Wet Grass

By Francisco Javier Morales E.

Faced with the possibility of death, the most unexpected anecdotes of life return to visit Javier in the form of memories and dreamlike hallucinationsexistential crises, frustrated love stories, family encounters, and friendships. Everything is mixed together to weave a story that narrates the stay of the protagonist in a hospital in Mexico City while he fights to overcome pneumonia. In each chapter, the love that one lives from different namesMaria, Josefina, Lorena, and Victoriaand bodies keeps Javiers memory in a limbo of painkillers and exhaustion by his illness, seeking to hold once again the hand that returns the wish to live. In the end, only the wet grass will suffice to flood, with lucidity and life, the body reflected in the external window of that hospital that harbored his dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: Oct 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781506522302

Francisco Javier Morales E.

Francisco Javier Morales has also published three more books with Palibrio, which are: Artists in San Miguel and Other Stories, Personal Achievements and Wet Grass.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Francisco Javier Morales E.

Translated from Spanish by Alice Woodrow and Pamela Erin Mason R.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017915235

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5065-2229-6

   Softcover   978-1-5065-2231-9

   eBook   978-1-5065-2230-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 27/10/2017

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Contents

Dreams and Memories

Hospitalization

Girl Catcher

Operating Room

Josefina

Visitors

Mirrors

Wet Grass

Dreams and Memories

I

I was feeling nervous as I went by to pick up Maria. We had met just a short while ago, and on that occasion, it was the third or fourth time we had gone out together. I rang the bell of her house at exactly the time I had promised to be there. She came out to greet me and I saw that she was happy. She had a sweater thrown over her shoulders. At that moment, I liked her very much. We chatted and she told me she was going to study biology, that she was interested in learning things about cells, living beings, and many other things. I told her about the time I dissected a frog and a rabbit in biology class. She didn’t say anything, but by the expression on her face, I guessed that she would have suffered more than the poor small chloroformed animal about to die in the hands of some curious students, among whom, I was one. I didn’t mention that we took the heart out of the poor frog, and, with a battery, we gave it some electric shocks to see how its extremities would move.

Maria and I talked about many other things and then I asked if, when she started studying biology, she would like to give me private lessons on those subjects. She smiled and looked at my face. She said that she would be my teacher, but that I shouldn’t be too confident. She seemed so serious, and told me that she would demand that I study as much as any other student. Then, I made the same serious expression, and promised her that I would be a good student. We had fun with our questions and answers, and with the hypothetical world of the teacher-student relationship that we had created in a moment. Then, we started to talk about other things and I began to feel very attracted to her. I felt really good in her company and, on various occasions, I even thought that perhaps because of her body language and responses, she was feeling the same about me.

At a certain point on that day we went out, I stretched my right hand toward her face and caressed her cheek. We both got nervous. She didn’t ask me to withdraw my hand, and we kept looking into each other’s eyes silently. Thanks to that caress, I discovered how one moment could turn into an eternity, when our senses abandon us and we are immersed into something that some might call happiness. In my hand and throughout my body, there was a mixture of sensations and emotions that Maria and I shared, without saying a word, like two mannequins who want to kiss in silence, but don’t know how.

II

I think I’m getting old, even though I know that is not entirely true. What I can be sure of is that I have stopped being the person I was before. Now, for instance, if I wake up in the middle of the night, it takes me a long time to go back to sleep. Years ago, the same thing happened to me, without knowing it, but I overcame it. Then, for a long time, my life was normal, or at least it seemed that way. However, as of a few weeks ago, things have changed. The slightest bit of stress, anxiety, worry, or anything else that generates a certain kind of uneasiness makes me lose sleep. Usually, if I wake up at dawn, I try to stay resting peacefully in bed. There is no point on getting up and start walking around the house. That would make me go into full gear. I rather try to relax and to wait for the sunlight, or if I’m lucky, to go back to sleep. It’s funny though, that on several occasions, when I find myself in that situation, I get the impression that I’m totally awake. When I open my eyes, I then realize that time has passed quickly without me noticing. This makes it hard to ensure that it was all a dream, or even a daydreaming situation distorting my memories, or what is worse, my sense of time.

Sometimes, I close my eyes. If I can’t fall asleep, then memories arise. The first will bring the second and so a chain is formed of my past personal experiences that probably will last, if I am unlucky, until dawn, when I have to get up and go to the office. I could say, when that happens, that I feel there is a mixture of dreams and memories that, on many occasions, I can’t distinguish one from the other. What is certain is that, and I don’t know why, at some point of the nightly ritual, Maria began appearing in my thoughts. First, she did it sporadically and, then, more frequently. Now I feel that she will appear in my dreams and in my memories, without me being able to distinguish when she’s passing from one to another. I’ll go to the office, work the whole day, solve the unfinished problems, and, when I get home, she will be waiting for me, not in the living room, but in the foyer of my subconscious. She will come only when she thinks that I’m beginning to relax and that the activities and concerns of my day have been left behind. Once I lower my guard, and that I tell myself that the work day was normal and that I should begin to rest, to relax, then I will begin to see Maria’s large eyes in the distance. Then, little by little, her face will begin to take shape. At the end, I will feel that she is next to me.

