Last night, I was watching Santa Sangre by Alejandro Jodorowsky in the basement. With 15 minutes left, when a horrifying scene of gruesome mutilation was about to pop up, i turned away, a habitual eclipse to avoid the gore. A tiny creature was crawling gingerly in the corner. I wasn’t sure of what I saw, thinking I might be hallucinating at the wee hours. A few seconds later, behind an array of oil portraits of Hitler, Che, Marilyn Monroe leaning against the wall, a pointy face with inquisitive stare emerged. A mouse! I jumped up and down, while Mickey was darting from one frame to another, and tactically retreating into the closet where a bunch of worn backpacks lie. A heroic battle ensued, with no stone unturned. A broomstick proved to be deadly and bloody as well. Finally, I stepped out and tossed the casualty into the darkness, while thunders were roaring and rain pouring.
Back to the basement, TV screen was already blank. The Mexican movie, “a surreal masterpiece you’ve never seen before and will never see again”, ended too soon. But I had little appetite for the artificial killing orgy, after a natural one: I switched off the light and went upstairs, leaving the messy battlefield intact, except for a newspaper I happened to find in one of the backpacks. The date of the paper is 2011. I was in Buenos Aires then. Time flew, and now a pandemic locks in all lives but wild animals.
Lying in bed, I was contemplating, in an aftershock mood. Is there a payback day for Trump Inc. and Xi Club? What would be the broomstick to sweep them into the trash bin of history once and for all? And how do we deal with their fans?
A nightmarish night with dark memory and dim hope.
