Rafael Marcelo Arteaga

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Season Of Death, Part Three

Hidden, hidden, there they were! The collector of skulls, whose love is to drink the wine of important people from them; the observer of the stars with his ceremonial mantles; the weapons dealer amid their slaves, whose sickly bodies don't make shadows, even with the torches´ most intense glare.

From the interior of the ships, they hurry to the exit, mercenaries of mended faces (debts of love and playing cards) , with the roots of a certain tree in their mouths to mitigate the fatigue and the rigors of the cold winds –evidence that they give their all in battle in exchange for good money. The executioner's apprentice, who makes merits for a better salary in order to buy his fiancé for two oxen and a load of salt. The corporal, feared by his enemies and too weak before his superiors, with a scorpion on his chest flees from his pregnant mother. The tamer of vipers whose daughters wait in another town –unable to marry due to their lack of wealth.

After them also appears the shareholders of the slave ships speculating the prices of their merchandises; the god’s emissaries ready to sink their timbers in every newly submitted town; the regulators of the water; the obese madam and her ladies who knew better days in other lands, and due to the lack of women here they will be nominated duchesses. The building chiefs; the judges convinced of being able to escape of the torture. A poet obsessed with an imaginary tuberculosis and a lame notary who has purpose to kill his wife for not sharing the profits in the new territories; the searchers of garbage recognizing the siphons of the city; the midwives and the last amulets against the malefice, the soup seller with his seven daughter-in-laws who also sell soup.

The fathoms stoke the greenest logs and irritate my eyes in the wake. There is a vase with exotic flowers on the table, the minerals, and the incense that I throw to the blaze while the interpretation’s time arrives. A mask close to the window will announce the beginning of the dawn.

Let us speak at once that the dead people do not need such matters and neither do we understand them completely.

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