Catharsis

By Rafael Samuel García-Cortés

How would you live the last year of your life if you knew the exact date of your death? Especially if you were relatively young, healthy, and the premonition made no sense? This is the question Sebastian asks himself every day after receiving a mysterious note that reads, "You only have one more year to live." The entire year Dr Sebastian Luis P

• Language: English
• Publisher: EBL Books
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781524328351

Rafael Samuel García-Cortés

Born and raised in the vibrant streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Dr. Rafael S. García-Cortés forged a path of academic excellence, earning a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, before delving into the intricacies of medicine and obtaining his Doctorate degree. His journey took him to the prestigious Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri, where he honed his skills in Internal Medicine, Adult Cardiology and Heart Transplantation, later earning a Master´s degree in Population Health Sciences. Throughout his career, he has published numerous peer-reviewed medical articles and has been lauded as an excellent physician. However, it is through his debut novel, "Catharsis", that the full breadth of his artistic talents is revealed. A psychological thriller with a stunning blend of magic realism and medical expertise, the novel paints a brilliant portrait of his beloved Puerto Rico, only made possible through the author´s unique voice. Now residing in Indianapolis, Indiana, with his family, Dr. García-Cortés continues to inspire and captivate readers with his masterful and irreplaceable storytelling.

Book preview

Catharsis

Rafael Samuel García-Cortés

Catharsis

First Edition: 2023

ISBN: 9781524318383

ISBN eBook: 9781524328351

© of the text:

Rafael Samuel García-Cortés

© Layout, design and production of this edition: 2023 EBL

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distrib­uted, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

To my dear Camila, Sofía and Alison:

I will love you forever.

Table of Contents

∫∫First 9

∫∫Second 15

∫∫Third 23

∫∫Fourth 27

∫∫Fifth 35

∫∫Sixth 47

∫∫Seventh 57

∫∫Eighth 71

∫∫Ninth 84

∫∫Tenth 91

∫∫Eleventh 101

∫∫Twelfth 112

∫∫Thirteenth 119

∫∫Fourteenth 126

∫∫Fifteenth 135

∫∫Sixteenth 144

∫∫ Seventeenth 151

∫∫Eighteenth 158

∫∫Nineteenth 165

∫∫Final 172

∫∫First

In that moment, lying in a fetal position, Sebastián witnessed the first omen of the end of his life. The dream was so vivid that he could even perceive the annoying medals he wore over his military uniform. There, only inches away from glory, he felt imprisoned by the orchid perfume swaying between his arms.

Without a doubt, his dancing partner was beautiful. From a distance one could observe how the soldier enjoyed each atom of her existence. It was almost impossible not to fall prey to her gaze and flirtatious smile. That evening, she was wearing a long black dress that brushed her body from her shoulders, all the way down to her ankles. At some point, between the steps and turns of their slow dance, the young man felt the peculiar certainty that he was daydreaming.

Without knowing why, every second of that evening seemed important, somewhat special. The music kept playing in the distance, the ballroom and the dance floor kept spinning, while his body felt the incipient symptoms of love invading a lonely heart. Everything around him was happening almost in slow motion, to the beat of an old, simple ballad. In such a way the evening went by, until he felt the advent of a bad premonition.

First, a slight shiver over his spine turned into uneasiness and, suddenly, that sea of joy in which he had been bathing, while he was dancing, began to evaporate and dehydrate, becoming arid and thick, until it ended up crumbling like a sandcastle of sadness on a depressive and lonely beach. The ground stopped its spinning and became opaque. The music followed suit, as it became disfigured and turned into the deafening memories of war nestled within his consciousness. Then, an infinite sea of guilt grew and expanded, until it dug deep within the confines of his being, serving as the point of origin for a rhythm of anguish that devastated every inch of his soul and ablated every space in his memory.

The man felt fear. He naively wanted to take refuge in the gaze of the woman he held in his arms, but it was impossible: she, the one from a few moments ago, was no longer the same. That beautiful lady seemed to have aged in a matter of minutes. As he looked at her, he realized that his young dancing partner had been withered by more than fifty years of wrinkles. Right after seeing the ravages of time upon her, he had the odd certainty that this woman meant more than just a date, for the person he studied so closely appeared to be his wife. But how can she be my wife if I am not yet married? the incredulous sleeper silently asked himself. After several moments of cognitive struggle, having run through every second of his momentary reality in excruciating detail, the man realized that in reality he was not that forlorn military man with devastating war memories. During that evening filled with elusive dreams, he had simply been given the task of inhabiting the troubled mind of a human being torn apart by his past.

