The Unworthy

by Agustina Bazterrica

She was the one who taught me that disaster means living without stars, or celestial bodies, or comets, without the light of night, in complete darkness.

Burning a book made me angry because I knew I was setting fire to a world.

There are times I think that none of this matters. Why put myself in danger with this book of the night? But I have to because if I write it, then it was real; if I write it, maybe we won’t just be part of a dream contained in a planet, inside a universe hidden in the imagination of someone who lives in the mouth of God.

(What is it like to hear the words emitted by the mouth of God? Are they small, ephemeral explosions? Does his tongue cradle death?) God is hungry.

During the day we don’t draw attention to ourselves, we hide what we do so the unworthy and the servants don’t see it, so they don’t know that at night we become the sound of flowers no longer in existence, that without words, using only our touch, we seek the secret names that vibrate in each other’s skin. We pretend, so the Superior Sister suspects nothing, that each of us does not know the other’s body, centimeter by centimeter. We feign normalcy so the unworthy don’t learn of the words we whisper to each other, our lips so close, without kissing, without touching, until we can take it no longer. The words wrap around us, caress us, they’re like the gentlest of rivers flowing over our bodies.