If I were to say this to someone, they might say, in a mocking tone, that what I’m doing is nothing more than dreaming with my eyes open, like the hundreds or thousands of people, who everyday avoid their life in order to connect with an imaginary world, or to find happiness again in a past that no longer exists. I doubt that I’m doing this and I only worry that the dream of that memory will again be present with the same force with which I lived it. Subconsciously, I want this dream to tell me something that perhaps I didn’t understand, or what aspect of my relationship with Maria was not clear to me. Over time, this has been creating doubt and confusion, not to mention fear, or a certain type of cowardice. Maybe, everything can be summarized in an erroneous interpretation of our reality, that now, many years later, is possibly no longer important to anyone. In this case, Maria is only the phantom that a part of me has created and that no one else but me will have to liberate or move away from, so that it will be put out of my mind. The other part of me is sure that this is not about a phantom, but something much more real, such as the repressed desire that I have to see her again. Perhaps those two explanations are true, although I don’t know which one is more important or closer to the truth.

All of these fantasies and desires to see Maria once again led me to recall a particular time that I lived with her. That memory, together with the dreamy situation, or whatever you want to call it, is what allows me to see her again and to relive part of our relationship. Maybe it seems foolish, but I will never forget our first kiss. On that memory, or whatever it is that takes me back to the past, I am close to her. One afternoon, Maria and I are walking in the Sunken Park like we did several times before, through one of its side paths. She and I are holding hands. In the distance, we see several couples sitting on benches. Seeing that, for some reason that I don’t understand, gives me courage, and at a certain moment, I draw Maria close to me. We both walk a few paces, rubbing our legs together and laughing a little, as if sharing a joke, although still a little nervous. The rubbing of our thighs, puts our libido on alert. Then, I stop and put my right arm over her waist, and in some way, I don’t remember exactly how, I make her turn toward me, and I feel like she is surprised. I then take her right hand, and, the two of us, as if we were synchronized, extend our arms downward at the same time. She looks at me astonished and anxious because my face is right next to hers. Neither of us hesitates. Our mouths become one, and I begin to have an enormous erection. I imagine that she, too, was excited. We both wanted that moment to last forever. We only wished that the clock would stop, giving us the opportunity to extend that moment, and the pleasure that came from it for as long as possible. Maria and I, without saying it, also wanted that after that kiss stop running through our bodies, it would remain engraved in our minds. I thought that the only real thing were our mouths, which became one and which were not inclined to separate. Both of us were invaded by desire, running fast through our bodies to arrive at our most intimate parts. For moments, it stopped being pleasure and took refuge in our spine. It was a type of electricity that went through the skin down into the veins, bones, and into our desire to live. Neither of us opened our eyes. We felt that the impact of the kiss had joined us together, as if we both had become magnetized objects, which can’t or don’t want to be disconnected.

That kiss, when it extended throughout my whole body, made my heart beat strongly. I remember that I let go my left hand, and caressed her cheek. I also opened my eyes and made a slight movement backwards. Our mouths parted as we looked into each other’s eyes. We didn’t know what to say to one another, but at that same time we didn’t need to say anything. I extended my hand towards her, caressing her cheek again. She took my hand between hers and, for a moment, we seemed like mannequins, who could only love through their eyes. Today, from this distance in time, I am surprised about my reaction and I haven’t forgotten the excitement that I felt at that moment.

III

Many years ago, in one of the first dreams that I had about Maria, I was going from Mexico to Valencia. The dream didn’t relay the details of the trip. I was in a room in my house and, suddenly, a dock appeared. I had to take a ship to get to the island where she lived. I could see myself boarding the ship. Then, I was observing the sea for a moment, but instead of standing close to where the waves came from, I would stand at the front door of her house. It seemed that her mother had guessed that I would come, as she was waiting for my arrival.

We were waiting for you to have dinner, Javier, she told me. Maria’s mother led me to the dining room. Maria, her brothers and her father were sitting at the table and, when they saw me, they stopped talking and watched me in silence. They were all waiting for me to say something. Their looks made me nervous, so I just smiled. I came close to the table and placed both hands on the back of a chair that was next to the place where Maria was sitting.

Javier, please sit down. Get comfortable, Maria said, as she immediately got up and went into the kitchen, returning quickly. From the end of the table, I saw her smiling at me and that she had a boiling soup bowl in her hands.

I brought you the soup that you like. It’s just like the one we had in Mexico. Remember? she told me while I was sitting at the table. I saw that she was looking at me intensely, then, the steam coming from the soup bowl distorted her face a bit. All of a sudden it became dark. It was not until her parents and brothers got up from the table that I realized I was sitting next to them.

Please excuse us, Javier. It’s late and we are going to sleep. We have many things to do tomorrow, her parents told me, and they disappeared with her brothers through a door. Maria and I stayed together alone. I thought that she was going to the kitchen to serve herself a bowl of soup, like the one she had brought me, but she didn’t move. I was under the impression that she was worried about something and was about to ask me to help her clear the table. I wanted to ask her what she thought about me coming to visit her, but I felt that she was beginning to feel nervous and anxious around me.

Do you like the soup, Javier? If you like, I can serve you more, she said as she started to get up slowly from the chair. Then, I don’t know why, but it seemed like she was going away, and the soup had already gotten cold. She observed me silently from a distance for a few moments, as if she wanted to guess what I was thinking or what I was about to say.

Javier, do you have the letter? Maria asked when I least expected it. Also, I noticed by the tone of her voice that she was nervous. At that moment, I clearly remembered that I had gone to her house to give her response to the letter that she had sent me many years before. She observed me once again in silence and seemed to be on the lookout for any reactions that I might have. I thought she was somewhat cold and already annoyed with me.

I think I better go, I told her. She didn’t answer. It also seemed to me that the expression on her face had hardened. I felt bad about myself and imagined that her expression would soon begin making me feel awkward, even though, deep down, I knew that she was not hostile. I reached into the inside pocket of my jacket with the idea of taking out the letter that I had written to her, but I couldn’t find it, which was confusing because I knew that I had put it there. However, when I looked, where I knew I had put it, it was no longer there. She must have thought that I had come to