I didn't die, I woke up

by Marcela Gutiérrez Bravo

  José Miguel reflected a few seconds and then questioned her again:"I've heard of possessions, but, to the both of us?""It is possible, if there were two ghosts in the place, maybe we are some kind of easy portals to enter or maybe it was because we were emotionally vulnerable. Do you remember feeling something strange on the bus?""Yes," he admitted."There you have it." she reaffirmed, shrugging her shoulders. "And what are we going to do? Will we look for some witch?" José Miguel inquired. "Here they say that here is one, or rather a healer. There may be several.""No, we will go with experts," she said determinedly and standing up. "While your family does not appear, we will go to Catemaco[7]. I also researched that place, I think it's the ideal. They have the best sorcerers in the country and it's in Veracruz, too."Catemaco?" He asked surprised. Then he accepted. "We will go then".

  They agreed and they departed.

  The trip accentuated the "illness", both were tired, but they did not sleep. They feared that it would happen again.

  Approaching the place where they woke up when they met, Frida looked out the window expectantly and, what she expected, she saw it. "Look, love! All those crosses!"

  José Miguel caught up to them with stupefaction. "It is true!""I told you, I told you, we have spirits inside!" she exclaimed with the little strength she had and invaded by tension and anxiety.

  Of course they went immediately to Catemaco and they did not have to wait too long, nor look. When arriving there, an old woman seemed to wait for them calmly, inside the place where she attended.

  They did not even have to talk, she watched them arrive and smiled tiredly."I know what happened to you", affirmed the witch, without further words. They looked at each other in horror, there was no doubt now. With eyes full of questions, all fatal, they turned to look at her. "I cannot do anything for you; go where that happened to you. There you see, there you will find out, there. Go now." "Just that?""Yes, just that, now out. Out of here." "We will return with the answer" said José Miguel, confused and ignorant of the protocols of the old woman, maybe after that would come the healing.

  She did not respond, she just smiled and went back to her own affairs, trying to forget about Frida and José Miguel.

  They had to ask a van to take them, because a bus would not stop at the place where they were going. So strong was the influence of death on the spot that, when they got down the van the driver started off leaving at full speed and without saying anything.

  The crosses were scattered on the side of the road in a dangerous curve. It should have been a bus crash for there to be such a large number of memorial crosses.

  Not knowing what to do and remembering what the old woman had ordered them, they dedicated themselves to reading the inscriptions in the crosses; perhaps when knowing or pronouncing the name, something would happen.

  They left for the last one a beautiful and large metal niche that was at the end (or at the beginning) of all that crosses garden. The two of them already had expressions of terror when they came to it.

  They remained silent for a few seconds, almost unable to breathe, and directed their inseparable steps to the metal niche. Together, in unison, as they did everything since they met, in that way their eyes read the letters engraved inside the niche.

  Frida and José Miguel

  Companions of the first seat and eternal travel.

  Memory of their parents and siblings.

  June 6th...

  Dumuzi

  Ex nihilo

  At first there was only darkness, just darkness; no smells, no colors, no feelings, no senses, no beats, everything as it is believed to be at the beginning of the universe, although some believe that at first everything was light, but in this principle, that was not the case. The second was a strong exhalation and the first notion of pain, because one does not know that it is possible to feel, until something hurts and this was a central and irrigated pain. The pain reached the extremities, that was how It knew It had them, and there it stopped, evolved in intensity. In the epicenter the pain came and went in tune with the sound of air entering it, of all It. It did not even know what air was, but It already felt it. The irritation grew as a result of movement, heartbeat and breathing. Time passed, without anyone knowing to what extent, but all the pain had already gone under desire. A desire that awoke through the conscience consciousness, so, suddenly, the world of perceptions appeared and had to be heard, that's why It avoided listening to the heartbeat and It preferred to select the inconstant and distant sounds that, little by little, as that perception of extremities, appeared. The sounds were a fractal in low and high variations. Unconscious and distant It appeared to have different reliefs. Breathing and heartbeats had been constant and familiar for a long time. Some light "tac tac" overcame all the sounds and approached; then came the sweetest of all the sounds so far heard: "...Y si Adelita se fuera con otro..."[8] Let it continue!, let it continue! "...la seguiría por tierra y por mar..." more! Let me listening to it forever! Suddenly the conscience had language, a language that is understood and that came from that song. It was like being suddenly in a universe that, without knowing how, was understandable, but not quite "...si por mar en un buque de guerra... Good morning, Dumuzi, How is everything here? Si por tierra en un tren militar." It intensified! "You look very good, I see you look different." That light! There it is! In front of me, that's where that unbearably beautiful sound comes from! The awareness of more possibilities came by mere necessity. The heavy curtains opened and the light entered hurtfully, then everything was blurred and then, two beautiful black and bright circles are all there was, they lived in homes equally divine, the sound emerged from two bright, brown, voluptuousnesses. There were white gems in the interior—. Dumuzi. Is all that beauty the reflection of this darkness? If not, Will this darkness be able to reflect that beauty? It tried. Oh, it tried, and managed to have sonic voluptuousness, although very little audible:"Duummuzzzi," the shelters of the black circles became larger, a beautiful herd of life covered the voluptuousness that emanated voice."I must work less," and all that beauty moved away to offer more, a goddess of the color of the deep sand of the swamps, of the mud, as a goddess should be. It recalled the goddesses. Vaguely and little by little It was recalling, but none should have been as beautiful as this one. The black hair imitated the night and surpassed it in brightness. But, is that how the goddesses dress? Did they use so much cloth on their skins immune to the cold and so worthy of being seen? He tried to remember more, a scream: “Inanna!”. That was the only thing It could remember, but it was blurry, there was no more memory than this new goddess, would she be Inanna? The goddess of remembrance sang, but the song was blurred"... Cuando me dicen que ya se va el tren ...” —This song was new and opaque to everything. Then It stopped. The goddess removed fabrics of her divinity, the fabrics were not beautiful, they were left lying there, with no more life than the one they tried to imitate with their blue colors; a cloud, a gem, it would be more beautiful than that dispossession thrown. Small, sharp, tiny sounds; the goddess held a stone that made sounds, the sounds came from the stone and now the goddess spoke: "Hello? Good afternoon! Is Daniel there?" the goddess spoke with the stone, "mmmhm yes, please tell him that Diana called him, let him know that I arrived from Iraq today. Thank you." The goddess could speak to the rocks when they sent sounds produced by her magical fingers, and not only that, it seemed that she had learned to use them as a communication portal, “Diana”, Could it be that the goddess said "Diana" or "Inanna"? It would be then that the goddess was the same as It remembered?

