Stories

PROHIBITION AGAINST THE USE OF FORCE – David Armando Rosales Giron

He wants to maintain his loyalty, but being a stranger in this life chooses to telephone someone else to come in. Trembling at first light, the questioner emerges, instructing the guard to take the innocent victim back to the building. Sweetness in the dark, bruises. The striving body of the spoiled son of a domineering mother, cries of love.

He never sees him again. But now he is safe. His present perception of the universe, a spiritual mutation. And you? He asks. What would you have done in my place? It was the death of his mother, resulting in a broken home and, eventually, his schizophrenic episodes, that made him the way he is.

As he walks across the street, the world enters his retina pseudoscopically. Distortions that occur untraceable to any substance. His low threshold for irritability leads him to talk sarcastically with little pressure. The ripening fruits of a fleeting paranoia.

After a few hours, he is called in from the office. I possess nothing of my own, he says to himself. Taking a statement, the stenographer eyes him suspiciously. She’s golden, out of his league. The cunt has a real problem. A thought that crosses his mind with an immediate feeling of guilt. Guilt that he knows will be exploited.

It swirls above his head, in ways that he cannot control. The cells that he passes by into the bowels of the institution represent a network of coordinates. Cryptographic analogies of his thought. The metal door creeks open and the moment of shock opens him up. Dismembered, his friend describes an interdimensional scenery, orthogonal shapes intervene.

The questioner always has the initial advantage. The terror in his face is clear from the outset. He knows the environment has been manipulated just for this reason. To create unpleasant situations that make him aware he is at their mercy.

Realistic and conservative, lacking in versatility, he expresses caution. Nobody cares. He begins to tell his cover story once again, resisting the impulse to reveal its demonstrable falsity. That hardly matters for it shines forth in spite of him. It is not what he thinks.

The present lies beyond the holographic influence of his direction. There are no friends who can save him. Whatever remains visible includes a desire to unfold, to become more than he has proven to be so far. Yet the questioner remains unmoved. The zealous servant withdraws, and the door is left open for him to exit.

The letters he produces henceforth are full of joy, automatically projecting all manner of noncommunicable material. Please stop crying, he tells himself, all has passed. From the deepening shade, he is observed. The oil in the lamp burns, and with it, the joyous flame weakens.

He goes back to them. Epiphany extinguished. Information that is difficult to extract through direct questioning now comes out puring from him. Beg me to stop, he implores of them.