, coppery flesh as hot jets of lifeblood from the glistening crater in her throat with its exposed tracheal rings blessed my face in crimson splashes.
She adjusted the strap of her backpack, slung over her left shoulder.
“I should warn you: I’ve barely slept four hours. I dreamed I was sitting in an empty bathtub while a giant cockroach stared at me from the bathroom wall. It had these alien, eerily-intelligent eyes that made me feel exposed, like it knew things about me I don’t even know. Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“So, not unlike a certain human with whom you spent an afternoon at Bar Palace. Who, as you put it, dissected your darkness.”
Elena’s eyes widened. She turned her head and knit her brow as her lashes fluttered nervously. Then, she fixed me with a contrite gaze.
“My brain does have this twisted way of processing things—turning real connections into monstrosities I can understand better. Maybe it’s easier to deal with a giant insect than a human being who might see through my bullshit. But no, that wasn’t a cockroach version of you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You make me feel seen, not exposed. That cockroach was older, almost like a father figure. Or maybe a god. A godroach. The Eternal Lord of Filth. It had been watching humanity since we crawled out of the primordial ooze, and it spent its time judging us, judging our entire species, as it waited patiently to inherit the Earth after we nuke ourselves to oblivion.”
“I’m glad to hear I wasn’t a bug in your nightmares.”
“Anyway, what’s this place you want to show me? Hopefully not a mass grave of your victims.”
I pivoted and pointed toward the blocky apartment towers, one a muted taupe and the other cantaloupe-colored, further up the narrow, sloping road. Towers erected decades ago to shelter the dutiful working class that once stored there, few would escape their confines except in a hearse. On nondescript balconies, potted flowers fought for distinction, futile as a thin coat of paint on a rusted hulk.
“We have a bit of a hike ahead of us.”
Elena’s fingers lingered on the zipper of her hoodie before dropping to her side.
“Artia? You’re taking me to the place where dreams come to die? Growing up, I thought these towers looked like enormous gravestones.”
“Our destination lies beyond this decaying corpse of a neighborhood, and I’m confident you’ll enjoy it.”
“Figures we’d have to walk through the worst part first. Some twisted metaphor for life, right? Trudge through the rot before you get anywhere worthwhile. If there even is such a place. Lead on then, mysterious guide.”
We headed up Pintor Berrueta Street on a narrow sidewalk that corralled us into single file. As we passed a row of recycling bins, a green igloo belched its fetid reek in our faces. I held my breath, then crossed the road toward a corner bar.
“Stench of the apocalypse,” Elena said, a couple steps behind me. “The end creeping on its way to gobble us up.”
“Or the stench of stale alcohol.”
We climbed a short flight of stairs into a murky arcade sheltered beneath a concrete overhang. Half the businesses had gone bankrupt; the plate glass windows had been papered over, and the metal rolling shutters had clanged shut.
“We’ve witnessed this town fall apart, haven’t we?” Elena asked grimly. “Not in one big catastrophe, but in tiny individual tragedies, piece by piece, year by year. A slow, agonizing necrosis. The stores we frequented as kids, the playgrounds and parks we played in. Irún’s heart and lungs are failing, and no one gives a shit. I’d leave, but where would I go?”
“Anywhere away from here. That’d be a good start.”
“What other place would you recommend? Aw, crap.”
I stopped to look behind me. Elena, hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie, twisted her slender right leg as if showing off the two stark white stripes running down the sides of her black joggers. The cuff of that jogger leg had rolled up, unveiling a pale, sinful ankle that would slither into my dreams. She stared at her untied right Converse.
Elena shrugged, then skipped ahead while fluttering her hand in a winglike motion to urge me onward.
“Let’s keep going. I don’t want to stop here.”
We pressed on through the shadowed passage. An elderly woman, likely in her late seventies, doddered towards us, taking up the center of the arcade. She had wrapped a plaid scarf around her neck, over a timeworn cardigan. As she carried a tote bag in a papery, veiny hand, she lifted the other to point at Elena’s canvas shoe.
“You’re dragging your shoelaces along the filthy floor, dear. They’re going to get dirty.”
Elena sidestepped the old lady, eyes fixed straight ahead, but her eyelids twitched. The woman called out behind us.
“You should be careful. You’ll trip on those laces.”
I spoke over my shoulder.
“She knows.”
Elena had frozen mid-step, a scowl distorting her features as her eyes rolled back. She whirled around and stepped closer to the elderly woman, whose face had crumpled into a webwork of wrinkles, whose shoulders had hunched as if her torso were collapsing in on itself.
“Have you ever worn shoes with shoelaces?” Elena asked coldly.
“If I have ever worn shoes?”
“With shoelaces.”
“Of course, dear. I was young once, too.”
“Okay, so you know that when one’s shoelaces come undone, the person wearing the shoes is aware of it, and you’re just bothering a stranger for no reason.”
The woman’s sunken eyes widened, and her lips quivered.
“Dear,” she started in a conciliatory tone, “there’s no need to get upset. I was just trying to help. You’re going to trip and hurt yourself.”
I could hardly tear my gaze from the sway of Elena’s almond-blonde ponytail, yet someone in that desolate arcade needed to stop this nonsense. I fought the urge to rest a hand on her shoulder; who knew how she might have reacted.
“This may be the epitome of ‘not worth it,’ Elena.”
She turned away from the elder and strode ahead. After she passed me, I quickened my pace to match hers. She sighed deeply as her right Converse dragged its undone laces. We climbed a longer flight of stairs. To our left, the wall was blighted by a collage of jagged tags. We stepped out of the arcade onto the asphalt of a parking lot. Decades of pedestrian and vehicular traffic had eroded the once-solid zebra crossing into patchy remnants. Elena raised her eyes toward a peach-colored apartment tower.
“The world feels strange and fragile, about to fall apart like a cracking facade and reveal that this whole thing has been a cosmic joke. Do you ever get that feeling, Jon? In such moments, I wish we had a soundtrack to our lives. Something melancholic, like nineties shoegaze.”
When her pale blues met my commonplace irises, her lips parted as if she were about to continue, but then she glanced away and lowered her head. Her eyebrows drew inward, her lids grew heavy.
“I can hear your thoughts,” Elena said. “Be grateful an old person tried to help you, you miserable bitch. You didn’t have to be polite, just smile and keep walking. You could have given her a moment of good feelings instead of this bitterness.”
“That’s you self-flagellating. I couldn’t give less of a shit about the old bat. I just didn’t want you to get riled up for no good reason.”
Elena’s voice carried a trace of anguish.
“If I want to drag my fucking laces along this disgusting pavement, that’s my prerogative, and if I trip and break my neck, well, good fucking riddance. One less burden for my parents, one less monster for the world to deal with. So keep walking, and mind your own business. What’s next? Someone stopping to remind me to blink? To breathe? To keep my heart beating? People grabbing onto any excuse to butt their heads into someone else’s life. So desperate to feel useful they’ll point out the most obvious things just to convince themselves they matter. Looking for connection where there is none. Sorry, Jon. Four hours of sleep and cockroach gods. If it serves as consolation, I’m bound to end up worse off than that hag. Senile. Desperate to talk to anyone. But I’ll have nobody, because I pushed them all away.”
-----
Author’s note: today’s song is “Brand New Key” by Melanie Safka.
At the intersection between the Antonio Valverde and Pintor Berrueta streets, I leaned over the graffitied railing to watch the two feet of greenish water flowing below, where countless small waves collided. The sight of muddied pebbles and an aluminum can rippled as the watery creases glided in undulating curves of light and shadow. Every second, the universe’s CPU calculated millions of minute interactions along this insignificant stretch of river even if they passed unattended, and remained barely comprehensible to the few that stopped to look.
“Hypnotic, isn’t it. Always moving but never going anywhere. Just flowing along whatever path was carved out for it centuries ago.”
I had waited three days to hear that voice once more. Elena had tied her almond-blonde locks into a ponytail, save for a few strands that framed her face. Afternoon sunlight bathed her forehead and crown, igniting her hair into warm, shimmering gold. The light caught her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, revealing their smooth texture, while her pale blues shone cool and glassy in the shade beneath her brow. A gradient descended from the illuminated ridges of her collarbones to the zipper of her black hoodie.
Elena tilted her head slightly, and along her bare neck, the right sternocleidomastoid contracted and relaxed as if alive, outlining the dark hollow between the muscle and the graceful curve of her throat. I imagined my gaping maw encircling her slender neck, teeth pressed hard and sinking into her spasming, taut flesh, pulse thumping against the tip of my tongue, then I’d clamp down and yank, severing veins and arteries, ripping sinews and muscle that would stretch like melted cheese before snapping. I’d chew on her succulent, coppery flesh as hot jets of lifeblood from the glistening crater in her throat with its exposed tracheal rings blessed my face in crimson splashes.
She adjusted the strap of her backpack, slung over her left shoulder.
“I should warn you: I’ve barely slept four hours. I dreamed I was sitting in an empty bathtub while a giant cockroach stared at me from the bathroom wall. It had these alien, eerily-intelligent eyes that made me feel exposed, like it knew things about me I don’t even know. Then I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”
“So, not unlike a certain human with whom you spent an afternoon at Bar Palace. Who, as you put it, dissected your darkness.”
Elena’s eyes widened. She turned her head and knit her brow as her lashes fluttered nervously. Then, she fixed me with a contrite gaze.
“My brain does have this twisted way of processing things—turning real connections into monstrosities I can understand better. Maybe it’s easier to deal with a giant insect than a human being who might see through my bullshit. But no, that wasn’t a cockroach version of you.”
“How can you be sure?”
“You make me feel seen, not exposed. That cockroach was older, almost like a father figure. Or maybe a god. A godroach. The Eternal Lord of Filth. It had been watching humanity since we crawled out of the primordial ooze, and it spent its time judging us, judging our entire species, as it waited patiently to inherit the Earth after we nuke ourselves to oblivion.”
“I’m glad to hear I wasn’t a bug in your nightmares.”
“Anyway, what’s this place you want to show me? Hopefully not a mass grave of your victims.”
I pivoted and pointed toward the blocky apartment towers, one a muted taupe and the other cantaloupe-colored, further up the narrow, sloping road. Towers erected decades ago to shelter the dutiful working class that once stored there, few would escape their confines except in a hearse. On nondescript balconies, potted flowers fought for distinction, futile as a thin coat of paint on a rusted hulk.
“We have a bit of a hike ahead of us.”
Elena’s fingers lingered on the zipper of her hoodie before dropping to her side.
“Artia? You’re taking me to the place where dreams come to die? Growing up, I thought these towers looked like enormous gravestones.”
“Our destination lies beyond this decaying corpse of a neighborhood, and I’m confident you’ll enjoy it.”
“Figures we’d have to walk through the worst part first. Some twisted metaphor for life, right? Trudge through the rot before you get anywhere worthwhile. If there even is such a place. Lead on then, mysterious guide.”
We headed up Pintor Berrueta Street on a narrow sidewalk that corralled us into single file. As we passed a row of recycling bins, a green igloo belched its fetid reek in our faces. I held my breath, then crossed the road toward a corner bar.
“Stench of the apocalypse,” Elena said, a couple steps behind me. “The end creeping on its way to gobble us up.”
“Or the stench of stale alcohol.”
We climbed a short flight of stairs into a murky arcade sheltered beneath a concrete overhang. Half the businesses had gone bankrupt; the plate glass windows had been papered over, and the metal rolling shutters had clanged shut.
“We’ve witnessed this town fall apart, haven’t we?” Elena asked grimly. “Not in one big catastrophe, but in tiny individual tragedies, piece by piece, year by year. A slow, agonizing necrosis. The stores we frequented as kids, the playgrounds and parks we played in. Irún’s heart and lungs are failing, and no one gives a shit. I’d leave, but where would I go?”
“Anywhere away from here. That’d be a good start.”
“What other place would you recommend? Aw, crap.”
I stopped to look behind me. Elena, hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie, twisted her slender right leg as if showing off the two stark white stripes running down the sides of her black joggers. The cuff of that jogger leg had rolled up, unveiling a pale, sinful ankle that would slither into my dreams. She stared at her untied right Converse.
Elena shrugged, then skipped ahead while fluttering her hand in a winglike motion to urge me onward.
“Let’s keep going. I don’t want to stop here.”
We pressed on through the shadowed passage. An elderly woman, likely in her late seventies, doddered towards us, taking up the center of the arcade. She had wrapped a plaid scarf around her neck, over a timeworn cardigan. As she carried a tote bag in a papery, veiny hand, she lifted the other to point at Elena’s canvas shoe.
“You’re dragging your shoelaces along the filthy floor, dear. They’re going to get dirty.”
Elena sidestepped the old lady, eyes fixed straight ahead, but her eyelids twitched. The woman called out behind us.
“You should be careful. You’ll trip on those laces.”
I spoke over my shoulder.
“She knows.”
Elena had frozen mid-step, a scowl distorting her features as her eyes rolled back. She whirled around and stepped closer to the elderly woman, whose face had crumpled into a webwork of wrinkles, whose shoulders had hunched as if her torso were collapsing in on itself.
“Have you ever worn shoes with shoelaces?” Elena asked coldly.
“If I have ever worn shoes?”
“With shoelaces.”
“Of course, dear. I was young once, too.”
“Okay, so you know that when one’s shoelaces come undone, the person wearing the shoes is aware of it, and you’re just bothering a stranger for no reason.”
The woman’s sunken eyes widened, and her lips quivered.
