There was a time when lines didn’t crossed the face of Amalia, and nobody called her “tia” as she was a young girl of seventeen. Her eyes were as black and as flaming as they are now, but at that time they made men go crazy. Her slim and elegant body made them turn their heads when they crossed her way on the street. She had a boyfriend called Juan, also slim, tall, blue eyed and blonde, always with a smile on his face and a sweet word hanging from his lips. They were both so much in love with each other, or that, at least, is what Amalia thought. They had planned to get married soon.
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.
Since nothing good can come of bad feelings, Amalia became the dark sad figure that even today scares children. She never married, never had another partner.
(…to be continued…)
2021: Conceived – Volume 2 of a Contemporary Transadaptation
January: The Pack – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
February: The Pink Shirt – Talia Stotts (America)
March: Dragging the Past out into the Light – Kate Korneeva (Russia)
April: Looking Forward to Spring – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)
May: Every Little Thing – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)
June: The Girl Who Chased the Rainbow – Toni Wallis (Sarah-Leah Pimentel) (South Africa)
July: Another World – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
August: Life after Nare – Nane Sevunts (Armine Asryan) (Armenia)
September: Meeting My Homeland – Rayan Harake (Lebanon)
October: Catching Water (Part Two) – Javier Gomez (Argentina)
November: Remember – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)
December: Los Caminantes – Veronica Cordido (Venezuela)
Background – Context
In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Cover photo: El Hierro, Spain – Foggy street – Calla Hamburg (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed