On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Part five. The unknown

Oct162024

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After. Part five. The unknown

On the topic: The Storm and the Day After.

Part five. The unknown.

F). – You used to work in sculpting. In wood, plaster, stone, iron, bronze, you created figures, images, forms. You don’t really regret what happened. You were already desperate to live off busts and statues of politicians, and of courting governments to finance his projects. It has been several days since you arrived in that community and, since you are moderately intelligent, you have understood what the whole thing is about: these people pose the challenge of starting over.

Wandering, you came to where a young man was carving balsa wood with a machete. “It’s Cork, that’s what we call it here,” he clarified. With skill he shaped it until it was a board so smooth and impeccable that it would be the envy of the best sawing, planing, and polishing machine. But there are no more electric machines. And if there are, there is no electricity to make them work. You take a piece of “cork” and look at the young man. He makes a gesture as if telling you to “take it without shame.” The young man shows you the board he carved and explains: “it is for the dining room.” You go from one place to another, not knowing what to do with the piece of cork. You understand what these people are proposing, but, more than certainties and proposals, what you have are doubts.

Another day you discover the board at the entrance to the dining room with a sign that warns: “Choose: either you wash your hand or your belly hurts.” A child’s hand, you can guess from the stroke of the letter, had added “Tummy pain = clinic = injection = it hurts a lot.” Another childish hand had added “Coward.” The initial hand responded “I am not a coward.” Then a long sequence of “Yes you are”, “I am not”, which almost filled the table. The debate ended with “if you’re not a coward, then why don’t you ride a bike on gravel?” There was no response.

When you looked into the dining room on the first day, you thought “it’s like a prison.” You took your plate and walked out, waiting for someone to force you back in. But no, no one stopped you and outside, under trees, on the ground or on rustic benches, there were many who ate in pairs, small groups or alone. You walked through the town without any restrictions. You even tried to leave the community and no alarm sounded, nor did a group of armed people appear following the pack that would start searching for you.

After washing your plate and, of course, your hands (because you are not a coward, but you are not a fan of injections either), you sit down and, without hardly realizing it, you begin to carve the piece of cork with your old and chipped knife. The figure begins to take shape.

At the assembly, when it is your turn to introduce yourself, you take the small figure out of your lap. It is a kind of question mark, without color, but with well-defined shapes.

They ask you “What is that?” “I don’t know,” you reply. And without hesitation you add: “We don’t know.” The assembly maintains an expectant silence. Those who coordinate look at each other and say, “Well, we’ll find out.”

The next day, you smile when you see the figure on the assembly coordination table. You don’t stop for long, you have to go sweep in the dining room “Las penas con pan son buenas. Y a falta de pan, tortillas” [“All griefs with bread are less. And in the absence of bread, tortillas.”]

-*-

g). – You can do architecture. You don’t know how you got to that place, but, for some strange reason, you feel among peers. You are moderately intelligent, so you understand that, after all, designing a space is not very far from designing a world. And that’s what these people seem to be doing, crowded around an old basketball court. They are discussing the design of the world that they have to remake on a vacant lot. That is, start over.

You have instinctively approached a group of men and women. You remember them because, the day before, when they took roll call and said “carpenters, bricklayers and mechanics,” they did not respond. Those who coordinated the assembly repeated the call: “carpenters, mechanics and bricklayers.” Nothing. Everyone looked in the direction of that group. Finally, not without annoyance, the coordination said. “Okay, well, “engineers.” And there they did respond “present.” So, this day, when they say “engineers” you interrupt and add “and architects.” The assembly looks at you with curiosity, but the “corps of engineers” smiles at you and more than one pats you on the back. The coordination says, with resignation: “and that.” You sigh in relief. But, as one body, architecture and engineering curse when they hear: “you have to check the hose that comes from the spring.”

In the afternoon, when the sun begins to cover the horizon, in the dining room called “Comida vemos, digestión no sabemos” [“You can’t judge a food, for its digestion”], you contemplate the empty place, with just a few skeletons of what will be, you assume, champas. And, without intending to, you already imagine the design of the auditorium. If the roof is resolved so that it does not require many intermediate columns, it could well be used for meetings, concerts, dances, exhibitions, theater and cinema.

There is no concrete, no rods, no cement, or anything like that. The few construction sheets that were still useful are occupied where the tools are. You see the champas with grass roofs, watapil leaves and elephant ears.

You think: “yes you could, less weight, but less duration. Every now and then you would have to… recommence.”

-*-

h). – You make films. You work in any of the many jobs that are required to reach the sacred and sublime moment when, on a face, the light from the screen is reflected and a handful of popcorn fills the mouth. You have searched this text and cannot find any direct interpellation. Maybe something very indirect and mediated in the parts of the whole. You feel like protesting, complaining.

“That damned captain! Who does he think he is to leave out the seventh art, the father of television, the prisoner of streaming, the impossible place where the other arts can converge and coexist? Ignorant! Blind! …” And other curses that modesty prevents me from reproducing.

Someone comes over and flips through the text while you continue cursing. He reads silently and asks you, “Whose script is this?” “Which script?” you look back with annoyance. “This one,” he says as he shows you the wad of printed pages. The person next to you continues: “Sure, it’s going to cost a fortune to produce. Not to mention the distribution. Nowadays, there are endings with apocalyptic scenarios, where the catastrophe brings out the worst in every human being. I don’t think the public will be interested in a scenario where, in the midst of misfortune, the best of humanity flourishes. People, the public, prefer something that rationalizes their baseness and meanness. These are not times of kindness and brotherhood. And then the problem of distribution. Who is going to play the role of the bad guy if the bad guy is a system? …”.

You interrupt with a gesture demanding silence, you take your cell phone and dial a number. “Yes?” replies a sleepy voice over the speaker. You: “Joaquín, it’s good that I found you. There is a bad guy role. But the bad thing about the bad guy is that he is not a person, nor a gang of gangsters, that is, bankers, nor a death star or government palace, nor a creature uglier than you. The bad guy is the system.” The horn responds “Who the hell are you and why are you calling me at three in the morning?” Then the beep of the communication cut off.

At your side they continue to comment: “And then there is the problem of the soundtrack. It’s the champion of all hells, because, from cumbia, thousands of musical genres can be guessed. The scenery is impossible. A lot of cameras would be needed and not even with Artificial Intelligence could we generate something similar to this hallucination. There will be no one who dares to finance a project like this. And then, the credits. Are we seriously going to cast an impertinent beetle who calls himself “Don Durito de La Lacandona”? And, even if it sticks, can you imagine a beetle in armor, riding a turtle, parading down the red carpet at the Venice Festival, or in San Sebastian, Cannes, Hollywood? Maybe the part where they start over and, on the same foundations, rebuild the same building, could be done. All the rest is impossible to imagine. What is this?».

You remain silent. Suddenly you murmur: “It’s an invitation.” «That? “To make a movie?” insists the other person. Then you, who are moderately intelligent, understand and respond doubtfully: “I don’t know… Let’s imagine the day after?”

To be continued…

Standing in line in front of the popcorn stand.