“Dear,” she started in a conciliatory tone, “there’s no need to get upset. I was just trying to help. You’re going to trip and hurt yourself.”
I could hardly tear my gaze from the sway of Elena’s almond-blonde ponytail, yet someone in that desolate arcade needed to stop this nonsense. I fought the urge to rest a hand on her shoulder; who knew how she might have reacted.
“This may be the epitome of ‘not worth it,’ Elena.”
She turned away from the elder and strode ahead. After she passed me, I quickened my pace to match hers. She sighed deeply as her right Converse dragged its undone laces. We climbed a longer flight of stairs. To our left, the wall was blighted by a collage of jagged tags. We stepped out of the arcade onto the asphalt of a parking lot. Decades of pedestrian and vehicular traffic had eroded the once-solid zebra crossing into patchy remnants. Elena raised her eyes toward a peach-colored apartment tower.
“The world feels strange and fragile, about to fall apart like a cracking facade and reveal that this whole thing has been a cosmic joke. Do you ever get that feeling, Jon? In such moments, I wish we had a soundtrack to our lives. Something melancholic, like nineties shoegaze.”
When her pale blues met my commonplace irises, her lips parted as if she were about to continue, but then she glanced away and lowered her head. Her eyebrows drew inward, her lids grew heavy.
“I can hear your thoughts,” Elena said. “Be grateful an old person tried to help you, you miserable bitch. You didn’t have to be polite, just smile and keep walking. You could have given her a moment of good feelings instead of this bitterness.”
“That’s you self-flagellating. I couldn’t give less of a shit about the old bat. I just didn’t want you to get riled up for no good reason.”
Elena’s voice carried a trace of anguish.
“If I want to drag my fucking laces along this disgusting pavement, that’s my prerogative, and if I trip and break my neck, well, good fucking riddance. One less burden for my parents, one less monster for the world to deal with. So keep walking, and mind your own business. What’s next? Someone stopping to remind me to blink? To breathe? To keep my heart beating? People grabbing onto any excuse to butt their heads into someone else’s life. So desperate to feel useful they’ll point out the most obvious things just to convince themselves they matter. Looking for connection where there is none. Sorry, Jon. Four hours of sleep and cockroach gods. If it serves as consolation, I’m bound to end up worse off than that hag. Senile. Desperate to talk to anyone. But I’ll have nobody, because I pushed them all away.”
-----
Author’s note: today’s song is “Brand New Key” by Melanie Safka.
Life update (03/18/2025)
[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
I spend most days either working or writing, but in the periods when I’m at home and I don’t have to work and I think that I’ve done enough writing for the day, I try to either exercise or play some game. Ever since All on Board! came out (it’s an app to play board games in VR), even though it’s quite barebones compared to what it will hopefully become in some months, I’ve regained the sense of joy that comes with playing board games. The mind stretches to grab the corners of the system each board game has created, which gives you a thrilling sense of your options and possible strategies.
I’m a systems builder, so every time I get back into board games, I fantasize about creating my own. A week or so ago I ended up gathering all the game mechanics I could find online, categorizing them, and posting them on this site, to the likely annoyance of many of my very few subscribers; when my emails hit their inbox, they must have expected to get new parts of stories, only to find themselves flooded with posts about game mechanics. That must have felt like a non sequitur. Anyway, I’d love to design my own board game, but I don’t have time to focus hard on anything else when I’m deep into writing a story. If I were unemployed, I suspect I would expect the rest of my spare time either preparing the next writing session, or fucking around.
Regarding digital games, these days it’s hard to pick anything decent. AAA games are on a deserved downward spiral. Most of the legendary studios, those that haven’t disappeared, exist in name only; the actual talent bailed. Bethesda needs to fire their lead writer, and perhaps Todd himself. Fans are shouldering the massive endeavor of keeping great gaming traditions alive; Morrowind modding, for example, is astonishing these days. Regarding huge games, I’m waiting to buy a better graphics card in order to finally have my playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 in VR. Once you play certain things in VR, you really don’t want to spoil the experience by playing flat.
Anyway, I did buy a new game and enjoyed it a lot. Spent my whole Sunday afternoon playing it. This one was a bit of a meme a couple of years ago, but it still seemed up my alley: it’s the visual novel (of sorts) named The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Supposedly a horror game, but it felt like a dark comedy to me. As well as a sibling abuse simulator. Mentioning any of the most conspicuous elements you experience in the story would involve spoilers.
In any case, you ultimately play, and anticipate upcoming chapters, because of Andrew and Ashley, the siblings in charge of that wild ride. Like in any great story, you return to it because you want to spend more time with one or more characters. Due to the subjects the author touches in this game, apparently she (her updates sound like they’re written by a woman, but I wouldn’t be sure these days) got death threats and partially doxxed, which led her to step back from the spotlight. However, the author is uncompromising in her dark vision, and refuses to bend the knee. Such authors are almost the only kind I can respect these days.
Oh, and Ashley Graves, the manipulative, sociopathic half of the sibling couple… I’m down bad for that black-hearted bitch. Even though not even a new birth would fix her.
I spend most days either working or writing, but in the periods when I’m at home and I don’t have to work and I think that I’ve done enough writing for the day, I try to either exercise or play some game. Ever since All on Board! came out (it’s an app to play board games in VR), even though it’s quite barebones compared to what it will hopefully become in some months, I’ve regained the sense of joy that comes with playing board games. The mind stretches to grab the corners of the system each board game has created, which gives you a thrilling sense of your options and possible strategies.
I’m a systems builder, so every time I get back into board games, I fantasize about creating my own. A week or so ago I ended up gathering all the game mechanics I could find online, categorizing them, and posting them on this site, to the likely annoyance of many of my very few subscribers; when my emails hit their inbox, they must have expected to get new parts of stories, only to find themselves flooded with posts about game mechanics. That must have felt like a non sequitur. Anyway, I’d love to design my own board game, but I don’t have time to focus hard on anything else when I’m deep into writing a story. If I were unemployed, I suspect I would expect the rest of my spare time either preparing the next writing session, or fucking around.
Regarding digital games, these days it’s hard to pick anything decent. AAA games are on a deserved downward spiral. Most of the legendary studios, those that haven’t disappeared, exist in name only; the actual talent bailed. Bethesda needs to fire their lead writer, and perhaps Todd himself. Fans are shouldering the massive endeavor of keeping great gaming traditions alive; Morrowind modding, for example, is astonishing these days. Regarding huge games, I’m waiting to buy a better graphics card in order to finally have my playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 in VR. Once you play certain things in VR, you really don’t want to spoil the experience by playing flat.
Anyway, I did buy a new game and enjoyed it a lot. Spent my whole Sunday afternoon playing it. This one was a bit of a meme a couple of years ago, but it still seemed up my alley: it’s the visual novel (of sorts) named The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. Supposedly a horror game, but it felt like a dark comedy to me. As well as a sibling abuse simulator. Mentioning any of the most conspicuous elements you experience in the story would involve spoilers.
In any case, you ultimately play, and anticipate upcoming chapters, because of Andrew and Ashley, the siblings in charge of that wild ride. Like in any great story, you return to it because you want to spend more time with one or more characters. Due to the subjects the author touches in this game, apparently she (her updates sound like they’re written by a woman, but I wouldn’t be sure these days) got death threats and partially doxxed, which led her to step back from the spotlight. However, the author is uncompromising in her dark vision, and refuses to bend the knee. Such authors are almost the only kind I can respect these days.
Oh, and Ashley Graves, the manipulative, sociopathic half of the sibling couple… I’m down bad for that black-hearted bitch. Even though not even a new birth would fix her.
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 13 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
I whimpered.
“Stop.”
“Will you burn your drawings?”
“Whatever you want.”
He pulled me away from the table, and with that tug, I fell back in the chair, the front legs rising as it tilted precariously. Father braced the backrest to keep me from falling.
Even as I blinked, my vision clouded with dark specks, and every time I tensed any facial muscle, my right cheekbone flared. I sucked in a breath of snot. I studied the lighter in my palm and slid the tip of my thumb along its serrated, rough wheel.
Nothing would ever take away my overseas kingdom. Nothing would erase those chalk-white cliffs, nor the kilometer-long dining table, nor the people who treated me like a cherished guest. No one would confiscate or invade the sanctuaries of my mind, and the landscapes and characters I had discovered in that darkness would greet me when I closed my eyes. Let Father have my childish attempts to order this nightmare.
When I flicked the lighter’s wheel, a flame leapt up, flaring brightly—a genie I had conjured to obey me, yet too weak to set all three of us on fire, of charring our flesh and stripping us down to scorched skeletons. I touched the flame to the paper scraps, and they ignited. The fire begot offspring that carbonized other scraps, crumpling them into black wrinkles that crumbled into ash, devouring them as if a horde of newly born spiders were consuming their mother. From the bowl, a tangled flame rose, warming my face and intensifying the pain in my cheekbone. The ascending column of black smoke crashed against the ceiling like a slow cascade tumbling onto rocks. It scattered in shavings. The stench of charred paper invaded my lungs, which stung.
Father poured the bottle of milk into the bowl, quelling the flames, until the smoke turned to a white vapor. The burnt odor intertwined with the smell of hot milk. Mother crossed an arm in front of my face to hand a mortar and pestle to the man, who gripped the pestle and pounded the ashes into the bottom of the bowl, soaking his hand and spilling gray clumps across the table.
As my tears dried, I drifted away. I shivered, slumped in the chair. The pain in my cheekbone worsened in waves.
Father stirred the paste, lifted the bowl, and brought it to my mouth. I snapped awake. I leaned back and tilted my face. The man grabbed me by the nape and pressed the rim of the bowl against my pursed lips, splattering my face. Milk spilled over my lap.
“You know you’ll swallow every last drop,” Father said.
He shoved the bowl as if to shatter it, so that shards might embed in my lips. He growled. He clutched my nape and shouted to my right.
“Help me.”
Mother appeared at his side. My twisted neck ached, but my moans died in my throat. Father released my nape and pinched my nose, sealing my nostrils closed. The woman pulled at my lips, exposing my tight set of teeth.
I resisted while the bowl, in a seesaw motion, slammed against my incisors like a battering ram. I lacked oxygen. My vision darkened.
When I opened my mouth to gasp for a breath, Mother pried my teeth apart and held them open. Father, after yanking my head back, emptied the bowl. Clumps spilled over my neck, my chest, my thighs, while my mouth swelled with a goop that tasted of wet charcoal, that seared my tongue, palate, and uvula like a freshly cooked soup. The man dumped out every last clump. My swollen cheeks ached, threatening to tear apart. I coughed up a cloud of lumps. While standing behind me and pinching my nose, Father clamped my mouth shut, and—pulling on my chin while pressing my nape against his stomach—forced my teeth to grind together.
Tears streamed from my eyes. The hot milk that pooled behind my nose reddened my vision. I thrashed in convulsions, and with every spasm, my throat gulped down lump balls as if I were a snake trying to swallow an ostrich egg. I grabbed the man’s wrists, his spikes biting into my palms, and wriggled to break free.
Once he released my mouth, I coughed a spray of clumps and milk that splattered the table and part of the counter. Father threw me off the chair to the side, and I landed on a shoulder.
I struggled to breathe. Clumps clogged my trachea and stomach, filling my insides as in a stuffed carcass.
The man towered hundreds of meters over me, a dark colossus against a shrouded ceiling. His face was a black blur. He clenched his red-hot fists, as large as mallets. The iron spikes jutting out and bristling along his form vibrated as he expanded and contracted his minotaur chest.
“What do you think I wouldn’t take from you if you keep up this useless rebellion? Do you want to shit in a corner? Roam around the house naked, to be led on a leash? Do you want me to beat you every time you speak? Because that’s what you’ve earned, stupid girl.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “Wave of Mutilation” by Pixies.
I whimpered.
“Stop.”
“Will you burn your drawings?”
“Whatever you want.”
He pulled me away from the table, and with that tug, I fell back in the chair, the front legs rising as it tilted precariously. Father braced the backrest to keep me from falling.
Even as I blinked, my vision clouded with dark specks, and every time I tensed any facial muscle, my right cheekbone flared. I sucked in a breath of snot. I studied the lighter in my palm and slid the tip of my thumb along its serrated, rough wheel.
Nothing would ever take away my overseas kingdom. Nothing would erase those chalk-white cliffs, nor the kilometer-long dining table, nor the people who treated me like a cherished guest. No one would confiscate or invade the sanctuaries of my mind, and the landscapes and characters I had discovered in that darkness would greet me when I closed my eyes. Let Father have my childish attempts to order this nightmare.
When I flicked the lighter’s wheel, a flame leapt up, flaring brightly—a genie I had conjured to obey me, yet too weak to set all three of us on fire, of charring our flesh and stripping us down to scorched skeletons. I touched the flame to the paper scraps, and they ignited. The fire begot offspring that carbonized other scraps, crumpling them into black wrinkles that crumbled into ash, devouring them as if a horde of newly born spiders were consuming their mother. From the bowl, a tangled flame rose, warming my face and intensifying the pain in my cheekbone. The ascending column of black smoke crashed against the ceiling like a slow cascade tumbling onto rocks. It scattered in shavings. The stench of charred paper invaded my lungs, which stung.
Father poured the bottle of milk into the bowl, quelling the flames, until the smoke turned to a white vapor. The burnt odor intertwined with the smell of hot milk. Mother crossed an arm in front of my face to hand a mortar and pestle to the man, who gripped the pestle and pounded the ashes into the bottom of the bowl, soaking his hand and spilling gray clumps across the table.
As my tears dried, I drifted away. I shivered, slumped in the chair. The pain in my cheekbone worsened in waves.
Father stirred the paste, lifted the bowl, and brought it to my mouth. I snapped awake. I leaned back and tilted my face. The man grabbed me by the nape and pressed the rim of the bowl against my pursed lips, splattering my face. Milk spilled over my lap.
“You know you’ll swallow every last drop,” Father said.
He shoved the bowl as if to shatter it, so that shards might embed in my lips. He growled. He clutched my nape and shouted to my right.
“Help me.”
Mother appeared at his side. My twisted neck ached, but my moans died in my throat. Father released my nape and pinched my nose, sealing my nostrils closed. The woman pulled at my lips, exposing my tight set of teeth.
I resisted while the bowl, in a seesaw motion, slammed against my incisors like a battering ram. I lacked oxygen. My vision darkened.
When I opened my mouth to gasp for a breath, Mother pried my teeth apart and held them open. Father, after yanking my head back, emptied the bowl. Clumps spilled over my neck, my chest, my thighs, while my mouth swelled with a goop that tasted of wet charcoal, that seared my tongue, palate, and uvula like a freshly cooked soup. The man dumped out every last clump. My swollen cheeks ached, threatening to tear apart. I coughed up a cloud of lumps. While standing behind me and pinching my nose, Father clamped my mouth shut, and—pulling on my chin while pressing my nape against his stomach—forced my teeth to grind together.
Tears streamed from my eyes. The hot milk that pooled behind my nose reddened my vision. I thrashed in convulsions, and with every spasm, my throat gulped down lump balls as if I were a snake trying to swallow an ostrich egg. I grabbed the man’s wrists, his spikes biting into my palms, and wriggled to break free.
Once he released my mouth, I coughed a spray of clumps and milk that splattered the table and part of the counter. Father threw me off the chair to the side, and I landed on a shoulder.
I struggled to breathe. Clumps clogged my trachea and stomach, filling my insides as in a stuffed carcass.
The man towered hundreds of meters over me, a dark colossus against a shrouded ceiling. His face was a black blur. He clenched his red-hot fists, as large as mallets. The iron spikes jutting out and bristling along his form vibrated as he expanded and contracted his minotaur chest.
“What do you think I wouldn’t take from you if you keep up this useless rebellion? Do you want to shit in a corner? Roam around the house naked, to be led on a leash? Do you want me to beat you every time you speak? Because that’s what you’ve earned, stupid girl.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “Wave of Mutilation” by Pixies.
March 17, 2025
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 12 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
Mother called me to dinner, but when I entered the kitchen, Father was waiting by my pulled-back chair, and my drawings had been scattered across the table like the disordered panels of a comic. The lamplight waned along the man’s outline, as if he were hiding in the blind spot of an alley.
I would escape. I turned around, but the woman stood in the way. She shoved the door, which slammed shut. Mother’s nose jutted out from her silver, disheveled hair while she rummaged through the cupboard of pots and jugs.
Father pointed to the chair. I advanced as if a rope were tugging at my chest. When I sat down, the chair’s legs groaned. The man leaned in. I shrank back. His breath warmed my hair, and his gaze fixed on me like a gun.
He pressed one of the drawings with his index finger. That sheet showed the house set against a backdrop of hills, where pines jutted out like the bristles of a carpet. The door of the house was guarded by Father—a minotaur that had broken out of his labyrinth. His body, studded with iron spikes, bulged as if several men were merged into one, and in the black smear of his face—a chasm—the fire of his breath lit up his two eyes. The monster would pounce on anyone who dared to look at the drawing.
“Is this supposed to be me?” Father said.
My guts writhed as if tormented by a week of constipation; I hunched and clutched my forearms to my abdomen. My vocal cords refused to cooperate. My heart pumped clotted blood.
Father grabbed some drawings and scrutinized them while murmuring as if damning some world to a curse. When he palm-struck the sheets back onto the table, a whirlwind of air scattered more papers from the epicenter.
“I feed you and give you a bedroom, you exist thanks to me, but you waste your time painting fantasy towns, drawing me as a monster.” He seized a drawing and flipped it toward me. The sheet crumpled under his fingertips. “Tall as a skyscraper and breathing fire. Ungrateful bastard.”
“They’re prettier,” I muttered in a hoarse voice.
My words had taken Father aback as if a dog had suddenly spoken.
“What did you say?”
I tried to swallow through my constricted throat.
“Those towns are prettier. Those people are kind to me.”
“They don’t exist. You have this house. Us. The cows, the sheep. Work that keeps you busy. If you even have time for your imagination to fly, it’s a sign you need a heavier burden.”
My head swayed. I was breathing in hiccups. Hunched over, I clutched my abdomen as my guts creaked like an old house. The lamplight, along with the foul smell of garlic and onions, were scraping on my brain.
Although I imagined myself running to my bedroom and hiding under the blankets, Father seized my head with his thick fingers, as if restraining a nervous sheep for shearing. A shudder shook my spine.
“We appeared on Earth to fulfill our role,” the man said. “For us to survive, all three must carry our share. Your job is to tend to some cows and sheep, serve me, and keep quiet. When you refuse to obey or only half obey, you harm us, your parents. But as long as you obey, you’ll avoid bruises. You’ll have a plate on the table and a bed. That’s enough.”
“It’s not.”
As Father emptied his lungs, his scorching breath singed a patch of my hair. The hand gripping my head prevented me from looking away from the drawings that covered the table. Mother appeared to my right, holding a bowl and a glass bottle filled with milk and smudged with fingerprints. The man cleared a space on the table in front of me, where the woman placed the bowl. She handed the bottle to Father. The arm that had been pinning me to the chair relaxed as the man gulped down the milk with the sound of a shark gobbling down live fish.
When Mother folded one of the drawings and tore it into four pieces, I trembled as if she had slashed me with a razor. She dropped the fragments into the bowl.
My lips quivered. If I blinked, my eyes would water and ruin my last glimpse of the drawing the woman had torn.
Father leaned close to me and spoke an inch from my ear.
“Insulting us will have consequences.”
I tried to turn my head toward the man, but his fingers tightened on my scalp, imprinting the five tips in red.
“Why are you like this, Father?” I said, my voice cracking. “Someone must have cursed you. It should have been different.”
“Curses don’t exist, you moron. Such nonsense occurs to someone who wastes hours drawing, thinking up fantasies. An idle mind eats itself like an empty stomach.”
Mother had crammed the bowl with scraps white on one side and drawn on the other. The meaning of the strokes and colors was lost like in the scattered pieces of a puzzle. The woman folded the last drawing with her bony fingers, and tore it apart.
How long would it take me to glue these fragments back together?
Father’s free hand seized my wrist. He turned my hand over on the table, opened my fingers, and closed them around the warm metal of a lighter.
“Burn them.”
A jolt of ice pierced my heart as my muscles convulsed in cramps. I had to break free, yet his thick fingers squeezed my scalp as if drilling into my skull. Although ever since I’d drawn that first scene I’d known one day I would lose them, I had convinced myself I’d postpone that moment until I died.
“No.”
When Father yanked my hair, my scalp flared with pain, drawing a scream from me. One more tug and my skull would be stripped bare. The man panted against my face. Growled like a dog.
“Burn them.”
Tears welled from the corners of my eyes, painting burning streaks on my cold skin.
“They’re better than this.”
Father slammed my right cheekbone against the table with a bang. The impact reverberated through my skull, rattling my brain. My vision went white. Was I still in the kitchen?
The man shifted his weight onto the hand that was pushing my head, and on my crushed cheekbone, the fibers covering the bone were tearing apart. The right half of my face boiled; the burning spilled over the bridge of my nose, reddening the view of that eye.
“You’ll be useful to me even with broken bones,” Father said.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “A Little God in My Hands” by Swans.
Mother called me to dinner, but when I entered the kitchen, Father was waiting by my pulled-back chair, and my drawings had been scattered across the table like the disordered panels of a comic. The lamplight waned along the man’s outline, as if he were hiding in the blind spot of an alley.
I would escape. I turned around, but the woman stood in the way. She shoved the door, which slammed shut. Mother’s nose jutted out from her silver, disheveled hair while she rummaged through the cupboard of pots and jugs.
Father pointed to the chair. I advanced as if a rope were tugging at my chest. When I sat down, the chair’s legs groaned. The man leaned in. I shrank back. His breath warmed my hair, and his gaze fixed on me like a gun.
He pressed one of the drawings with his index finger. That sheet showed the house set against a backdrop of hills, where pines jutted out like the bristles of a carpet. The door of the house was guarded by Father—a minotaur that had broken out of his labyrinth. His body, studded with iron spikes, bulged as if several men were merged into one, and in the black smear of his face—a chasm—the fire of his breath lit up his two eyes. The monster would pounce on anyone who dared to look at the drawing.
“Is this supposed to be me?” Father said.
My guts writhed as if tormented by a week of constipation; I hunched and clutched my forearms to my abdomen. My vocal cords refused to cooperate. My heart pumped clotted blood.
Father grabbed some drawings and scrutinized them while murmuring as if damning some world to a curse. When he palm-struck the sheets back onto the table, a whirlwind of air scattered more papers from the epicenter.
“I feed you and give you a bedroom, you exist thanks to me, but you waste your time painting fantasy towns, drawing me as a monster.” He seized a drawing and flipped it toward me. The sheet crumpled under his fingertips. “Tall as a skyscraper and breathing fire. Ungrateful bastard.”
“They’re prettier,” I muttered in a hoarse voice.
My words had taken Father aback as if a dog had suddenly spoken.
“What did you say?”
I tried to swallow through my constricted throat.
“Those towns are prettier. Those people are kind to me.”
“They don’t exist. You have this house. Us. The cows, the sheep. Work that keeps you busy. If you even have time for your imagination to fly, it’s a sign you need a heavier burden.”
My head swayed. I was breathing in hiccups. Hunched over, I clutched my abdomen as my guts creaked like an old house. The lamplight, along with the foul smell of garlic and onions, were scraping on my brain.
Although I imagined myself running to my bedroom and hiding under the blankets, Father seized my head with his thick fingers, as if restraining a nervous sheep for shearing. A shudder shook my spine.
“We appeared on Earth to fulfill our role,” the man said. “For us to survive, all three must carry our share. Your job is to tend to some cows and sheep, serve me, and keep quiet. When you refuse to obey or only half obey, you harm us, your parents. But as long as you obey, you’ll avoid bruises. You’ll have a plate on the table and a bed. That’s enough.”
“It’s not.”
As Father emptied his lungs, his scorching breath singed a patch of my hair. The hand gripping my head prevented me from looking away from the drawings that covered the table. Mother appeared to my right, holding a bowl and a glass bottle filled with milk and smudged with fingerprints. The man cleared a space on the table in front of me, where the woman placed the bowl. She handed the bottle to Father. The arm that had been pinning me to the chair relaxed as the man gulped down the milk with the sound of a shark gobbling down live fish.
When Mother folded one of the drawings and tore it into four pieces, I trembled as if she had slashed me with a razor. She dropped the fragments into the bowl.
My lips quivered. If I blinked, my eyes would water and ruin my last glimpse of the drawing the woman had torn.
Father leaned close to me and spoke an inch from my ear.
“Insulting us will have consequences.”
I tried to turn my head toward the man, but his fingers tightened on my scalp, imprinting the five tips in red.
“Why are you like this, Father?” I said, my voice cracking. “Someone must have cursed you. It should have been different.”
“Curses don’t exist, you moron. Such nonsense occurs to someone who wastes hours drawing, thinking up fantasies. An idle mind eats itself like an empty stomach.”
Mother had crammed the bowl with scraps white on one side and drawn on the other. The meaning of the strokes and colors was lost like in the scattered pieces of a puzzle. The woman folded the last drawing with her bony fingers, and tore it apart.
How long would it take me to glue these fragments back together?
Father’s free hand seized my wrist. He turned my hand over on the table, opened my fingers, and closed them around the warm metal of a lighter.
“Burn them.”
A jolt of ice pierced my heart as my muscles convulsed in cramps. I had to break free, yet his thick fingers squeezed my scalp as if drilling into my skull. Although ever since I’d drawn that first scene I’d known one day I would lose them, I had convinced myself I’d postpone that moment until I died.
“No.”
When Father yanked my hair, my scalp flared with pain, drawing a scream from me. One more tug and my skull would be stripped bare. The man panted against my face. Growled like a dog.
“Burn them.”
Tears welled from the corners of my eyes, painting burning streaks on my cold skin.
“They’re better than this.”
Father slammed my right cheekbone against the table with a bang. The impact reverberated through my skull, rattling my brain. My vision went white. Was I still in the kitchen?
The man shifted his weight onto the hand that was pushing my head, and on my crushed cheekbone, the fibers covering the bone were tearing apart. The right half of my face boiled; the burning spilled over the bridge of my nose, reddening the view of that eye.
“You’ll be useful to me even with broken bones,” Father said.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “A Little God in My Hands” by Swans.
March 15, 2025
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 11 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
About six hundred meters from the house, in the opposite direction of the emperor owl’s refuge, I no longer recognized the curves of the road along which I had come years ago. Why had I forgotten them? Had I been sleeping and only awakened as we neared the house? Had the route been erased from my memory because I assumed I’d never leave? What awaited me a kilometer or two away? The neighbors’ lands?
I leaned against the soft moss and ashen lichen crusts that covered the trunk of an oak. I could smell my cold sweat. The muscles in my legs had tensed, poised to sprint at every sound. I was venturing through a jungle teeming with predators. If I let my guard down, a pack would burst from the undergrowth.
