One evening, Amalia had just gotten back home from the fields in which she had been taking care of her family’s cattle. After a hard day she decided she would take a bath and then would surprise her boyfriend as they were not supposed to meet that day. She sprayed herself with perfume, put on her Sunday clothes and headed to her boyfriend’s.

On her way to where her boyfriend lived she found a black cat that triggered the mechanism of distrust in her superstitious mind. What could that unexpected encounter mean? Certainly nothing good.

“Go back home Amalia!” the young girl heard as the cat’s eyes drilled hers. To a more scientific or rational mind the very fact of a cat talking would have been more than enough to suffer a heart attack, but that wasn’t the case with Amalia. In her brain, the knots that separate reality from dreams were loose and she was more worried about what was about to happen than about being addressed by a black (or any color for that matter) cat. “Go back to where you came from and forget about that man, Amalia!!” the cat went on, “or thou shall see things you don’t want to see and feel feelings no one should ever feel.”

If Amalia wasn’t reasonable enough to doubt the oratory skills of a cat, it cannot be expected that she would follow its advice no matter how wise it was. Thus, she turned her steps into a mad run that led her right to Juan’s door. She stormed in and began to look around the room, looking for her wicked rival. Juan was completely amazed, covered by a blanket but obviously naked as his clothes were lying chaotically on the floor. Amalia acted like a wild beast looking for its prey but there was no one to be seen, nor any evidence of anyone’s presence there prior to her arrival.

All of a sudden she reached for an old China teapot that was on a nearby table and violently threw it to the floor but only the handle broke. Afterwards she said something like, “I’ve just screwed you, asshole.” Well, at least no less than he had previously done to her, but in another sense. Then she took the candle that was on the side table next to Juan’s bed and approached him, saying the following: “You shall slowly fade away like this candle.” And that being said, squeezed the candle that bent over itself and finally the flame vanished, leaving only darkness and a thin column of smoke. Juan didn’t dare to utter a single word, astonished and terrified as he was – he didn’t have a scientific mind either. Afterwards, Amalia turned tail and left the room.

Amalia cried her heart out the following hours and probably the following days and weeks, but life in the countryside doesn’t allow for depression, and survival requires daily digging, planting, milking and giving water to the family’s cattle. At some point, she had to walk the village streets and found a woman called Maria Sabina with one arm in a sling. Juan began to feel sick and was sent to receive treatment in Tenerife. He never came back and died a few weeks later at the hospital.