To Scream Into An Open Cave (Chapter 1)
On sick days like these his mother measured his fever with the back of her hand. Poor, they had no medicine then. Only simple stews and soups made from powder and old rotting meat, all dried up waiting to be rehydrated.
His mother worked in the streets, getting by with offers of what little love she could muster to the poorest of drunkards stumbling down streets with streams of tears gushing down their throats or limericks rising out from guttural groans that turned in the air to become soft moans.
Since his father died he hadn't shed a single tear and his mother often tried to cure his unhealthy drought, for she believed it a bad sign when an infant refused to wail. She would whisper to him as day dawned and they fell to sleep, << Ignazio, necesitas llorar. Tu papa nos dejo sin nada, y aunque no fue su trabajo para dejar nos con algo, llora, llora por mĂ. Busca tu manantial y llora, te ruego>> Despite all her soft words that faded into murmurs as their eyes grew feeble and ceased to wag as dawn's rose red fingers groped over the horizon, despite them all—she couldn't know how his chest was void and vacuous.
Every day as years went by and he grew into his youth he would feel it caving in, a pull to reside inside himself, to become a refugee in his own body. No soup could fill it for it was no stomach, no music for it was no ear, no literature or swathes of lovely color for it was no eye. Like cratered earth, any capability to yield life was hurled and burned away in the creation of the deep pocket that was placed so tenderly and intentionally in his ribs' cage.
When he finally spoke his first words his lips parted slow as the sun split from the horizon, rising up, he spoke clearly with glossy eyes to his mother's fading words, <<Como si fuera nada. No puedo.>> Then a deep sleep took him and he fell back into silence, for years.
Slowly he began to build some structures in that void of his, though they wouldn't last long. One day, before his Mama died, he snuck into a theatre and stared into that silver screen and saw the muted stars flickering away in their burning as they moved in their rockets and battles with moon peoples. And the joy he took was unlike any other, with the puffs of smoke and awe of the crowd and of himself. So, he began to perform magic for his mother, if he couldn't weep for her he'd try to make her smile with wonder.  After time and practice, through great grins she'd shout << ¡Eres un gran mago, mijo!>>
Picking himself out of the dirt, he rose—his mouth gnarled and full of broken teeth,
and throughout the night the same lonely drunkards would, now, wind into rage and unwind their punches into him. This particular fist flew at his ear and he found himself bared naked when he woke, stripped down to his rippling youth. Winds roared for years, wearing this youth, as he grew into a man—his hair wrapping round his toughening form, a poor man's fleece. He had become a mass of scars. He was nothing more than a mound of endeavor rolling on, more furled and dried and frail and thorned than a tumbleweed.
He made his living taking charitable odd jobs. Everyone knew his story-- the story of el niño de la Calle de Nopales, whose mother died when some drunk torched their small dirt floored shack when she dared to sleep alone and sleep early. He was pulled out, but his mother was already engulfed in that ardor. Flames wrapped 'round her waist like lovely longing arms. Some thought they were both burning and that it was his loving arms that embraced her as she fell to her knees outside, charring herself into the ground, a strong fire blazing on her, white and blinding. Everyone knew that story, so they pitied him and tasked him to scrub floors, water plants, wash dishes, simple things that wouldn't break him. For, despite his calloused casing, they thought him fragile, for they saw the way he'd awaken bloody and bare with bruises. When he had earned some money, that wasn’t stolen from him in a beating, he bought some common clothes and wandered off.
Ten years passed when he returned to the same street in black robes that covered everything except his worn visage. His frame was stronger and his barrel chest seemed wider. At first light he set up a simple stand of planks with one piece in exhibition, a small glass horse figurine, frozen still on all fours. People remembered the boy and gazed, as they passed, at his lone import.
At evening a man passed by and jeered, << ¿Vago, apoco esto es tu venta, la arena? ¿Tan simple y sin forma? ¡Que groseria poner esto come si fuera una arte!>>
Ignoring him, the great chested vagrant pointed at a boy who'd been looking on for the better part of the day, keeping distance and cover behind a corner. He gestured for the boy to come close, and so he did, and the broad, aged, tramp gently placed the figurine in the small boy’s hand.
<<Despues de tener nada, dar, como si nada, a los que tienen una hambre es fácil, justo, y necesario.>>
The clear horse took on its still life in the whips of time, slowly galloping until it, full of grace and freedom, rose onto its hinds and with a gentle silent power landed its hooves on the boy's palm, leaving no doubt of its beauty or its majesty. And it was this beauty and this majesty that set the boy running off with his great gift and left the passing man astonished as he gazed at its ghost in the air.
<< ¡¿Cómo—que diablos, de que tierra has traedo esta brujeria?!>>
<<No es brujeria—ciego— es magia, y viene de esta misma tierra. Si tienes curiosidad ven mañana, pero solo si tu deseo es puro—un deseo para amar.>>
At day break the passing man returned, the weary eyes of The Great Magician looking within him and seeing his doubt wrapped around his heart. Assuming his presence, he demanded silence to perform. Picking up a handful of dirt from the street, he filled his mouth with it and swallowed. He breathed in and the width of his chest widened and seemed twice that of the strongest of men. The passing man stood and stepped back for he felt an immense heat radiate from beneath the folds of black cloth. The Great Magician exhaled.
In distant jungles he learned his artifice, made use of his condition and from there he learned to give life to dirt, not by wetting it and molding, but by filling it with his ardent love, a love which burned eterne and which would eventually, many nights after his flesh had fraIled into the earth, still dance—in solitude—through the deserts and forests and jungles as a kind thing which only exudes pure love and tenderness.
But, in that moment, that ignorant passing man couldn't see his love and called for the town to burn him. So, he lay bound in chains as they strapped him to the stake. They lit the fire and it roared as he howled, and he stood bound, shrouded in a pure white that seemed to rise, not from the trunks and logs, but from his every pore as he denied his pyre. No man or woman, no amount of weeping would be able to put out his flames. The chains melted and fell like silk threads and the fuel at his feet and the wide trunk he was fastened to fell to ash. The stones set around him glowed white like burning pearls strung in some invisible rosary from which he recited Padre Nuestros and Ave Marias.
It was here—alone—that he wept as the crowd distantly cast stones on him for his magic. And though the stones perished in the air of his ardent aura, they struck him deeply, for even the child who received his great gift was led, by his mother, into throwing the galloping beast back into his scorching oblivion.
The Great Magician picked up the shards and forming them into the shape of one tear, proceeded to push it into the flesh of his chest, embedding it. His screams, then, curdled the stomachs of all those casting stones. Every pebble and rock fell to the ground. The fire blazed and when it died in a sudden enervated breath, only hot embers and those weathered pearls remained.
Wrapped once more in his coal black cloak he wandered seemingly endlessly, desiring only to perform but knowing, then, that none would take joy in the life he breathed. He waited through the ages for that tourist boy with a meal and a train ticket. Only then would he flare so strong it'd melt the teardrop from his chest.
2087
titsay
prguitarman
turnnoffyourmind
