His Name was Death

by Rafael Bernal

The jungle: misfortune’s cloak and bitter hatred’s blind — the blessed jungle. Whoever would live inside her can find peace, so long as he submits to her laws and doesn’t mind being a lowly admirer of such magnificence, so long as he doesn’t mind setting aside his human pride and becoming no more than an unwelcome guest, a fledgling stripped of his rights, content to vegetate in the shadows of the jungle’s goodwill.

I think those were the happiest days of my life, the days when I lived with the greatest sense of peace, my soul free of any desires beyond doing good, being constructive, and getting up in the morning.