I marched on, clutching the swollen portfolio against my side like a shield. Five minutes later I sensed a shadow. As I shifted my gaze toward it, it slipped from trunk to trunk.
I veered off the road and crouched among clusters of prickly bushes adorned with yellow flowers. I drew a deep breath while keeping a fixed, unblinking watch on the road, which, in the distance, twisted through a grove of narrow, charred-looking trunks. They distorted the distances and masked the gaps with their mint-green foliage, which draped stripes of shadow over the path.
The ground trembled. A gaze fixed on the back of my neck. I turned. A thick shadow spread over the pebbles and earth of the road, cloaking them like a funeral veil.
I sprang from my hiding place among the bushes. I imagined sprinting, but my body froze. I wanted to scream, to call for help. The fading twilight exposed me like a mouse to a bird of prey.
At the edge of my vision, two columns of shadow emerged from mud-splattered boots. Father approached until a pair of denim trousers appeared in my sight. His breath heated my face like a bonfire.
“Are you lost?”
His voice barely contained a roar.
“I was watching the landscape, sir.”
“What are you looking for? What is it you need to see?”
When Father encircled me to block the path, I raised my eyes by a span. The man’s right hand—his arm bristling with hundreds of iron spikes—clutched the long handle of a headless tool.
I counted from one to ten to distract my heart as I fought against my muscles betraying me. My mind was growing hazy.
“You heard me,” Father said.
“I was watching the landscape.”
The man inhaled, drawing the air from my lungs. He straightened the tool’s handle and pressed its headless end against my sternum.
“You have too much free time. Have you finished your duties?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Surely you can help your mother.”
He shoved me with the handle, forcing me to step back. I turned and walked upright, but within seconds, I lowered my head. My lost gaze swept over a doubled path as Father’s bulk followed me and, with every stomp, the earth quaked.
Five minutes later I was clutching the portfolio and hobbling. The emperor owl refused to let me accompany him, and I would never leave this place. How could I have managed it? I only knew how to shear, to milk, to draw. Gifts and miracles were reserved for those who deserved them.
The twilight faded. Colors hung from the treetops, the branches, and the grass lining the road like a dress several sizes too large.
Father led me to the barn, where Mother, seated on a stool, was sharpening the axe with a pumice stone. From beneath her hair, a gray, angular face peeked out. Father jabbed the tool’s handle against one of my shoulder blades and pushed me to the back of the barn. He pointed to a stool beside the flank of a cow, whose swollen udders bore veins bulging like branches swathed in skin.
“It’s her turn tomorrow, but surely you can do it ahead of schedule.”
While clutching the portfolio, I sat like an abandoned puppet. The stone of my thoughts sank deeper and deeper into a black ocean.
With a snap, a pressure clamped around my ankle. A shackle. It was connected by chains as thick as a finger, bolted to the rock.
Father straightened. In one swift motion, he snatched the portfolio from me and held it under his armpit.
“Remember your duty.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
About six hundred meters from the house, in the opposite direction of the emperor owl’s refuge, I no longer recognized the curves of the road along which I had come years ago. Why had I forgotten them? Had I been sleeping and only awakened as we neared the house? Had the route been erased from my memory because I assumed I’d never leave? What awaited me a kilometer or two away? The neighbors’ lands?
I leaned against the soft moss and ashen lichen crusts that covered the trunk of an oak. I could smell my cold sweat. The muscles in my legs had tensed, poised to sprint at every sound. I was venturing through a jungle teeming with predators. If I let my guard down, a pack would burst from the undergrowth.
I marched on, clutching the swollen portfolio against my side like a shield. Five minutes later I sensed a shadow. As I shifted my gaze toward it, it slipped from trunk to trunk.
I veered off the road and crouched among clusters of prickly bushes adorned with yellow flowers. I drew a deep breath while keeping a fixed, unblinking watch on the road, which, in the distance, twisted through a grove of narrow, charred-looking trunks. They distorted the distances and masked the gaps with their mint-green foliage, which draped stripes of shadow over the path.
The ground trembled. A gaze fixed on the back of my neck. I turned. A thick shadow spread over the pebbles and earth of the road, cloaking them like a funeral veil.
I sprang from my hiding place among the bushes. I imagined sprinting, but my body froze. I wanted to scream, to call for help. The fading twilight exposed me like a mouse to a bird of prey.
At the edge of my vision, two columns of shadow emerged from mud-splattered boots. Father approached until a pair of denim trousers appeared in my sight. His breath heated my face like a bonfire.
“Are you lost?”
His voice barely contained a roar.
“I was watching the landscape, sir.”
“What are you looking for? What is it you need to see?”
When Father encircled me to block the path, I raised my eyes by a span. The man’s right hand—his arm bristling with hundreds of iron spikes—clutched the long handle of a headless tool.
I counted from one to ten to distract my heart as I fought against my muscles betraying me. My mind was growing hazy.
“You heard me,” Father said.
“I was watching the landscape.”
The man inhaled, drawing the air from my lungs. He straightened the tool’s handle and pressed its headless end against my sternum.
“You have too much free time. Have you finished your duties?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Surely you can help your mother.”
He shoved me with the handle, forcing me to step back. I turned and walked upright, but within seconds, I lowered my head. My lost gaze swept over a doubled path as Father’s bulk followed me and, with every stomp, the earth quaked.
Five minutes later I was clutching the portfolio and hobbling. The emperor owl refused to let me accompany him, and I would never leave this place. How could I have managed it? I only knew how to shear, to milk, to draw. Gifts and miracles were reserved for those who deserved them.
The twilight faded. Colors hung from the treetops, the branches, and the grass lining the road like a dress several sizes too large.
Father led me to the barn, where Mother, seated on a stool, was sharpening the axe with a pumice stone. From beneath her hair, a gray, angular face peeked out. Father jabbed the tool’s handle against one of my shoulder blades and pushed me to the back of the barn. He pointed to a stool beside the flank of a cow, whose swollen udders bore veins bulging like branches swathed in skin.
“It’s her turn tomorrow, but surely you can do it ahead of schedule.”
While clutching the portfolio, I sat like an abandoned puppet. The stone of my thoughts sank deeper and deeper into a black ocean.
With a snap, a pressure clamped around my ankle. A shackle. It was connected by chains as thick as a finger, bolted to the rock.
Father straightened. In one swift motion, he snatched the portfolio from me and held it under his armpit.
“Remember your duty.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
March 13, 2025
The Scrap Colossus, Pt. 14 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
Elena headed toward the gate to exit Bar Palace’s fenced patio, but I reminded her that we were supposed to pay for the coffees. She followed me inside through the sliding door, and we trod over broad boards. A dozen tables populated the room, around which distinguished older ladies and men sat in ornate chairs. Overhead fixtures burnished with amber light rectangular stone columns bolstering wooden beams. Another fixture spotlighted a stone fireplace and the ornament perched on its mantle: a metallic emblem bearing Irún’s coat of arms. Vigilantiae Custos. Guardian of Vigilance. We had entered a centuries-old retreat. I beelined to the marble counter layered atop dark wood paneling, then waited for a waiter in black garb to take my money. Elena trailed behind me, blue folder clamped under her arm, and surveyed the salon with darting eyes as if she feared some threat lurked in there.
We emerged from Bar Palace onto Navarra Avenue, then stopped at the edge of the sidewalk for the traffic light to turn. After basking in the refuge of that patio, despite the intruding youth, this noisy intersection had hurled us back into civilization. Cars and buses growled past. Across the street, a cluster of teenage girls idled outside a candy store, chatting and giggling beneath a leafy tree. A cyclist avoided pedestrians as he passed the reddish-orange facade of a four-story apartment building. Beside me, the rain-scented breeze played ghostlike with Elena’s almond-blonde locks. She clutched her folder while her eyes flitted between strangers like an anthropologist visiting a foreign land. I resisted the urge to steal a glance at how her dark-wash jeans hugged her butt.
Had Elena intended for us to part ways the moment we left the coffee shop? I wanted to spend more time with her, so she’d have to dismiss me.
Although her eyes were averted, Elena’s thin voice reached out to me.
“Jon, do you like being around people?”
“Not particularly.”
“Often when I force myself to leave the apartment, I see all these men and women and kids and elders walking about like ants scurrying to and from their nest, and I think, ‘I have nothing in common with these beings.’ I must assume that minds operate behind their eyes, even though I can’t imagine their thoughts. But maybe I share the world with eight billions of shoddily-programmed automatrons that short-circuit when confronted with concepts more complicated than the weather, football, or whatever shit the mass media pumps into them. Maybe I’m the sole real person in a simulation built to trap me. It would explain the state of the world, wouldn’t it? If nobody had any fucking clue about what they’re doing.”
“As a fellow person, I can’t help but resent the implication. And that line of thinking can easily slide you into psychosis.”
The pedestrian light flicked to the walking man outline. Elena and I strolled ahead.
“As a child,” she said, “I wondered if everyone around me was acting out a role. Did they also have to put on a mask whenever they went out? Were they as scared and lonely as me? Even now, I can’t be around people for too long. When someone stares at me, I feel like a fly trapped in a jar. It makes my skin crawl. There are no common points in which I can make myself understood. When I engage people, they’re more likely than not to end up developing an instinctive dislike of me. They’re the normal ones. Always pretending, trying to impress others. Trying to impress themselves. Lying to get along, to fit in. Do they ever feel the walls closing in? Do they ever sense the void beneath their feet, or the cold, dead stars overhead?”
Iglesia Street unfolded into a downward-sloping plaza paved with gray stone. At its edge stood the white building of the Roman museum. In front, three towering cypress trees jutted upward like narrow spearheads. Elena continued her monologue.
“One of the things you discover when you’ve been alone for so long is how people can weigh you down. As if you had lived with a TV constantly on and loud, and once you turn it off, you realize that something had been drowning your genuine thoughts. That newfound silence allows contemplation similar to that our ancestors enjoyed in their so-called primitive societies. Alone, you’re free from having to conform to the expectations installed by the people you’ve allowed in, who intend for you to like and want the same things they do. Without that pressure, your true self emerges—unshackled, raw. You figure out what matters to you. What you’re willing to tolerate, sacrifice for, fight tooth and claw to defend. To get there you have to become one with the void inside. Otherwise it remains alien to you. And most people seem terrified of meeting that self, lest they end up pushed out of the collective and ejected into the cold.”
We were nearing the bronze statue of a San Marcial vivandière—a woman captured mid-stride, clad in a beret; a buttoned-down, tailored jacket; and a pleated skirt that draped over the tops of her laced boots. In her right hand, she held a fan aloft, frozen in her constant duty to wave, while she cast an unsettling smirk at passersby. Creeping verdigris etched stark contrasts along the pleats of her skirt.
“You’d think such a dynamic would be absent in couples, right?” Elena said. “Surely partners willing to accompany each other on this doomed journey would form a sanctuary in which both could grow as individuals. But no. Most couples seem like two dogs chained together. A romantic relationship censors you even worse, and before long, you end up defanged and declawed. Can’t risk upsetting your partner. Can’t risk losing them. No wonder some couples decide to have a kid, then another, and another. Filling the home with hostages. No, an individual’s freedom is too valuable to sacrifice for the sake of having a companion to fill the silence, and a warm body to fuck.”
As we descended the stairs, Juncal Church loomed fortresslike, built from sandy stone blocks, some bearing warm honey hues and others worn into ashen grays. Near the top of its bell tower, that had darkened as if singed by flames, a snow-white clockface stood out. The church endured as a relic from an era when people’s beliefs, however misguided, urged them to erect beauty that would outlive them by centuries.
Elena’s vacant gaze drifted along the stairs. She had tucked her folder under one arm, and that hand in the pocket of her jeans. When she spoke again, her voice came hoarse.
“Most people stick to you not because they’re interested, or care, but because they need that closeness, that shared warmth, the same way I need to be alone. They’d be comfortable gathered around a bench in silence, while their mere presence would desiccate me. You spoke about how many works of art have been lost because their potential creators wasted their talents, or died too young. But how many revolutionary ideas, how many discoveries we’ve missed in these societies that push their members to police each other’s thoughts? How many masterpieces have died in the womb because some nearby moron could consider them impractical or ridiculous or immoral? I’ve had to protect myself. Surely you noticed how guarded I was at the writing course, or when you first approached me at that bench. Always have a wall up. I ensure that a person will offer more than they’ll take away from me. To preserve the garden, one must first be a ruthless weed slayer. Without that, the flowers get choked and die.” Her jaw tensed as she swallowed, and she massaged her throat. “Life gets too complicated when people disgust you. You need them for the most basic things, and I endure those interactions while repeating in my mind for them to leave me the fuck alone. The responsibilities you accumulate with humans shackle you. From time to time I feel like I’ve matured enough, or grown enough callus, to tolerate experiences like that writing course, which could help me. But soon enough, everything that irritates me about human beings, their words, their noises, the myriad little humiliations, swell and swell until suddenly I can’t deal with a single extra minute of that shit. Then I need to hide from the world and everybody in it. My solution? I keep my rotten self away from others. That way nobody can hurt me, and I don’t pollute anyone else. A quarantine measure to keep the world safe, you could say. Isn’t that the epitome of altruism? The greatest good?” She sighed. “Yeah, I’ve given up. After that course, after my stories were deemed deplorable, after that fucking bitch Isabel called me out as a monster in front of everyone… I feel completely done. I hoped that other writers would understand. So I exist here, in this land, because I have no choice. I can’t just pack up and move to the forest, or the mountains. Well, I could, but I’d like to survive past twenty-eight. Honestly, I doubt I would have reached this far if my parents hadn’t taken care of me. Imagine their disappointment and regret at what I’ve turned out to be.”