Slowly, deep within his dreams, he struggled within himself, until he managed to come back from the depressive trance caused by that revealing vision. It was then that he was finally convinced that he was not that military man dancing on the dance floor next to an aging lady. How real this feels!, he thought, immersed in his dreams, without realizing that, at that very moment, in that apparently innocent siesta, Sebastián was experiencing firsthand the military memories that belonged to his father, Sgt. Samuel Luis Pérez.

As soon as he opened his eyes, Sebastián was repeatedly thankful that he had been sleeping. He was lying on his bed, covered in sweat from head to toe. He was thirsty; his throat was dry. Did I snore? he thought, as he swallowed a thick gulp of useless saliva.

In his bedroom there were several portraits hanging on the wall. The pictures showed versions of himself at different ages. There were photographs of him with his brother playing as kids at the lake house; of his entire family having dinner as adults. Despite the passage of time across the photos it was obviously Sebastián in all of them. In the pictures you could see his large face and long, pointed, exuberant nose. On his right cheek he had a small but noticeable mole that, depending on the quality of the razor, could be seen or missed. His eyes were disproportionately large (almost as if inherited from a coquí frog) with a dark brown color that bordered on the black of his hair. In short: Sebastián was a tall, very pale, middle-aged, Puerto Rican man with very large, almost black eyes and an exaggerated nose.

The air was heavy. He noticed after awakening and realized that it was well past lunchtime; his siesta had lasted far longer than he’d imagined. The sky was lowering, its clouds varying between a dark gray bordering on purple and a deep black that spread everywhere. Sebastián appeared to be in no hurry. Slowly, he glanced at his wristwatch and noticed that it read 10:23 p.m. with 30, 31, 32... seconds. Then he closed his eyes and pretended he wasn’t trying to calculate that it had already been approximately 11 hours and 30, 31, 32... seconds since he had left his doctor’s office to go to lunch. In reality, he was not affected by having overslept during a day’s work. In fact, for the past three months, he had opened his clinic for an average of four hours, three times a week.

Throughout medical circles, there were more than enough rumors about Dr. Sebastián Luis Pérez-Fuertes and how unwell he was looking lately. Sebastián, in general, was not affected by gossiping. That being said, over the past few months the rumors continued to grow exponentially and with good reason. Even if he graduated with honors, he’s a lousy physician, his past patients would say behind his back. I heard his mother forced him to be a doctor, said others. Deep down, he knew that those people were not gossipmongers, but hypocrites, since everything they said was true, even though they never confronted him face to face. Certainly, people were not lying when they proclaimed that, at that time in his life, he was terrible at taking care of his patients and, moreover, that he was almost forced by his mother to enroll in medical school. During those days, Dr. Sebastián Pérez-Fuertes was probably the worst version of a physician imaginable.

Seba, as he was nicknamed outside the office, used to shower as soon as he woke up. His rinse after that long sleep was quick and in less than a couple of minutes he managed to shake the rest of the sleep from his eyes, along with the memories of his father dancing with his mother. Once dressed, he turned on his cell phone, grabbed his keys, his wallet and started to head out of his apartment which was in the outskirts of Old San Juan. However, just before leaving his room, he noticed that on his nightstand lay a note written in black India ink. Intrigued, he walked towards it and, picking it up, read it in amazement:

You have one year to live

A few milliseconds after reading the note, Sebastián’s heart felt the impact of an adrenergic shock originating deep within his gut, followed by a cocktail of epinephrine, serotonin and a couple of drops of dopamine, which mixed quite well to take over his brain and each one of his neurons, until his chest was pounding at a rate of 184 beats per minute. With every heartbeat, his senses expanded each one of his major veins and arteries, steering him, without escape, to the confines of his worst nightmares, those in which he was loved by no one and died like a bum, lying alone, empty and hopeless on the ground.

As soon as his pupils were dilated and each one of his muscles were pre-excited, his brain demanded that his eyes looked everywhere, as his aura, in desperation, rose, once and for all, to the top of the ceiling. From there, he realized that he was no longer framed within his body but was now separated from his anatomy and the rest of his soul. He then began the search for the person who had dared to announce his death. With no idea who it might be, he began by combing under his bed and over the sink, up through the cabinets, inspecting every plate, cooking utensil, wine glass, and piece of trash found in his kitchen.

He certainly felt light, like a gas that floated along every edge of his sad existence, crossing the living room and each piece of his furniture, passing over the carpet, until he stopped frantically on his living room table. There he looked and found nothing but several ants along a lonely and completely dry beer can. Then he moved quickly to his cell phone, which he used to be transported to some happier place near the center of Paris, where he wandered through the streets, bathed in yellow lights and discreet cafes, strolling among Rodin’s sculptures and admiring a couple of thousand works signed by Picasso. Aimlessly, he decided to run through the Tuileries gardens and, tired of loitering pointlessly, he converted his being into a lost tourist, using his cell phone to arrive back in his bedroom, via his computer monitor.

