Monstrilio

by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

One believes the stupidest things in grief. I spoke to the flower and called it my son. And then I laughed because how ridiculous—how cruel, really—it would have been if my son was reincarnated as something so ephemeral, frail, and beautiful. I killed that first bloom with one swoop of my hand. Dead again, my son could become something else: the shell of a tortoise, strong and ancient, or a hideous fanged creature deep in the sea where he’d see wonders even he could’ve never imagined.

I am going to cry one chapter in????

I only realized then that she had lost a grandchild. Her one grandchild. How bizarre that someone so far away as my mother then seemed, in this large, sunny house in Mexico, with its terra- cotta floors, arranged flowers, and paintings in gilded frames, so far away from my son’s ashes, from the bed from which he never woke up, could feel his loss. Santiago was so mine, I could not fathom her feeling him gone.

I hated the lung for teaching him such self-restraint.

I should have been an actress, so much I enjoyed performing, but I was too occupied doing what I liked doing best: directing the way our three lives unfolded, tethered to one another, full.

“It got scary for a while,” he said. “After you left and Uncle came to look after me, I suddenly couldn’t feel anything anymore. When my mother died, Uncle absorbed all the grief and accumulated it inside his body so none of it reached me. That’s why he’s so gnarled and bent at odd angles. After Santiago, I expected to gnarl too. I wanted my grief, but instead I was left with a horrible nothingness, and I got really scared. But then I realized fear was a thing I could feel, and I clung to it.

My apartment could only hold so many things. I could afford a larger one. I could afford a damn house. But I liked my tiny apartment. It had seen me grow from a person who could barely afford it to someone who could upgrade easily. It hadn’t judged me; why would I judge it?

My mother believed I was a demon sent to ruin her family. She blamed me for her depression, for her quitting her job, and for my brother going to jail.

was jealous of the monster, how it didn’t care what it was or did. No shame. It held itself up with a certain pride. But mostly I was jealous of the way Magos cared for it despite it being a monster.

On one of the last filled pages (“Hello, today is Saturday”), he drew a creature that looked just like Monstrilio, same ball-body, same arm-tail sticking out awkwardly from its side, same row of fangs across half of its body. A few pages later, he wrote, “Hello, today is Monday.” Then, instead of a creature, he wrote, “The End.”

Cats and small dogs (some not so small), also a few rats, lay dead all over the patio, in pieces, eviscerated. It stank of innards and blood.

ESTRELLA CAME THAT NIGHT. It was a Monday. She bathed me, the frosted tips of her bunned-up hair soggy on her forehead. I pushed them away, and my hand lingered on her cheek.