I had stopped at the church entrance, and Elena, lost in her soliloquy, had copied me. The dark wooden doors split into four metal panels, each embossed with figures of robed saints or other biblical characters. Four sandstone columns with fluted shafts flanked the entrance. Their bases and capitals had eroded, exposed for centuries to the elements and the corroding darkness of the world. Above the door, a circular niche might have once housed a statue, but these days it would have been stolen. Higher up, near an oculus’ edge, some architectural oversight had forced the builders to chisel blocks and wedge them into gaps.
Elena cleared her throat.
“Man, my voice box is actually strained. I hadn’t spoken so much in years. Maybe I never had. I was holding back a shit-ton of stuff, it seems. I also like to stop and stare at beautiful buildings. To see their little details. The cracks, the mold, the weeds growing in between the stones. How much they’ve endured. And most churches beat modern monstrosities like the one built to replace the covered pelota court at Sargia.”
Elena’s pale blues stared at me with childlike interest. I held my breath as her loose locks fluttered. She arched an eyebrow, and I broke the silence.
“Elena, did our coffee meeting feel that overwhelming?”
Her fingers fidgeted with the edges of her folder, and she glanced away.
“If you’re asking whether I enjoyed your company, the answer is yes. I like talking to you, Jon. I can hardly believe you’re still willing to reciprocate. Most people that intrigue me for whatever reason, they’re like temporary bandages over a radiation burn—they stick around just long enough to realize that this broken toy can’t be patched up with positive thinking and empty platitudes and self-help books, and then they bail. But you… you don’t seem interested in fixing anything. You just want to, what? Watch the decay spread? Document the collapse? I’ve offered you a glimpse of my darkness, and you just dissected it. As if performing an autopsy on my soul and cataloguing every diseased part you found. And I was glad to let you peel back layers. That writing course debacle… Honestly, if you hadn’t come out of the experience, I may have holed up in my cave for weeks. So, did our meeting feel good? I’m not sure I know what that feels like, because I can’t get rid of this anxiety and dread. But it felt… necessary. Real. Like for once, with you, I don’t need to pretend I’m something other than a monster. Now I have to acknowledge that maybe I’m not as alone in this darkness as I thought. That maybe other people out there can look inside me and not flinch. I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that kind of understanding. In summary: congratulations, Jon. You’re the first person I’ve talked to for more than ten minutes that didn’t make me want to claw my skin off. What a relief to speak to a human being without having to pretend to be one.”
“I want to meet up again soon, Elena. I picture us visiting interesting, solitary places, and having long talks about whatever comes to mind. I also intend to read the rest of your work. Let’s see how far we can take our experiment.”
Elena slid her hands into her pockets, folder tucked under one arm. Although she tried to restrain her lips from curving upwards, they betrayed her. The muscles that framed her mouth and connected to her chin tensed, her lower eyelids pushed up, her pale blues gleamed. I yearned to induce more of her genuine smiles, drawing beauty into the world with each one. Little works of art just for me.
“That sounds an awful lot like you’re giving me permission to be exactly what I am,” she said.
“That’s exactly what I want.”
Elena glanced over her shoulder at the rounded archway, under two levels of balconies and their striped awnings, that led deeper into Erromes Plaza. She turned back to me and nodded.
“Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s morally right to inflict myself on another person, but let’s do this again.”
-----
Author’s note: today’s song is “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead.
We’re like 25,000 words in, and we haven’t even reached the middle of the first act. This is going to be a long one.
Also, because I’m from this city and I mentioned the San Marcial festivities (even though that day I either work or stay at home), here’s a video about it. Some shots even depict the itinerary of our main characters; for example, at 0:40, the church appears on the left.
Elena headed toward the gate to exit Bar Palace’s fenced patio, but I reminded her that we were supposed to pay for the coffees. She followed me inside through the sliding door, and we trod over broad boards. A dozen tables populated the room, around which distinguished older ladies and men sat in ornate chairs. Overhead fixtures burnished with amber light rectangular stone columns bolstering wooden beams. Another fixture spotlighted a stone fireplace and the ornament perched on its mantle: a metallic emblem bearing Irún’s coat of arms. Vigilantiae Custos. Guardian of Vigilance. We had entered a centuries-old retreat. I beelined to the marble counter layered atop dark wood paneling, then waited for a waiter in black garb to take my money. Elena trailed behind me, blue folder clamped under her arm, and surveyed the salon with darting eyes as if she feared some threat lurked in there.
We emerged from Bar Palace onto Navarra Avenue, then stopped at the edge of the sidewalk for the traffic light to turn. After basking in the refuge of that patio, despite the intruding youth, this noisy intersection had hurled us back into civilization. Cars and buses growled past. Across the street, a cluster of teenage girls idled outside a candy store, chatting and giggling beneath a leafy tree. A cyclist avoided pedestrians as he passed the reddish-orange facade of a four-story apartment building. Beside me, the rain-scented breeze played ghostlike with Elena’s almond-blonde locks. She clutched her folder while her eyes flitted between strangers like an anthropologist visiting a foreign land. I resisted the urge to steal a glance at how her dark-wash jeans hugged her butt.
Had Elena intended for us to part ways the moment we left the coffee shop? I wanted to spend more time with her, so she’d have to dismiss me.
Although her eyes were averted, Elena’s thin voice reached out to me.
“Jon, do you like being around people?”
“Not particularly.”
“Often when I force myself to leave the apartment, I see all these men and women and kids and elders walking about like ants scurrying to and from their nest, and I think, ‘I have nothing in common with these beings.’ I must assume that minds operate behind their eyes, even though I can’t imagine their thoughts. But maybe I share the world with eight billions of shoddily-programmed automatrons that short-circuit when confronted with concepts more complicated than the weather, football, or whatever shit the mass media pumps into them. Maybe I’m the sole real person in a simulation built to trap me. It would explain the state of the world, wouldn’t it? If nobody had any fucking clue about what they’re doing.”
“As a fellow person, I can’t help but resent the implication. And that line of thinking can easily slide you into psychosis.”
The pedestrian light flicked to the walking man outline. Elena and I strolled ahead.
“As a child,” she said, “I wondered if everyone around me was acting out a role. Did they also have to put on a mask whenever they went out? Were they as scared and lonely as me? Even now, I can’t be around people for too long. When someone stares at me, I feel like a fly trapped in a jar. It makes my skin crawl. There are no common points in which I can make myself understood. When I engage people, they’re more likely than not to end up developing an instinctive dislike of me. They’re the normal ones. Always pretending, trying to impress others. Trying to impress themselves. Lying to get along, to fit in. Do they ever feel the walls closing in? Do they ever sense the void beneath their feet, or the cold, dead stars overhead?”
Iglesia Street unfolded into a downward-sloping plaza paved with gray stone. At its edge stood the white building of the Roman museum. In front, three towering cypress trees jutted upward like narrow spearheads. Elena continued her monologue.
“One of the things you discover when you’ve been alone for so long is how people can weigh you down. As if you had lived with a TV constantly on and loud, and once you turn it off, you realize that something had been drowning your genuine thoughts. That newfound silence allows contemplation similar to that our ancestors enjoyed in their so-called primitive societies. Alone, you’re free from having to conform to the expectations installed by the people you’ve allowed in, who intend for you to like and want the same things they do. Without that pressure, your true self emerges—unshackled, raw. You figure out what matters to you. What you’re willing to tolerate, sacrifice for, fight tooth and claw to defend. To get there you have to become one with the void inside. Otherwise it remains alien to you. And most people seem terrified of meeting that self, lest they end up pushed out of the collective and ejected into the cold.”
We were nearing the bronze statue of a San Marcial vivandière—a woman captured mid-stride, clad in a beret; a buttoned-down, tailored jacket; and a pleated skirt that draped over the tops of her laced boots. In her right hand, she held a fan aloft, frozen in her constant duty to wave, while she cast an unsettling smirk at passersby. Creeping verdigris etched stark contrasts along the pleats of her skirt.
“You’d think such a dynamic would be absent in couples, right?” Elena said. “Surely partners willing to accompany each other on this doomed journey would form a sanctuary in which both could grow as individuals. But no. Most couples seem like two dogs chained together. A romantic relationship censors you even worse, and before long, you end up defanged and declawed. Can’t risk upsetting your partner. Can’t risk losing them. No wonder some couples decide to have a kid, then another, and another. Filling the home with hostages. No, an individual’s freedom is too valuable to sacrifice for the sake of having a companion to fill the silence, and a warm body to fuck.”
As we descended the stairs, Juncal Church loomed fortresslike, built from sandy stone blocks, some bearing warm honey hues and others worn into ashen grays. Near the top of its bell tower, that had darkened as if singed by flames, a snow-white clockface stood out. The church endured as a relic from an era when people’s beliefs, however misguided, urged them to erect beauty that would outlive them by centuries.
Elena’s vacant gaze drifted along the stairs. She had tucked her folder under one arm, and that hand in the pocket of her jeans. When she spoke again, her voice came hoarse.
“Most people stick to you not because they’re interested, or care, but because they need that closeness, that shared warmth, the same way I need to be alone. They’d be comfortable gathered around a bench in silence, while their mere presence would desiccate me. You spoke about how many works of art have been lost because their potential creators wasted their talents, or died too young. But how many revolutionary ideas, how many discoveries we’ve missed in these societies that push their members to police each other’s thoughts? How many masterpieces have died in the womb because some nearby moron could consider them impractical or ridiculous or immoral? I’ve had to protect myself. Surely you noticed how guarded I was at the writing course, or when you first approached me at that bench. Always have a wall up. I ensure that a person will offer more than they’ll take away from me. To preserve the garden, one must first be a ruthless weed slayer. Without that, the flowers get choked and die.” Her jaw tensed as she swallowed, and she massaged her throat. “Life gets too complicated when people disgust you. You need them for the most basic things, and I endure those interactions while repeating in my mind for them to leave me the fuck alone. The responsibilities you accumulate with humans shackle you. From time to time I feel like I’ve matured enough, or grown enough callus, to tolerate experiences like that writing course, which could help me. But soon enough, everything that irritates me about human beings, their words, their noises, the myriad little humiliations, swell and swell until suddenly I can’t deal with a single extra minute of that shit. Then I need to hide from the world and everybody in it. My solution? I keep my rotten self away from others. That way nobody can hurt me, and I don’t pollute anyone else. A quarantine measure to keep the world safe, you could say. Isn’t that the epitome of altruism? The greatest good?” She sighed. “Yeah, I’ve given up. After that course, after my stories were deemed deplorable, after that fucking bitch Isabel called me out as a monster in front of everyone… I feel completely done. I hoped that other writers would understand. So I exist here, in this land, because I have no choice. I can’t just pack up and move to the forest, or the mountains. Well, I could, but I’d like to survive past twenty-eight. Honestly, I doubt I would have reached this far if my parents hadn’t taken care of me. Imagine their disappointment and regret at what I’ve turned out to be.”
I had stopped at the church entrance, and Elena, lost in her soliloquy, had copied me. The dark wooden doors split into four metal panels, each embossed with figures of robed saints or other biblical characters. Four sandstone columns with fluted shafts flanked the entrance. Their bases and capitals had eroded, exposed for centuries to the elements and the corroding darkness of the world. Above the door, a circular niche might have once housed a statue, but these days it would have been stolen. Higher up, near an oculus’ edge, some architectural oversight had forced the builders to chisel blocks and wedge them into gaps.
Elena cleared her throat.
“Man, my voice box is actually strained. I hadn’t spoken so much in years. Maybe I never had. I was holding back a shit-ton of stuff, it seems. I also like to stop and stare at beautiful buildings. To see their little details. The cracks, the mold, the weeds growing in between the stones. How much they’ve endured. And most churches beat modern monstrosities like the one built to replace the covered pelota court at Sargia.”
Elena’s pale blues stared at me with childlike interest. I held my breath as her loose locks fluttered. She arched an eyebrow, and I broke the silence.
“Elena, did our coffee meeting feel that overwhelming?”
Her fingers fidgeted with the edges of her folder, and she glanced away.
“If you’re asking whether I enjoyed your company, the answer is yes. I like talking to you, Jon. I can hardly believe you’re still willing to reciprocate. Most people that intrigue me for whatever reason, they’re like temporary bandages over a radiation burn—they stick around just long enough to realize that this broken toy can’t be patched up with positive thinking and empty platitudes and self-help books, and then they bail. But you… you don’t seem interested in fixing anything. You just want to, what? Watch the decay spread? Document the collapse? I’ve offered you a glimpse of my darkness, and you just dissected it. As if performing an autopsy on my soul and cataloguing every diseased part you found. And I was glad to let you peel back layers. That writing course debacle… Honestly, if you hadn’t come out of the experience, I may have holed up in my cave for weeks. So, did our meeting feel good? I’m not sure I know what that feels like, because I can’t get rid of this anxiety and dread. But it felt… necessary. Real. Like for once, with you, I don’t need to pretend I’m something other than a monster. Now I have to acknowledge that maybe I’m not as alone in this darkness as I thought. That maybe other people out there can look inside me and not flinch. I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that kind of understanding. In summary: congratulations, Jon. You’re the first person I’ve talked to for more than ten minutes that didn’t make me want to claw my skin off. What a relief to speak to a human being without having to pretend to be one.”
