Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 05:00:41 -0600 (CST)
From: Horacio Quiroga <horaacioquiroga@yahoo.com>
Subject: Mexican History/chapter 4: Finale

Last chapter. Enjoy. Write to horaacioquiroga@yahoo.com, tell
me what you think, the characters, the style, flatter me, insult
me. Look forward to more stories. I like this.

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There must be another way to say it but I'm still afraid there
isn't: I think I'm happy now.


When they were both dead I dug two graves, one for Vibora and
another big enough for me and Angel. I was breathing like there
was no more air in the world, my chest was hurting, and the
loud sound in my lungs was loosing its humanity. I knew pain
wasn't going to last, neither thinking, so I hurried up. Threw
Vibora into his grave and came back to the cabin to pick up
Angel's body from the bed, I tossed him quickly into the hole
with no reverence. His head I treated more carefully, laid next to
him hugging it. The beasts buried us whining, came slowly from
the shadows and slowly covered our bodies with earth. My
mouth, my nose and my eyes were filled with soil, hugged
Angel's tighter and then it was done.

"Do you know why you're not crying?" was the first thing he
said. Angel's head was in the table. "Do you?", I had no
expression on my face, neither had I any feeling in my heart.
"I'll tell you why", he was sitting across the table, like if
Angel's head was his dish and he was making conversation
before engulfing it. "Do you know why did you loose your
strength?, why are you just a guy, so fragile here, in front of my
gun? I shot you in the head once, do you remember?" Angel's
left eye was still open.

"When I first met you I knew I had to kill you, but of course, I
knew I couldn't. Do you remember I broke your neck? I felt my
fingers closing together, but you're still here now, you're
breathing. Kind of quiet, but you're alive for sure" He pointed
his gun to Angel's body, on the bed just to direct my attention to
it for a second.

"This isn't personal: me killing you, you know that anyone
knowing half of what I know would try to kill you. But him was
personal. You killed my son. Him I would've done for nothing.
What brings us back. Do you know why you're not crying?" I
didn't.

"That's because you can't love him. You're a beast. You don't
love anyone. Nothing would make you cry. Do you know why
did you loose your strength?, why a bullet would now easily get
through you and finish your life?" And I thought for a second
and responded.

"Because I pray", very quietly.

"No, its because for a second, you did love him. See, you're not
like the rest of us mortals, there's a reason things react to you.
Don't you notice everything around you is dark?, don't you
notice the silence now, right now, this night?, I saw your face
once in the distance, at the outsides of la Pena, riding your black
horse, and it wasn't a human face. I've seen your face many
times from then, and I know it's not human, I know it because
you can make things darken just by looking at them. Human
hearts and veins cut open at your command. You do as you wish
and the earth follows you, the shadows follow you. But don't
you wonder why?, do you really think things follow you
blindly? You did love him, and the shadows gathered around
your heart noticed it. They stepped back so I could kill him. And
then kill you, because they're not here to serve you. Think for a
second, because it would be nice if you realized what I say
before dying. Come on, think, and then I'll press the trigger and
you would never have to think again"

Vibora's words were easy to get, but not then. He pressed the
trigger and the bullet slowly made its way across the table, to
were I was standing. By the time it was at the reach of my hand
I just moved, walked my way around the room and got my hand
inside Vibora, I opened his back with my hand, cracked his
spine and took his heart in my hand. The bullet reached the wall.
I pressed Vibora's heart with all my strength and pulled it away.
Vibora's heart didn't close it self back, but to be sure it wouldn't
I took a piece of it and swallowed it. Now I could be sure
Vibora was dead. His words were not entirely right.

I then changed again. The first thing I felt was Vibora's
thoughts as he was dying. It was a dream about his childhood,
lost in the woods at night. Then I felt everything else, felt the
night, felt things I had never felt before. The stars are huge.

I sat with Vibora as he was crying alone it the woods, tired,
falling asleep terrified. I hugged him, hugged him for real,
making sure he wasn't cold, and just before falling asleep I
knew he was calm.

I don't know the reasons of my fate. Buried here, with the head
of Angel resting on my chest I don't think about it. I think my
fate is complete, buried with me.

We're all dead. I think I'm happy now.

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The end, beautiful friends, the end. Write to
horaacioquiroga@yahoo.com, lend me your thoughts, there's no
other reason for me to write.

By the way. Take a look at "The blue horse", right here at Nifty's
Gay male/adult-youth