Once back in his apartment, in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, he wandered through the Melquíades parchments, which he adored so much, reviewed a couple of Neruda poems and browsed through the hundred or so dusty medical books he owned, until, bored with prowling around like a psychotic spirit, he realized that, perhaps, the healthiest thing to do was to return to his body.

Once he regained his senses, he found himself enclosed by his skin and framed by that infinite sadness which defined him. At that moment he understood that it was probably ridiculous to try to find the author who had warned him of something impossible. If he was going to die of anything in this life, it would surely be the painful habit of putting up with his mother, Doña Mother.

∫∫Second

As he left his apartment, Seba regretted not having put on a sports jacket. The weather was chilly and, for that reason, he decided to put his hands inside his front pockets, which still held an old pack of gum, his keys and his cell phone. After the rampage produced by the note, Sebastián tried to convince himself that perhaps it had been a bad joke planned by his brother and, because he did not want to give him the satisfaction of seeing him frightened, he preferred to relax and pretend that it had never happened. He then passed one, two, three and, at the fourth car, he decided to venture out and cross the avenue. Once he stood on the opposite sidewalk, he stopped and felt his fingers trembling inside his left pocket.

Hello, answered Seba.

Where are you? asked Doña Mother, his mother.

He wasn’t surprised to not hear a How are you, my dear son? Let alone a, Hello, my darling!", so everything was definitely going very well in his mother’s house.

I’m out and I’m busy. Do you need anything? asked Seba.

No, replied his mother, I just wanted to hear the beautiful voice of my favorite son.

In truth, Seba knew his mother had no favorite children. She said the same to both Seba and Ian. One thing was certain though, she wanted to hear her younger son’s voice that night. After a pause, Doña Mother continued with her questions:

Where have you been? What have you been doing? Who are you with? Some woman? You sound hoarse, have you been smoking?

After hearing these words, Sebastián felt as if a strike of fury took over his throat, attempting to turn the color of his eyes from dark brown to red, as his right hand was about to crush his mobile phone into pieces. So, in order not to fork out a few hundred dollars for a new cell phone, or to permanently discolor his eyes , he decided to cut the call. Actually, it was not a major problem, he was already accustomed to the escape-protocol he’d designed with his brother to deal with their mother. Once Doña Mother began one of her peculiar performances, the ritual was impeccably executed to avoid further consequences. This was a perfect occasion not to get angry; the night was exquisite and there was no reason to waste it in anger.

Once he calmed down, he continued walking until he turned right at the corner of Steffani and Luchetti, stopping at El Bar del Murciégalo.

This bar, whose name literally translates to something like, The Flittermouse’s Bar in old English, was an absolute dive. Everything about it, from its name to the facade, was a fiasco. The paint on the walls was dismal and the smell seemed to come from each of the 6.022 x 10²³ particles per mole of guano that surrounded the decrepit building. Curiously, the place could have been named by any drunkard who knew the two wingless bats that inhabited it. "The twuo ratzzz arre my budddiesz, Sebastián kept repeating with a slur after the tenth beer. I even named them and adopted them. The vite one I call her Hiswife and the darkel one is Hislover. I curze the mother whoeber deh-darez to screuw wit’ them. From time to time, he would be heard making jokes with them, he would say things like, Bohth of jou com’ wit’ me. Guyzsz, if anyone, anyyyy-one, comez looking for mei, tell ‘em that I left vith Hiswife and Hislover". However, as they were inside jokes, no one laughed or really cared.

The walls of that bar looked as if they were sweating; they were dark and from them hung pieces of black paint with signs of moisture and a parched, grayish fungus. He usually sat in a corner of the bar that normally would hold six or seven people. On the other side of the table, almost always, sat Antonio. He was a man in his 60s, who paced, coughed and spoke with such deep hoarseness that he sounded closer to 80 years of age. On the ceiling was an electric fan that spun with a very faint, rhythmic screech. Despite the shambles and even though Sebastián had enough money to drink champagne in any fancy social club, he always preferred that little bar, because he felt that no one recognized him there and its decadent facade bordered between the unique and the original. In essence, the anonymity and mediocrity of El Bar del Murciégalo made him feel special.

It was 11:53 p.m. when Seba felt his left thigh vibrate again, so he decided to answer his cell phone.

Hello, Do-ña Mo-ther, said Seba, slightly worse for wear after seventy-five fluid ounces