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SCRAMBLER presents

05

Little Animal
by María Sánchez

June 4, 2018

I never wrote a diary. I tell myself that this will be the first and last time. Perhaps everything is reduced to the fact that we care to stay, to be huddled, dormant and quiet waiting for someone to find a part of us. Even if it's just a few misspelled, poorly written, blurred words. I hate writing about myself, just as I cannot stand having to tell my life to a cold screen. Dad always knew I had been studying because I came home with my hands full of ink stains. Betrayed by being left-handed. The anatomy always before the word. Sometimes I write, I look at the keyboard and then look at my hand. There is no longer any stain.

June 26, 2018

The animals have turned back into the city. The streets are full of mud and footsteps. They have lost the fear of being seen. They feed on leftovers, camp in the gardens and even sleep in supermarkets. It has been a long time since they have hidden from the hunter. I have a dream that keeps repeating itself. Someone gives me a box. He laughs. He doesn’t have a face. His hands are long, slimy, but very very very hot. He leaves singing. It is only an absurd hum, but it comforts me, I find it very familiar. I remove the lid and there are only teeth. They are fangs and have stains of fresh blood. Something tells me that they are a wild boar’s. It is the first time that I smell blood, I am dreaming but I know with total certainty that this is how it must smell. I press them against my chest, I sing the lullaby of the faceless. I tell them, softly that they are finally home.

August 12, 2018

Today I opened Facebook again. It has been four months since I logged in. I do not even know why I do it. I do not expect anything from the other side of the screen. I cannot write to anyone. Only suspended profiles, with their best outfits, always watching from their photos, making you think for a moment that everything is as before, that nothing has happened. I laugh searching for myself on Google. Access restricted: please try again later. I have already forgotten the first time that that message showed up. I hear growls, too many come this time. I must finish here, if not I may not come back to tell.

September 28, 2018

This has already begun. My hands hurt when I write. Sometimes, instead of howling and grunting, I hear words and songs. Little by little the language of the wild ones seems to me something beautiful and essential. This morning I looked in the mirror and only recognized half a face. I know the other half is there, but I do not know why I do not see it. The same happens to me with my left leg. I feel it because it sounds when I walk, because it shakes when I get nervous, but I do not see it. I do not understand this blindness of my body, nor do I understand why today I have felt hungry again. Since the outbreak, all the stomachs were silent, everyone stopped feeding themselves. And as expected, not everyone lives to tell. That's why I write, although a part of me knows that this will not do any good.

October 16, 2018

I write these lines and my hands are invisible. I’m not afraid anymore. Today I finally understand the song, the stained teeth, the blood. If I wrote on paper my handwriting would not be understood. The keyboard is wet, slippery, warm. If you are reading this it means that those who are always hungry are back. Today, I do not speak but I babble. And sing. And hum. I am faceless, wild, a simple stain. The song was easy, you just had to understand it, to join the predator and the fang. To be the sister of the creature and the growl. Cradling the tremor and the light, the smell of blood slipping patiently from the wound.

Read original in Spanish

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