Bone got home after a fruitless six-hour walk. He had been promised some vegetables in exchange for one of his last tools, an allegedly Ginsu knife that reminded him of the time people could buy things advertized on TV. He hated to get home empty-handed, especially under this heat that made him think the sun must be two inches from the earth. It made the defeat more soaking and stinkingly visible. His wife, daughter, and dogs would be very disappointed, he thought. They had not eaten much in days. The dogs were eating their own shit.
There was a time he enjoyed the sight. The dogs racing the long colonial hallway to see which one got to him first; his daughter waiting arms wide open in the second living room; he, rushing to unzip his backpack before he got to the dining room, since by then the dogs were racing back, jumping around him demanding their favorite bread. There was always some for everyone.
Then, the little one, the Tyrion nobody wanted because it did not look at all like its brothers and sisters, all big, puffy, and pretty and which they had to keep thus completing the canine family, would push the metal door that divided the kitchen from the patio and Bone’s wife would be smiling by the room’s door waiting for a kiss and some dark chocolate. She liked the chocolate better. He loved the kiss.
There was nothing to enjoy this time; there was only a biting feeling of anticipation. The dogs still raced, more wildly than ever, but every time they smelled the emptiness of his backpack they’d end up biting each other. Neither his wife not himself had had the guts to get rid of them. Far from finding any food in the streets, the dogs would become food for some desperate soul. At least they had not gotten there, yet.
When Bone was born his mother insisted that he was a miracle boy, full of blessings and meant for great things. For as long as Bone could remember, he was convinced of the opposite. True he was smarter than most of his contemporaries (at least for academic purposes), but he lacked street smarts or malicia. The only reason he kept surviving against all odds, he thought, was to provide the gods with more opportunities to fuck with his patience.
When he was born alive and kicking everyone was in awe, his mother used to tell. Most women in town delivered stillborns that spring. They had all got a strange fever that turned their bellies into boiling pots. Years later, reflecting about that anecdote, Bone concluded that maybe that explained his bad luck. He was an unpaid debt to the gods of death. His life enraged them and kept them coming at him with more outrageous forms of humiliation, affecting the whole country, taking everybody’s life but his. Even Chavez was dead, and he had all the power, “red witches,” and resources to last a thousand years. Then, when everybody thought Chavez was the worst thing that could happen to any country, Maduro came. Bone was more than willing to offer his life if that stopped the gods’ sadistic game.
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Bone was sure he was cursed. He did not think about it much, though. He was not going around invoking pestilences; shit just happened to him and those around him. That’s why he would have preferred to be single and sterile. Instead, the gods had him marry thrice and father half a dozen kids, all of which, except his only daughter, had left the country, just in time to avoid the post apocalyptic times they were living now.
So much had changed in such a brief period. The house was precipitously falling apart, but plumbing, electricity, and masonry could wait; their stomachs could not. Their bedroom’s door had fallen down after the ants ate away the frame. It lay now on the patio keeping some zinc sheets in place. In this new era of hot darkness, they did not need doors, especially at night. If some looters decided that they’d be next, a door would not stop them and he had already traded his machete. Nothing of real value remained.
His daughter did not come out of her room, which was in the middle of the long corridor, between the second living room and the dining room. Neither did his wife. He did not bother to check in his daughter’s room. She was probably asleep. Better to ignore her than to disappoint her. His wife was in bed, probably too weak to get up.
“Did you…?” She mumbled from the bed without turning.
“Sorry. I’ll try tomorrow, again.”
The noise of the dogs pulling and trampling the zinc sheets startled them. A mouse, most likely. Mice used the space between the plates and the wall as a tunnel to get to the kitchen. The dogs went always crazy trying to trap them under. They over did it this time and the wooden door was left lying in the middle of the patio. No matter how many times he scolded them for it, they’d repeat the same disastrous operation. Rarely did they catch any mouse, but that never diminish their enthusiasm. They had not cooked anything in weeks either, but that did not stop the mice from trespassing.
As always, he would slowly pick up the door and place the zinc sheets back against the wall then put the door back on top of them. Only this time he was probably too tired, absent-minded, or weak to do it. The door slipped and a sharp loose wood chip slit his left hand. When he jerked his arm back, the door fell with all its weight on his right leg, its ragged edges cutting deep from knee to ankle.
“Fuck!” He screamed.
He knew it was bad. His wife ran to him, holding his bleeding leg while he pressed his cut hand with his right one. The dogs started to bark their hearts out.
“Get me needle and thread. I’ll patch myself up.”
It would have been pointless to go to the hospital. They stopped being hospitals some time ago. All he could get in those fetid places was a fatal infection. Unless you had dollars or something really valuable to trade, such as weapons or chocolate, there was no way you could get decent medical attention.
“Blue or red?” She asked, showing him the two spools of thread they had left.
“Really?”
She handed him the blue one.
The blood kept surging copiously even after his wife tied a piece of cloth round the upper leg. The dogs started to lick the blood on the floor. At least they stopped barking, he thought.
“How’s the hand?”
“It can wait.”
“Do you want me to…?”
“No. I’ll do it. It serves me right.”
He started stitching. The three dogs rattled restlessly around him shooting sorrowful glances.
“Stay away!” He yelled at them.
They went back to licking the blood that had spilled on the patio. His wife tried to scare them away. They did for a second, and after a blink they were back at it.
“What are we gonna do?” She asked.
“I think it’s time you go to some PI .”
The plugged ins, as they called them were the surviving elite. They were well connected before the great popular uprising and they managed to remained enchufados to power after the bodies of their benefactors were dragged in the streets. They still had the means to provide the new ruling class with all the comforts the old one had.
“Are you sure? I can go out and try to find some food and water.”
“You’re too weak to wander around. Go to your Turkito. Give him what he wants.”
To be continued…
Thanks for your visit
Source of Images:
1. My file. Modified at fotoram.io
2. https://elcomercio.pe/mundo/actualidad/venezuela-parece-pueblo-fantasma-panorama-deja-paquetazo-nicolas-maduro-noticia-548600?foto=9 (Modified at fotoram.io).
Visítanos en: www.equipocardumen.com.ve
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This is a very well written shorty story. But more than that, it's gripping and has me really really cheering for Bones and hoping that good things will come to him and his family at some time in the near future. But I'll see what happens in Part 2.
Thanks for stopping by, @kenny-crane. I'm glad you found the story engaging. I'll post the end later today, electricity/internet willing. :)
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