  The goddess spoke a new language. It did not have to learn it. It seemed to know it, along with any form of human communication. The consciousness had grown enough to understand many things, but not enough for recovering from lack of memories and experiences. But the goddess seemed to be good and cheerful; she liked to talk to herself and thus It could try to intuit reality. It was smart, really smart.

  The goddess came and went in that white limbo. It could not alw
ays see her, she appeared often naked, all her skin seemed created of mud, undoubtedly. The hair, it had been stolen from night, she was such a dark goddess that It would not have been surprised that she was the very goddess of the night, of darkness. Ereshkigal herself, goddess of the Underworld, would be jealous of that dark beauty, she would claim it as hers.

  And if she were a punished goddess who found a way to make the mud movable? The punished goddesses and gods must stay inside the mud, immobile. That happens when they fall in love with certain beings, the non-gods. Then a divine judgment takes place, they are imprisoned, they are frozen from the soul outward, so that they can remain alive without knowing it. They stay like this, inside mud, so that a sentence lasts and, if they are forgotten, better, fewer gods with whom to share power. That is why the non-gods, the inhabitants of the earth, make clay figures of their gods. They have learned to honor and venerate them in that way and they never knew why. It was also a punished god, that was clear.

  Goddesses and gods cannot abstain from their passions and, if they are not contained in mud for a time, they can create deadly cataclysms for those beings who did not ask to be seen by the gods. Much less loved or hated by them. What if the goddess was not? What if the goddess was one of those forbidden beings? It was a god, could not, should not in any case...but It had no choice, It woke up from the lethargy of his punishment to fall hopelessly on track to deserve another. Because there was no other being there to look at, there was no nature to care for or govern, not a small animal to love or guide, not a single memory. Only the goddess who leaves and returns. That goddess who insists on speaking using the stone that makes sounds.

  Ad Terrorem

  "Daniel?, Where are you? I miss you so much, my love. I have two weeks and I must return to the excavations, please come. I don’t know what to do with my time." The goddess often approaches, and her eyes go back to look at It. "Did you speak Dumuzi? I have heard so many effigies in the excavations, in the museums. But you? Why now you too, my loving Dumuzi? Do you not see that you're not alone? You are not at home, that is true. You are not among the nature that gives you the reason to be, maybe it is my conscience to know that you are not in your place that makes me believe that I am listening to you. But soon you will come back, we will come back together. You will no longer be my guest in this humble residence."

  The windows of It moisten. It is punished. It is trapped in clay. It just hopes the clay is strong enough to hold It in case she is not a goddess and her growing love and passion for It unleashes some horror.

  “Dumuzi” that's how It is called, and Diana will be Inanna? Is it possible that she has already left the clay and is waiting for It? It remembers her cry, her calls, her cries while the punishment is carried out. "Dummuzzzi". It does not think It knows if that is Its name, but It feels peace, familiarity when It hears it. Oh!, but this passion. Is passion worthy of piety? Can it be forgiven as an act of illness? The one that It remembered, the other woman was not a goddess either, because if they were, they would have mated simply as the gods do, just to fill with pleasure the environment and procreate more gods that will watch over everything that exists in the Earth of men and in that of the Gods. It would not be punished now. But Its passion for a human condemned It? Piety for passion! Passion is also pain.

  But two days and two obscurities have passed since Its awakening and It can no longer hold on; It wants to kiss her. It wants to touch her. It wants to look at her reflections in the water of the river that will disguise with her noise their sexual moans.

