Posted 1:29 PM by laura r.
The mystery of the haunted crypt continues...

And now, the final blow: muffled footsteps, a blow, a dagger, my dismemberment, the burial of my poor remains in the shade of the most hidden willows by the banks of the noisy river, the voracious worms, oblivion, the black emptiness of non-existence. Who had conceived the plan to murder me? who had woven the net in which I was struggling like a little forest creature? whose would be the hand to immolate me? the hand of Mercedes Negrer herself? of the lustful Pepsi-Cola vendor? of the super-endowed blacks? of the milkers at the dairy? Calm yourself. Don’t let yourself get carried away by apprehensions as yet unjustified by what has happened, don’t let fear block the communication channels, as Doctor Sugrañes himself had said to me so many times in therapy. Your fellow-man is good, he said to me, he bears you no ill-will, there’s no reason for them to dismember you, you haven’t done anything to upset the people around you, even if they may seem to be ready to behave like that. Calm. There’s a very simple explanation for everything: something odd that happened to you in childhood; the projection of your own obsessions. Calm. In a few moments everything will be clear and you can laugh at your childish fears. You have had five years of psychiatric treatment, your mind is no longer a little ship adrift in the dangerous seas of delirium, like before, when you believed, you idiot, that phobias were those silent and particularly fetid
breakings of wind that uncivil people allowed themselves in crowded public transport. Agoraphobia: fear of open spaces; claustrophobia: fear of closed spaces, such as sarcophagi and anthills. Calm, calm.
And while I was calming myself down with these comforting thoughts, I tried to step out of the bed, and when I did, something like a cold and heavy spider-web fell over me, which immobilized me against the sheets, and I clearly perceived the noise which the door-handle made as it turned, and the creaking of the hinges and some muffled steps entering the bedroom and the labored puffing of someone who was preparing to commit the most horrible of crimes. And being no longer able to resist the fear which seized me, I wet myself and began to call for my mother in a very quiet voice, with the foolish hope that she could hear me from the beyond and rush to help me at the threshold of the kingdom of the spirits, since I feel awkward in new places. And that is when I heard a voice by my side which was saying “Are you sleeping?”, and recognized the voice as Mercedes Negrer, trying to answer without being able to, with nothing coming from my throat but a querulous murmur which little by little was turning into a shriek. A hand was placed on my shoulder.
“Why are you wrapped up in the mosquito netting?”
“I can’t see”, I finally managed to say. “It seems that I am blind.”
“No, man. There’s a blackout. I brought a candlesticks, but I can’t find the matches. My father always has a spare box on the bedside table so that he can smoke when he wakes up, even though the doctor told him to quit.”
By my side a box was opened, and hands dug through the contents. There was a scratching and a sputtering and a hesitant little flame gleamed, which, applied to the wick of a candle, produced a vague brightness, allowing me to distinguish through the weave of the mosquito netting the tranquil face of Mercedes, whose eyes were blinking rapidly.