“I want to meet up again soon, Elena. I picture us visiting interesting, solitary places, and having long talks about whatever comes to mind. I also intend to read the rest of your work. Let’s see how far we can take our experiment.”
Elena slid her hands into her pockets, folder tucked under one arm. Although she tried to restrain her lips from curving upwards, they betrayed her. The muscles that framed her mouth and connected to her chin tensed, her lower eyelids pushed up, her pale blues gleamed. I yearned to induce more of her genuine smiles, drawing beauty into the world with each one. Little works of art just for me.
“That sounds an awful lot like you’re giving me permission to be exactly what I am,” she said.
“That’s exactly what I want.”
Elena glanced over her shoulder at the rounded archway, under two levels of balconies and their striped awnings, that led deeper into Erromes Plaza. She turned back to me and nodded.
“Anyway, I’m not sure if it’s morally right to inflict myself on another person, but let’s do this again.”
-----
Author’s note: today’s song is “Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead.
We’re like 25,000 words in, and we haven’t even reached the middle of the first act. This is going to be a long one.
Also, because I’m from this city and I mentioned the San Marcial festivities (even though that day I either work or stay at home), here’s a video about it. Some shots even depict the itinerary of our main characters; for example, at 0:40, the church appears on the left.
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 10 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
I descended the slope toward my refuge among the beech trees. A meter and a half above the circle of blackened grass levitated the emperor owl. Sunlight blazed on his conical crown. His folded wings peeked from the open sleeves of his purple dalmatic, and the drapery of his coiled sash hung beneath his talons.
Hobbling on trembling legs, I halted about five meters from the circle, and a gasp of surprise slipped out. I paced side to side, testing if a mirage deceived me, yet the emperor owl’s amber eyes tracked my every shift. I tilted my head, jaw slack.
The emperor owl raised a brow and parted his beak.
“Hello.”
When his cavernous voice swept through me, my face and hands prickled. My throat clenched. I fought the urge to leap for joy. Instead, I clenched my fists and pressed my knees together, tense like a spring.
“It’s you. Of course.”
I stepped closer. The emperor owl ruffled the black-and-olive striped feathers of his throat, eyes widening.
“You see me.”
I nodded frantically. A mouse-like squeak escaped me. I inched forward, but he unfurled one wing and stretched his neck.
“Remember. Keep your distance.”
I swayed, then crumpled to the grass, dropping my portfolio. Joy flooded me, stifling my speech—if I opened my mouth, laughter would stream out.
“You see me and do not fear me,” said the emperor owl, his tone like a man reassessing his world’s foundations.
“Why would I? You’re magnificent.”
The emperor owl flared his neck feathers, and a grin split his face.
I stood even though my legs threatened to buckle. My congestion made me dizzy; I shook my head to clear it.
“So, now I know. No more secrets. You’ve wandered from your land, lost, because we must have met by chance. But I think I’ll remember the path, or at least the direction.”
“What path?”
“I’ve seen the fleet waiting for you.”
The emperor owl gaped open his beak, his gaze wandering as a lemonade-pink tongue emerged, flickering faintly in the dark hollow of his mouth.
“Please,” I pressed. “How many kilometers separate you from your home? No one should have to live here.”
“Countless.”
“You can go back accompanied.”
“Girl, I don’t know what kind of world you’re imagining.”
“I’ve seen it, and miss it. You could have moved away from my refuge—you said so—but you had decided to stay for a while.”
“My world can’t be reached the way your kind travels.”
“I know. I’d follow you from land, and on the coast, I’d rent a boat—or steal one. Even if rowing wore me down, I’d know what lay ahead. And if I needed to sleep in the boat, you could alight and keep me company.”
The emperor owl narrowed his eyes. He snapped his wings open, shook them with a rustling whoosh, and folded them.
I rubbed my sweaty palms. My stomach tightened. Why was it so hard for him to accept that I recognized him? Did he distrust the person who would become his right hand? He must have met some of the inhabitants of this land and learned to avoid them. How could I convince him that I was worth the risk?
A meter and a half from the circle, near yesterday’s vomit—now a metallic crust—I swept aside rotten leaves and knelt on the grass.
“I swear allegiance to the emperor owl. I renounce all ties to this dark land into which I have unfortunately been born, and I vow that for the rest of my days, I will turn my back on it. I will obey the laws of the domains you rule and serve you in whatever manner you see fit.”
I furrowed my eyelids as I held my breath. The emperor owl would descend from his invisible pedestal and rest a wing on my shoulder.
A couple of fruits thudded into leaf litter; the narrow stream of the nearby creek hissed.
I stood. The emperor owl’s pupils quivered behind half-closed lids. I shook fragments of leaves and twigs from my palms. When I spoke, my voice faltered.
“Do you reject my oath?”
“What has happened to you?” asked the emperor owl, and though he had softened his tone, it reverberated like a cavernous echo.
“Too much. I must seem nervous, impulsive. Things are going badly for me. But test my loyalty however you wish. I swear I would leave today.”
The owl shrank and lowered his head.
“For now, I will stay.”
My muscles strained to keep me upright. I swallowed a lump of phlegm. How could I convince him beyond swearing my loyalty? Or was I striving in vain, because I could never deserve for the emperor owl to take me with him? But how could I ever deserve it, having been born here, among these people, tainted? What place could I belong to other than this darkness?
“Soon, right?” I whispered. “We’ll leave before long.”
The emperor owl inflated and deflated his chest beneath the dalmatic as he held my gaze with his amber eyes.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
I descended the slope toward my refuge among the beech trees. A meter and a half above the circle of blackened grass levitated the emperor owl. Sunlight blazed on his conical crown. His folded wings peeked from the open sleeves of his purple dalmatic, and the drapery of his coiled sash hung beneath his talons.
Hobbling on trembling legs, I halted about five meters from the circle, and a gasp of surprise slipped out. I paced side to side, testing if a mirage deceived me, yet the emperor owl’s amber eyes tracked my every shift. I tilted my head, jaw slack.
The emperor owl raised a brow and parted his beak.
“Hello.”
When his cavernous voice swept through me, my face and hands prickled. My throat clenched. I fought the urge to leap for joy. Instead, I clenched my fists and pressed my knees together, tense like a spring.
“It’s you. Of course.”
I stepped closer. The emperor owl ruffled the black-and-olive striped feathers of his throat, eyes widening.
“You see me.”
I nodded frantically. A mouse-like squeak escaped me. I inched forward, but he unfurled one wing and stretched his neck.
“Remember. Keep your distance.”
I swayed, then crumpled to the grass, dropping my portfolio. Joy flooded me, stifling my speech—if I opened my mouth, laughter would stream out.
“You see me and do not fear me,” said the emperor owl, his tone like a man reassessing his world’s foundations.
“Why would I? You’re magnificent.”
The emperor owl flared his neck feathers, and a grin split his face.
I stood even though my legs threatened to buckle. My congestion made me dizzy; I shook my head to clear it.
“So, now I know. No more secrets. You’ve wandered from your land, lost, because we must have met by chance. But I think I’ll remember the path, or at least the direction.”
“What path?”
“I’ve seen the fleet waiting for you.”
The emperor owl gaped open his beak, his gaze wandering as a lemonade-pink tongue emerged, flickering faintly in the dark hollow of his mouth.
“Please,” I pressed. “How many kilometers separate you from your home? No one should have to live here.”
“Countless.”
“You can go back accompanied.”
“Girl, I don’t know what kind of world you’re imagining.”
“I’ve seen it, and miss it. You could have moved away from my refuge—you said so—but you had decided to stay for a while.”
“My world can’t be reached the way your kind travels.”
“I know. I’d follow you from land, and on the coast, I’d rent a boat—or steal one. Even if rowing wore me down, I’d know what lay ahead. And if I needed to sleep in the boat, you could alight and keep me company.”
The emperor owl narrowed his eyes. He snapped his wings open, shook them with a rustling whoosh, and folded them.
I rubbed my sweaty palms. My stomach tightened. Why was it so hard for him to accept that I recognized him? Did he distrust the person who would become his right hand? He must have met some of the inhabitants of this land and learned to avoid them. How could I convince him that I was worth the risk?
A meter and a half from the circle, near yesterday’s vomit—now a metallic crust—I swept aside rotten leaves and knelt on the grass.
“I swear allegiance to the emperor owl. I renounce all ties to this dark land into which I have unfortunately been born, and I vow that for the rest of my days, I will turn my back on it. I will obey the laws of the domains you rule and serve you in whatever manner you see fit.”
I furrowed my eyelids as I held my breath. The emperor owl would descend from his invisible pedestal and rest a wing on my shoulder.
A couple of fruits thudded into leaf litter; the narrow stream of the nearby creek hissed.
I stood. The emperor owl’s pupils quivered behind half-closed lids. I shook fragments of leaves and twigs from my palms. When I spoke, my voice faltered.
“Do you reject my oath?”
“What has happened to you?” asked the emperor owl, and though he had softened his tone, it reverberated like a cavernous echo.
“Too much. I must seem nervous, impulsive. Things are going badly for me. But test my loyalty however you wish. I swear I would leave today.”
The owl shrank and lowered his head.
“For now, I will stay.”
My muscles strained to keep me upright. I swallowed a lump of phlegm. How could I convince him beyond swearing my loyalty? Or was I striving in vain, because I could never deserve for the emperor owl to take me with him? But how could I ever deserve it, having been born here, among these people, tainted? What place could I belong to other than this darkness?
“Soon, right?” I whispered. “We’ll leave before long.”
The emperor owl inflated and deflated his chest beneath the dalmatic as he held my gaze with his amber eyes.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
March 12, 2025
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 9 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
I lowered the blankets down to my nose as bile surged into my throat. The bedroom had shrunk as if the missing furniture had been holding up its dimensions. From the mattress sprawled on the floor, the bedroom door towered, its jambs slanting toward the narrow lintel, resembling a monolith.
Feverish tremors rattled me. I sucked air into my lungs, but they rejected it.
I blinked, and the door burst open as if rammed by a battering ram. It swung on its hinges and slammed the wall, exploding into splinters. In the doorway loomed Father’s hulking frame. His inflamed breath illuminated black nostrils and a bristly snout.
I blinked again, and the door stayed shut. I strained to hear footsteps beneath the roaring gale in my ears, where screams floated like driftwood from a shipwreck.
As my vision prickled into blackness, I levitated in a void—but jolted awake, back to my starlit bedroom. I buried my head under the blankets. Once darkness swallowed me, nothing could hurt me.
My swollen bladder pulsed. I clenched my thighs to trap it. A lapse and I’d wet myself. I thrashed on the mattress—rolling onto one shoulder, the other, my back—shuddering as cold sweat glued my pajamas to my skin. Urine clawed to escape. When I imagined leaping from bed, sprinting down a kilometer-long hall to the bathroom, then emptying my bladder, relief flooded me.
Why hold back? Would it matter if I peed myself? Was I afraid of disturbing him?
I spread my thighs and relented. A hot stream soaked my crotch, fused my panties to the pajama pants, and pooled between my buttocks. My body from navel to thighs felt warm as if I were sinking into a bath.
I peeked from the blankets. In the view quivering like a tuning fork, the cork oak outside stretched toward the star-patched sky. An owl clung to a branch, hunched in black-and-olive streaked plumage, wind ruffling its citrine underfeathers. Its crest and beak-framing feathers had grayed; the rest of its head camouflaged with the forest. Two tufts spiked from its crown—antennae of a space helmet. Wide amber eyes locked onto mine as if commanded to witness what came next.
The owl spread its wings, flapped them, and swiftly soared out of sight. The branch and its sinuous leaves shuddered, then stilled.
Tears boiled in my ducts, glazing the oak. Even the owl wouldn’t stay. I cocooned under the blankets. Blind blackness greeted my opened eyes. I gulped stagnant, warm air that reeked of ammonia.
In the void, the owl’s outline gripped the branch. Its eyes warned me in a language to which I was born deaf.
I rose. The owl watched as I neared the window. When I opened it, cold air rushed in. The bird spread its wings, flapped them, and swiftly soared out of sight. I craned into the night, twisting to scan the roof.
“Wait.”
I climbed the window frame. Jumped, and found myself dangling between the facade and oak, suspended by an invisible thread tethered to the sky. I clawed upward through air, soaring past the roof as pine-clad hills and valleys shrank below.
The owl’s silhouette fluttered ahead, a black smudge against a spatter of stars.
My chest swelled. I chased the bird for ten minutes while muscles I never knew screamed in my limbs.
A hundred meters below, a greenish sea stretched horizon-to-horizon, waves wrinkling with reflections of the stars and moon. The owl glided toward a fleet of anchored galleys, and landed on the central ship’s deck. Two rows of figures flanked the bird. A delegation approached.
I swooped to the stern and landed feet-first, but momentum slammed me down, dragging me five meters across planks. I stood.
Two long-necked egrets in slashed doublets and ruffs slid a purple dalmatic over the owl’s wings and head. They wrapped its shoulders and torso in a sash embroidered with gold and silver filigree. Across its stripes glittered dozens of gemstones. Another egret wedged a conical crown onto the bird’s crest—silver adorned with raised reliefs of owls, runes, and geometric patterns.
The deck’s flanking figures converged on me, stalking like a cat encircled by hounds. Eagles clad in bronze helmets and breastplates tilted halberds my way.
“Sir, they followed you,” growled the lead eagle soldier.
A hiss echoed above. Bird silhouettes aimed crossbows from the crow’s nest and rigging.
The owl adjusted its dalmatic, waddled closer, and raised a wing. Lemon-sized amber eyes fixed on me.