  Then it happens, the nightmare begins, a horrendous god appears and pounces on her touching all the dark divinity that It longs for. The goddess smiles, the goddess kisses him. His skin is so white, it's disgusting. His voice is as rough as the stone of the volcanoes. "Diana, my love. Forgive me, I was in Peru. Work, you know it well, but nothing more important than my favorite colleague." He touches everything, makes her disappear, luckily, because It is so altered that it can almost warm the stone. If he continues like this, Its passion will be felt on Earth.

  "INANNA!" It has spoken with more force, the mud is burning, the tears sprout uncontrollably, wetting face and chest, and dangerously wetting the mud that has remained dry for millennia and spells.

  Nobody can listen to It. It hears moans and distant cries, the goddess is mating with the disgusting god, god of the disease maybe.

  It can´t take it anymore, the cruel subjection of the mud, it does not support its tears that sprout without something that stops their running now by its navel.

  It watches them go wrapped in clothes, she has mentioned the word "dance" and she is joyful.

  If only good Enki were here, Enki would never have fallen into punishment. Enki is the god of wisdom, and It is not; It did not even know who It was. When It felt itself far away from its goddess and being touched by another, It could no longer...

  It closed its eyes and its hands burned at the image of Diana's round breasts in her mind. The mud warmed up, the tears came almost to the boil on the aching chest full of passion.

  It tried to restrain Itself, It tried, but its mind reproduced again and again the image of Diana, her lips, her eyes, her hair, her breasts, her waist, her...

  It was impossible! The cataclysm would come, surely not greatly diminished despite its containment in the mud. An uncontainable anger causes an eruption; a sudden shudder also shakes the Earth. There was once a god who made flood a huge extension with a cry of disappointment. But this was a different pain; it was melancholy, impotence, love and jealousy. It only hoped it would not touch her, it knew that wanting it deeply would be enough. No matter how far away she was. It could feel her. Some gods could even forewarn their chosen ones. It did not want to warn her. It did not want to make her feel involved. Each god generates different cataclysms, each god and each passion. What harm could this one cause?

  No more! It cannot take it anymore! It does not want to do it, but It cannot help but wanting to touch her, Its mind is clouded by this desire that knows, somehow, the countdown. It can feel the moment that everything will become unbearable. Expect not to be a rash. But no, it is not angry...4...the body hairs give the impression of singeing producing caresses that make intolerable the madness...3...the air becomes so dense in the lungs that breathing stops...2...the flesh is debated between fire and ice as the mind tries to calm down it’s impulses vainly...1...the beloved face appears without a call to the mind and desire overcomes the reason...0 ...the explosion.

  ***

  The news all over the world said it this way: “It was something inexplicable. A terrible explosive wave devastated almost all of Mexico City. Very few survivors, especially in the so-called 'epicenter', located to the south of the city. They relate that it was like steam covering them, burning them, but, for some reason, there is only ice, it is as if the remains of the once great city had been replaced by a giant cooler. The most surprising of the survivors are the three found at the very center of the phenomenon. A couple of young archaeologists, almost intact, miraculously and inexplicably saved by a small table in the restaurant where they dined. They both say that everyone there did the same, they cannot explain why they are not petrified corpses in the ice that covers the floor with one meter thick. The other survivor, even more mysterious, was found exactly where the explosion is believed to have taken place, since the destruction marks its way from that point, from the point where this beautiful black woman was found naked, with just marks of frost and mud all over her body. It is not known who she is, she does not speak Spanish very well; there is only a spoken portrait of the girl, because, on being discovered, she fled extraordinarily fast and, although the area has been revised by any means, there has been no success in finding her. Several media already talk about a work of extraterrestrials. What a disgrace! What a horrible misfortune! It is expected to find more survivors...”

  A month later, after analysis of all kinds, which could not explain the survival of the archaeologists and the miss
ing girl, it was said that it had been a rumor, the news focused on the evacuation of the remaining residents of the city. One more piece of new, the archaeologist Daniel Cuevas appeared mysteriously dead in his apartment in San Luis Potosí, days after he miraculously survived the hecatomb. Everything indicates that the hands of perhaps more than one person ended up beating him. It was the last thing that was known about the survivors. Five months after the terrible incident, they were not in the news, but what happened in the ruins of Mexico City. The earth hidden under the pavement now cracked, turned green and appeared plants and small nascent trees. People did not want to go back there to live thinking that some kind of radiation would reside in the place.

  The new phenomenon did not impact Diana, the surviving archaeologist, as much as the fact that she felt persecuted all the time. After the death of Daniel she occupied another apartment in San Luis and took a sabbatical to relax her nerves. She had a new friend, Inanna, her name was, she met her in a bar and, of course, it was enough to know her name to be captivated by her personality. It turned out to be an interesting, affectionate and enigmatic friend. She always counted on her, they were always together.

  Diana got her a job as an aide-de-camp and, after two months of getting to know each other, Inanna kissed her on the lips. Of course, Diana was disconcerted, but she did not reject it, someone in the world loved her with madness and, with time, discovered that she was the one who persecuted her to take care of her. Soon Diana will return to the excavations in the Middle East, She will take Inanna with her, because they are a couple.