“I recognize this human. She hails from that sorrowful overseas land.” His voice dropped. “You were born into a bleak country, girl.”
I shuddered. Swallowed to unclench my throat.
“It is, sir.”
The owl glanced at his guards, then lowered a wing. The eagles retreated, nodding.
It stepped nearer, wingtips resting on my shoulders, fanning black-striped feathers.
“I hoped you’d choose to follow me.”
I clasped my hands, voice shrill.
“May I accompany you, sir?”
“Of course.”
He encircled my back with a wing, and guided me toward the prow.
“Rest as long as you need. When you wake, you will breakfast with me. Tomorrow we reach my domains.”
In the morning, as I stepped out of the captain’s cabin onto the deck, the orange hole in the sky dazzled me. It bathed chalk-white cliffs. Salty air cleansed my lungs.
The fleet sailed through the mouth between two capes into a gulf, its shores teeming with houses, towers, and multicolored crops, while the sparkling waters were dotted with fishing boats and cargo ships. We docked at a harbor. The towering masts of hundreds of vessels rose like a forest of bare trees and tangled vines.
On the cobblestones of the harbor, the owl invited me to a carriage that would be drawn by six horses. The vehicle was decorated with golden garlands that gleamed in the sun, and up close, you could make out the stylized figures of birds perched on branches or in flight. The wheels were rimmed with gilt flowers, the interior of the carriage covered with purple velvet curtains. The cherrywood panels depicted the emperor owl and his retinue.
Inside, I settled onto a cushioned bench. The owl positioned himself across from me and drew the curtain across the window. I insisted on speaking, but utterly exhausted, I kept babbling incoherently. The emperor suggested I rest. I stretched out along the bench, burying my head in a feather pillow, and closed my eyes.
The carriage wheels glided over earth and grass, clattered along cobblestone streets. The clamor of villages poured in. The music of street performers emerged and vanished amidst vendors’ cries. Every few minutes, the uproar of crowds swelled around the carriage as they cheered for the emperor.
That noon, I dined in his castle, within a throne room as lofty as a cathedral. Rows of marble pillars supported a ribbed vault, its surface carved with rosettes and inlaid with colorful mosaics depicting heroic deeds. I sat beside the emperor owl at a table whose ends curved at the horizon. Bathed in the soft glow of candlelight, dozens of birds dipped their spoons into bowls of soup and purée. They pecked at pork ribs drenched in a tangy vinegar and lemon juice sauce. Between sips and bites, they chattered and laughed.
Seated across, a kingfisher dressed in a doublet, with an indigo head speckled in turquoise, poured cider through its long beak. To its right, a peregrine falcon, its head a smoky gray, adjusted a monocle that magnified one brown eye. Boasting, it boomed its deep, braggadocious voice over a plate of sea bass and potatoes.
As I savored the third bite of my lasagna, the emperor owl clinked a knife against his goblet. The clamor ceased. The guests turned their attention to him as if he were a revered professor.
“Listen.” His voice echoed through the throne room and returned as if a choir were mimicking it. “I thank you for having restrained your curiosity. This human, as you may have heard, followed me from the overseas land. Just as with the rest of its inhabitants, every day the shadows that ravage those lands hammered her body with mallet and chisel, and one day they would have reduced her to nothing.”
Emotion clouded my voice.
“But the emperor owl found me, and in his wisdom, he allowed me to accompany him to his domains.”
He pulled back the chair and settled in beside me. His warm wing draped over my shoulder. He gazed at me with amber eyes, their gleaming pupils reflecting the flickering flames of candles. The corner of his beak curved into a smile.
“And from this day onward, brave girl, you will be my right hand. Your belly will never writhe with hunger. You will forget fear. Never again will you endure pains you were never meant to know.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
I lowered the blankets down to my nose as bile surged into my throat. The bedroom had shrunk as if the missing furniture had been holding up its dimensions. From the mattress sprawled on the floor, the bedroom door towered, its jambs slanting toward the narrow lintel, resembling a monolith.
Feverish tremors rattled me. I sucked air into my lungs, but they rejected it.
I blinked, and the door burst open as if rammed by a battering ram. It swung on its hinges and slammed the wall, exploding into splinters. In the doorway loomed Father’s hulking frame. His inflamed breath illuminated black nostrils and a bristly snout.
I blinked again, and the door stayed shut. I strained to hear footsteps beneath the roaring gale in my ears, where screams floated like driftwood from a shipwreck.
As my vision prickled into blackness, I levitated in a void—but jolted awake, back to my starlit bedroom. I buried my head under the blankets. Once darkness swallowed me, nothing could hurt me.
My swollen bladder pulsed. I clenched my thighs to trap it. A lapse and I’d wet myself. I thrashed on the mattress—rolling onto one shoulder, the other, my back—shuddering as cold sweat glued my pajamas to my skin. Urine clawed to escape. When I imagined leaping from bed, sprinting down a kilometer-long hall to the bathroom, then emptying my bladder, relief flooded me.
Why hold back? Would it matter if I peed myself? Was I afraid of disturbing him?
I spread my thighs and relented. A hot stream soaked my crotch, fused my panties to the pajama pants, and pooled between my buttocks. My body from navel to thighs felt warm as if I were sinking into a bath.
I peeked from the blankets. In the view quivering like a tuning fork, the cork oak outside stretched toward the star-patched sky. An owl clung to a branch, hunched in black-and-olive streaked plumage, wind ruffling its citrine underfeathers. Its crest and beak-framing feathers had grayed; the rest of its head camouflaged with the forest. Two tufts spiked from its crown—antennae of a space helmet. Wide amber eyes locked onto mine as if commanded to witness what came next.
The owl spread its wings, flapped them, and swiftly soared out of sight. The branch and its sinuous leaves shuddered, then stilled.
Tears boiled in my ducts, glazing the oak. Even the owl wouldn’t stay. I cocooned under the blankets. Blind blackness greeted my opened eyes. I gulped stagnant, warm air that reeked of ammonia.
In the void, the owl’s outline gripped the branch. Its eyes warned me in a language to which I was born deaf.
I rose. The owl watched as I neared the window. When I opened it, cold air rushed in. The bird spread its wings, flapped them, and swiftly soared out of sight. I craned into the night, twisting to scan the roof.
“Wait.”
I climbed the window frame. Jumped, and found myself dangling between the facade and oak, suspended by an invisible thread tethered to the sky. I clawed upward through air, soaring past the roof as pine-clad hills and valleys shrank below.
The owl’s silhouette fluttered ahead, a black smudge against a spatter of stars.
My chest swelled. I chased the bird for ten minutes while muscles I never knew screamed in my limbs.
A hundred meters below, a greenish sea stretched horizon-to-horizon, waves wrinkling with reflections of the stars and moon. The owl glided toward a fleet of anchored galleys, and landed on the central ship’s deck. Two rows of figures flanked the bird. A delegation approached.
I swooped to the stern and landed feet-first, but momentum slammed me down, dragging me five meters across planks. I stood.
Two long-necked egrets in slashed doublets and ruffs slid a purple dalmatic over the owl’s wings and head. They wrapped its shoulders and torso in a sash embroidered with gold and silver filigree. Across its stripes glittered dozens of gemstones. Another egret wedged a conical crown onto the bird’s crest—silver adorned with raised reliefs of owls, runes, and geometric patterns.
The deck’s flanking figures converged on me, stalking like a cat encircled by hounds. Eagles clad in bronze helmets and breastplates tilted halberds my way.
“Sir, they followed you,” growled the lead eagle soldier.
A hiss echoed above. Bird silhouettes aimed crossbows from the crow’s nest and rigging.
The owl adjusted its dalmatic, waddled closer, and raised a wing. Lemon-sized amber eyes fixed on me.
“I recognize this human. She hails from that sorrowful overseas land.” His voice dropped. “You were born into a bleak country, girl.”
I shuddered. Swallowed to unclench my throat.
“It is, sir.”
The owl glanced at his guards, then lowered a wing. The eagles retreated, nodding.
It stepped nearer, wingtips resting on my shoulders, fanning black-striped feathers.
“I hoped you’d choose to follow me.”
I clasped my hands, voice shrill.
“May I accompany you, sir?”
“Of course.”
He encircled my back with a wing, and guided me toward the prow.
“Rest as long as you need. When you wake, you will breakfast with me. Tomorrow we reach my domains.”
In the morning, as I stepped out of the captain’s cabin onto the deck, the orange hole in the sky dazzled me. It bathed chalk-white cliffs. Salty air cleansed my lungs.
The fleet sailed through the mouth between two capes into a gulf, its shores teeming with houses, towers, and multicolored crops, while the sparkling waters were dotted with fishing boats and cargo ships. We docked at a harbor. The towering masts of hundreds of vessels rose like a forest of bare trees and tangled vines.
On the cobblestones of the harbor, the owl invited me to a carriage that would be drawn by six horses. The vehicle was decorated with golden garlands that gleamed in the sun, and up close, you could make out the stylized figures of birds perched on branches or in flight. The wheels were rimmed with gilt flowers, the interior of the carriage covered with purple velvet curtains. The cherrywood panels depicted the emperor owl and his retinue.
Inside, I settled onto a cushioned bench. The owl positioned himself across from me and drew the curtain across the window. I insisted on speaking, but utterly exhausted, I kept babbling incoherently. The emperor suggested I rest. I stretched out along the bench, burying my head in a feather pillow, and closed my eyes.
The carriage wheels glided over earth and grass, clattered along cobblestone streets. The clamor of villages poured in. The music of street performers emerged and vanished amidst vendors’ cries. Every few minutes, the uproar of crowds swelled around the carriage as they cheered for the emperor.
That noon, I dined in his castle, within a throne room as lofty as a cathedral. Rows of marble pillars supported a ribbed vault, its surface carved with rosettes and inlaid with colorful mosaics depicting heroic deeds. I sat beside the emperor owl at a table whose ends curved at the horizon. Bathed in the soft glow of candlelight, dozens of birds dipped their spoons into bowls of soup and purée. They pecked at pork ribs drenched in a tangy vinegar and lemon juice sauce. Between sips and bites, they chattered and laughed.
Seated across, a kingfisher dressed in a doublet, with an indigo head speckled in turquoise, poured cider through its long beak. To its right, a peregrine falcon, its head a smoky gray, adjusted a monocle that magnified one brown eye. Boasting, it boomed its deep, braggadocious voice over a plate of sea bass and potatoes.
As I savored the third bite of my lasagna, the emperor owl clinked a knife against his goblet. The clamor ceased. The guests turned their attention to him as if he were a revered professor.
“Listen.” His voice echoed through the throne room and returned as if a choir were mimicking it. “I thank you for having restrained your curiosity. This human, as you may have heard, followed me from the overseas land. Just as with the rest of its inhabitants, every day the shadows that ravage those lands hammered her body with mallet and chisel, and one day they would have reduced her to nothing.”
Emotion clouded my voice.
“But the emperor owl found me, and in his wisdom, he allowed me to accompany him to his domains.”
He pulled back the chair and settled in beside me. His warm wing draped over my shoulder. He gazed at me with amber eyes, their gleaming pupils reflecting the flickering flames of candles. The corner of his beak curved into a smile.
“And from this day onward, brave girl, you will be my right hand. Your belly will never writhe with hunger. You will forget fear. Never again will you endure pains you were never meant to know.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane.
March 11, 2025
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 8 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
When I rounded the hallway corner toward my bedroom, my dresser blocked the path, its drawers slightly ajar as if they had slid forward while the piece was being pulled. I pushed the dresser aside until I squeezed through the gap between its edge and the wall. From my open bedroom spilled a harsh scrape. It was punctured by the footsteps of a hulking mass, their vibrations trembling the floor.
I crept forward on tiptoe, fingertips grazing the grainy texture of the wallpaper. Congestion glazed my eyes, and static fogged my mind. My mouth, through which I was breathing, tasted stale.
From the bedroom doorway jutted a hand’s breadth of desk. It inched outward in jerks until halfway. Father growled. With a shove, the desk emerged fully, revealing the man behind it, his meaty palms planted on the furniture. When his gaze flicked toward me, I ducked my head as if I risked turning to stone. The desk legs screeched against the wooden floor as Father wedged it flush against the wall.
I lunged to the bedroom threshold, arms flung wide to block it.
“No.”
Father marched toward me and swatted me aside like a curtain. The bristles of his arm pierced the skin of my shoulder and chest through my sweater, shirt, and bra. I staggered against the hallway wall and crumpled to the floor.
Father muttered in the gutted space. He yanked open the screeching doors of my closet.
I rose as if waking from a faint. I couldn’t stop this man, nor persuade him to leave me alone. What could I do? Had he warned Mother? Told her he planned to strip my room of furniture that might barricade the door? Was she absent because she objected, or because she didn’t care?
My vision blurred. After wiping my nose on a snot-crusted handkerchief, I hurried down the hall, descended the stairs, crossed the living room, and stepped into a dusk that chilled my face and hands. The moon and first stars pierced clotted clouds. I scanned the pasture for Mother’s gaunt silhouette.
Chains clinked. The cows.
I rushed to the barn, plunging into its musky, dung-thick air. The beasts, chained in their stalls, chewed hay. Mother sat hunched on a stool beside one of the cows, squeezing the swollen teats of its udders, which were ridged with bulging veins. Milk jets splashed into a half-full bucket. She tilted her face toward the wall, hiding behind straggly, unkempt hair.
I halted beside her, fists clenched.
“Tell him to leave my furniture alone. Please.”
Mother tugged another udder, spraying milk. I crouched to glimpse her profile: features scratched into rotted wood, lips a mere slit. She stared down at the milk-filled bucket, making it seem like she had closed her eyes.
I softened my voice as much as my trembling allowed.
“Mother, do you know what he intends? If he told you, I don’t know if you could’ve stopped him. But you have to help me.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The volume of her voice had matched the splashing in the bucket, her words as though I’d imagined them in the gurgle of aching guts.
When I placed a hand on her sweatered shoulder, a bony lump pressed my palm.
“Do you know why he’s taking my furniture? Do you know what he does to me?”
She shot upright, the stool clattering on stone. Mother clamped her hand around my cheeks and squeezed. It hurt as if she might rip my mouth off with a tug. Her tangled gray mane framed creased and shovel-colored skin, and the paint with which her eyes had been drawn threatened to flake away. Her breath smelled of garlic.
She let go of my face. With her other hand, she gripped my nape, then shoved me beneath the cow and plunged my head into the milk bucket. I gulped a mouthful that flooded my lungs. I convulsed, trying to sneeze the milk out, but each spasm swallowed more, drowning my eyes, drenching my brain. Mother pressed my head deeper, the bucket’s curved edge digging into my collarbones. I grabbed the cow’s hide—it mooed and thrashed about, the chains binding its legs clinking.
Mother yanked my hair, and I fell backward onto bits of straw. I coughed bursts of milk. Sneezes and hacking shuddered through me, raking my nostrils and throat raw.
When I lifted my gaze from the straw-strewn floor, Mother was gone. The bucket lay overturned by the stool, and a milk puddle spread around the cow’s hoof.
Rising would waste energy. Someone should chalk my outline.
The cow nudged its muzzle close and lowed. Its nostrils exhaled a cloudy breath that warmed my cheek, glassy eyes gazing at me as if I were a wounded calf.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “Screen Shot” by Swans.
When I rounded the hallway corner toward my bedroom, my dresser blocked the path, its drawers slightly ajar as if they had slid forward while the piece was being pulled. I pushed the dresser aside until I squeezed through the gap between its edge and the wall. From my open bedroom spilled a harsh scrape. It was punctured by the footsteps of a hulking mass, their vibrations trembling the floor.
I crept forward on tiptoe, fingertips grazing the grainy texture of the wallpaper. Congestion glazed my eyes, and static fogged my mind. My mouth, through which I was breathing, tasted stale.
From the bedroom doorway jutted a hand’s breadth of desk. It inched outward in jerks until halfway. Father growled. With a shove, the desk emerged fully, revealing the man behind it, his meaty palms planted on the furniture. When his gaze flicked toward me, I ducked my head as if I risked turning to stone. The desk legs screeched against the wooden floor as Father wedged it flush against the wall.
I lunged to the bedroom threshold, arms flung wide to block it.
“No.”
Father marched toward me and swatted me aside like a curtain. The bristles of his arm pierced the skin of my shoulder and chest through my sweater, shirt, and bra. I staggered against the hallway wall and crumpled to the floor.
Father muttered in the gutted space. He yanked open the screeching doors of my closet.
I rose as if waking from a faint. I couldn’t stop this man, nor persuade him to leave me alone. What could I do? Had he warned Mother? Told her he planned to strip my room of furniture that might barricade the door? Was she absent because she objected, or because she didn’t care?
My vision blurred. After wiping my nose on a snot-crusted handkerchief, I hurried down the hall, descended the stairs, crossed the living room, and stepped into a dusk that chilled my face and hands. The moon and first stars pierced clotted clouds. I scanned the pasture for Mother’s gaunt silhouette.
Chains clinked. The cows.
I rushed to the barn, plunging into its musky, dung-thick air. The beasts, chained in their stalls, chewed hay. Mother sat hunched on a stool beside one of the cows, squeezing the swollen teats of its udders, which were ridged with bulging veins. Milk jets splashed into a half-full bucket. She tilted her face toward the wall, hiding behind straggly, unkempt hair.
I halted beside her, fists clenched.
“Tell him to leave my furniture alone. Please.”
Mother tugged another udder, spraying milk. I crouched to glimpse her profile: features scratched into rotted wood, lips a mere slit. She stared down at the milk-filled bucket, making it seem like she had closed her eyes.
I softened my voice as much as my trembling allowed.
“Mother, do you know what he intends? If he told you, I don’t know if you could’ve stopped him. But you have to help me.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The volume of her voice had matched the splashing in the bucket, her words as though I’d imagined them in the gurgle of aching guts.
When I placed a hand on her sweatered shoulder, a bony lump pressed my palm.
“Do you know why he’s taking my furniture? Do you know what he does to me?”
She shot upright, the stool clattering on stone. Mother clamped her hand around my cheeks and squeezed. It hurt as if she might rip my mouth off with a tug. Her tangled gray mane framed creased and shovel-colored skin, and the paint with which her eyes had been drawn threatened to flake away. Her breath smelled of garlic.
She let go of my face. With her other hand, she gripped my nape, then shoved me beneath the cow and plunged my head into the milk bucket. I gulped a mouthful that flooded my lungs. I convulsed, trying to sneeze the milk out, but each spasm swallowed more, drowning my eyes, drenching my brain. Mother pressed my head deeper, the bucket’s curved edge digging into my collarbones. I grabbed the cow’s hide—it mooed and thrashed about, the chains binding its legs clinking.
Mother yanked my hair, and I fell backward onto bits of straw. I coughed bursts of milk. Sneezes and hacking shuddered through me, raking my nostrils and throat raw.
When I lifted my gaze from the straw-strewn floor, Mother was gone. The bucket lay overturned by the stool, and a milk puddle spread around the cow’s hoof.
Rising would waste energy. Someone should chalk my outline.
The cow nudged its muzzle close and lowed. Its nostrils exhaled a cloudy breath that warmed my cheek, glassy eyes gazing at me as if I were a wounded calf.
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Today’s song is “Screen Shot” by Swans.
March 10, 2025
The Emperor Owl, Pt. 7 (Fiction)
[check out this part on my personal page, where it looks better]
Before I stifled the sneeze, snot shrapnel sprayed my drawing, speckling the page with translucent blotches, smothering some strokes with globs. What did it matter? My trembling hand had sketched shaky curves. The scene I’d created was hazy, mirroring my mental fog, as if I were glimpsing a landscape through greased paper.
I crumpled the sheet into a ball. When I dropped it beside me, it rolled over the portfolio and lodged between chunks of bark. I blew my nose as if I were filled with liters of mucus, but ten seconds later, a trickle slid from one nostril. The wings of my nose were raw. My mouth tasted of phlegm. I should—and wanted—to lie in bed, but why stay under that roof when I could escape for a few hours?
I twisted my nose with the handkerchief, which muffled my voice.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Whatever you like,” said the man. “We’ll see what I answer.”
“Do you like me?”
The air thickened near the blackened circle, charged like static.
“You think I don’t?”
“Would you betray me?”
“Have you given me reason?”
“I don’t know. You might think I have, even if I didn’t mean to.”
“Is that cold of yours messing with your head? Why worry?”
“It is messing with me. I can’t think straight. But maybe you’re pretending to like me as a distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“From planning to hurt me.”
The man sighed, his breath prickling my face.
“I’m not planning to. Though if I were, I imagine I’d hide it.”
“If someone I thought cared for me switched sides, I assumed I would know.”
“It’s been years since anyone entertained me like you. Though, to be fair, I’ve never delved deeper into a relationship than telling someone to leave and watching them flee.”
I blew my nose until I needed a fresh handkerchief. The sight of the charred grass circle wavered, and the taste of my saliva sickened me. I set the cloth-covered tureen on my thigh, loosened the elastic, and lifted a corner of the fabric. If I could smell, maybe the aroma of marmitako inside would’ve stirred my hunger.
“Will it taste like anything to you?” said the man.
“Maybe it’ll taste like something to you.”
“Want me to try it?”
“I brought it to offer you. Even an invisible man needs to eat. What kind of person would let you starve?”
At the edge of my hearing floated the murmur of clashing thoughts, mingled with wind whistling, birds trilling, and the creek’s whisper.
“I should refuse.”
I crawled forward, but stopped a meter and a half from the circle to avoid the pins stabbing me. Bowing, I placed the open tureen on the grass. I jerked backward, then leaned on my hands, damp leaves and grass beneath my palms.
“If I ate, it’d be wasted. It’d taste like phlegm.”
“Charming word to hear while I consider eating.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the image of the circle, the beeches, the tangle of branches beyond, slid toward the tureen as if painted on a stretching rubber band. The distortion coiled around the tureen like a claw, contracted, and swallowed it into a mirrored lake. The rustle of crumpled fabric. Chewing. A gulp.
A cough exploded, convulsing the beeches and the circle, the shockwave knocking me onto my back. The tureen flew past my head. My legs folded against my chest—firecracker-like coughs jolted me as if trying to make me roll. Needles stabbed my face and hands like a swarm of bees, their stings piercing my sweater and pants.
When the man stopped coughing, I lay supine. Above the quivering lattice of branches, a mass of gray-blue clouds slid south. I sat up. Snot bubbled in one nostril, and my exposed skin burned.
Before the circle of withered grass, a black, mercurial vomit had flattened the blades and buried the debris. I couldn’t smell, but the fumes attacked my nose like smoke-itch. The view of the blackened circle had stilled.
Had I poisoned the invisible man?
“Please, tell me you’re still there.”
“I’d forgotten how vomiting feels.”
I covered my mouth. I wanted to kneel and weep.
“I didn’t mean to. I swear. If I’d known it’d affect you like this, I’d have eaten it myself, even if it tasted like phlegm.”
“Relax. Years ago, I tried your food and it ended in another puddle. I thought this time might be different.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in English about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
Before I stifled the sneeze, snot shrapnel sprayed my drawing, speckling the page with translucent blotches, smothering some strokes with globs. What did it matter? My trembling hand had sketched shaky curves. The scene I’d created was hazy, mirroring my mental fog, as if I were glimpsing a landscape through greased paper.
I crumpled the sheet into a ball. When I dropped it beside me, it rolled over the portfolio and lodged between chunks of bark. I blew my nose as if I were filled with liters of mucus, but ten seconds later, a trickle slid from one nostril. The wings of my nose were raw. My mouth tasted of phlegm. I should—and wanted—to lie in bed, but why stay under that roof when I could escape for a few hours?
I twisted my nose with the handkerchief, which muffled my voice.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Whatever you like,” said the man. “We’ll see what I answer.”
“Do you like me?”
The air thickened near the blackened circle, charged like static.
“You think I don’t?”
“Would you betray me?”
“Have you given me reason?”
“I don’t know. You might think I have, even if I didn’t mean to.”
“Is that cold of yours messing with your head? Why worry?”
“It is messing with me. I can’t think straight. But maybe you’re pretending to like me as a distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“From planning to hurt me.”
The man sighed, his breath prickling my face.
“I’m not planning to. Though if I were, I imagine I’d hide it.”
“If someone I thought cared for me switched sides, I assumed I would know.”
“It’s been years since anyone entertained me like you. Though, to be fair, I’ve never delved deeper into a relationship than telling someone to leave and watching them flee.”
I blew my nose until I needed a fresh handkerchief. The sight of the charred grass circle wavered, and the taste of my saliva sickened me. I set the cloth-covered tureen on my thigh, loosened the elastic, and lifted a corner of the fabric. If I could smell, maybe the aroma of marmitako inside would’ve stirred my hunger.
“Will it taste like anything to you?” said the man.
“Maybe it’ll taste like something to you.”
“Want me to try it?”
“I brought it to offer you. Even an invisible man needs to eat. What kind of person would let you starve?”
At the edge of my hearing floated the murmur of clashing thoughts, mingled with wind whistling, birds trilling, and the creek’s whisper.
“I should refuse.”
I crawled forward, but stopped a meter and a half from the circle to avoid the pins stabbing me. Bowing, I placed the open tureen on the grass. I jerked backward, then leaned on my hands, damp leaves and grass beneath my palms.
“If I ate, it’d be wasted. It’d taste like phlegm.”
“Charming word to hear while I consider eating.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but the image of the circle, the beeches, the tangle of branches beyond, slid toward the tureen as if painted on a stretching rubber band. The distortion coiled around the tureen like a claw, contracted, and swallowed it into a mirrored lake. The rustle of crumpled fabric. Chewing. A gulp.
A cough exploded, convulsing the beeches and the circle, the shockwave knocking me onto my back. The tureen flew past my head. My legs folded against my chest—firecracker-like coughs jolted me as if trying to make me roll. Needles stabbed my face and hands like a swarm of bees, their stings piercing my sweater and pants.
When the man stopped coughing, I lay supine. Above the quivering lattice of branches, a mass of gray-blue clouds slid south. I sat up. Snot bubbled in one nostril, and my exposed skin burned.
Before the circle of withered grass, a black, mercurial vomit had flattened the blades and buried the debris. I couldn’t smell, but the fumes attacked my nose like smoke-itch. The view of the blackened circle had stilled.
Had I poisoned the invisible man?
“Please, tell me you’re still there.”
“I’d forgotten how vomiting feels.”
I covered my mouth. I wanted to kneel and weep.
“I didn’t mean to. I swear. If I’d known it’d affect you like this, I’d have eaten it myself, even if it tasted like phlegm.”
“Relax. Years ago, I tried your food and it ended in another puddle. I thought this time might be different.”
-----
Author’s note: I wrote this novella in English about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.
