Three Messages and a Warning (26 page)
Read Three Messages and a Warning Online
Authors: Eduardo Jiménez Mayo,Chris. N. Brown,editors
On the corner of the table I noticed the second envelope, but I gazed upon it with disinterest. All that I had yearned for I had already obtained, and what I intended to do with the treasure was no one’s business but my own. All the same, considering the truth that the first envelope contained about my only mission here on earth, I gathered that the second one might reveal further secrets, equaling or surpassing the marvels of the first.
Perhaps there was more treasure to be found! I broke the envelope’s seal. The note within said: “Read these words and fall dead upon the table.” Dead indeed! All happened according to the writing. On the other side I was informed that if I choose Hell I could eternally relive the moment in which I first observed those gold coins shining brightly at daybreak. My other option was a tranquil life in Heaven, where I could forget that juncture in my life and be cured of my obsession forever. I was convinced that no cure could equal the thrill of the moment my eyes first beheld the treasure in its full splendor. I made my choice, therefore, without the slightest regard for the consequences—and this is the story of how I, of my own volition, made Hell my abode.
“A Pile of Bland Desserts” copyright
©
2011 by Yussel Dardón. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Osvaldo de la Torre.
“Amalgam” copyright
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2011 by Amélie Olaiz. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Armando Garc
í
a.
“The Drop” copyright
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2011 by Claudia Guillén. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Leah Leone.
“Hu
n
ting Iguanas” copyright
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2011 by Hernán Lara Zavala. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Eduardo Jiménez May
o
.
“Future Perfect” copyright
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2011 by Gerardo Sifuentes. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Chris N. Brown.
“The Guest” (“El Huesped”) first published in Tiempo Destrozado, by Amparo Dávila. Copyright
©
1959 FONDO DE CULTURA ECONÓMICA, Carretera Picacho-Ajusco 227, C.P. 14738, México, D.F. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Anna Guercio.
“The Hour of the Fireflies” copyright
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2011 by Karen Chacek. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Michael J. DeLuca.
“The Infamous Juan Manuel” copyright
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2011 by Bruno Estañol. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Anisia Rodr
í
guez.
“The Last Witness to Creation” copyright © 2011 by Jesús Ramírez Bermúdez. Translation copyright © 2011 by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo.
“Lions” copyright
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2011 by Bernardo Fernández. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Chris N. Brown.
“Luck Has Its Limits” copyright
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2011 by Beatriz Escalante. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Stephen Jackson.
“Mannequin” copyright
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2011 by Esther M. Garcia. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Chris N. Brown.
“The Mediator” copyright
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2011 by Ana Gloria Álvarez Pedrajo. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Anisia Rodr
í
guez.
“Mr. Strogoff” copyright
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2011 by Guillermo Samperio. Translation copyright
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2011 by Steve V
á
squez Dolph.
“Murillo Park” copyright
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2011 by Agustín Cadena. Translation copyright
©
2011 by C. M. Mayo.
“The Nahual Offering” copyright
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2011 by Carmen Rioja. Translation copyright
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2011 by Emily Eaton.
“Future Nereid” copyright
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2011 by Gabriela Damián Miravete. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Michael J. DeLuca.
“Pachuca Second Street” copyright
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2011 by Lucía Abdó. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Emily Eaton.
“Photophobia” copyright
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2011 by Mauricio Montiel Figueiras. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Jen Hofer.
“The Pin” copyright
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2011 by Leo Mendoza. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Armando Garc
í
a.
“Pink Lemonade” copyright
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2011 by Liliana V. Blum. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Toshiya Kamei.
“The President without Organs” copyright
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2011 by Pepe Rojo. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Chris N. Brown.
“Rebellion” copyright
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2011 by Queta Navagómez. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Rebecca Huerta.
“The Return of Night” copyright
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2011 by René Roquet. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Armando Garc
í
a.
“The Stone” copyright
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2011 by Donají Olmedo. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Emily Eaton.
“Three Messages and a Warning in the Same Email” copyright © 2011 by Ana Clavel. Translation copyright © 2011 by Elsy Jackson.
“Today, You Walk Along a Narrow Path” copyright © 2011 by María Isabel Aguirre. Translation copyright © 2011 by Rebecca Huerta.
“The Transformist” copyright
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2011 by Horacio Sentíes Madrid. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Eduardo Jiménez May
o
and José Alejandro Flores.
“Trompe-l’œil” copyright
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2011 by Mónica Lavín. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Andrea Rosenberg.
“Variation on a Theme of Coleridge” copyright
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2011 by Alberto Chimal. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Chris N. Brown.
“Waiting” copyright
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2011 by Iliana Estañol. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Joanna Tilley.
“Wittgenstein’s Umbrella” copyright
©
2011 by Óscar de la Borbolla. Translation copyright © 2011 by Sara Gilmore.
“Wolves” copyright
©
2011 by José Luis Zárate. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Bernardo Fernández and Chris N. Brown.
“1965” copyright
©
2011 by Edmée Pardo. Translation copyright
©
2011 by Lesly Betancourt-Gonz
á
lez.
Agustín Cadena (Ixmiquilpan, 1963) is a novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, and translator, and a university professor of literature. He has published over twenty books in many literary genres and has collaborated on more than fifty publications in various countries. His work has been recognized with many awards. Some of his work has been anthologized in Mexico, Spain, Argentina, USA, and Italy, and translated into English, Italian, and Hungarian.
Alberto Chimal (Toluca, 1970) is a writer and professor of creative writing. He is the author of the critically lauded novel
Los esclavos
(
The Slaves,
2009) and sixteen short story collections, including
Grey
(
Flock
, 2006),
Cinco aventuras de Horacio Kustos
(
Five Adventures of Horatio Kustos,
2008),
La ciudad imaginada y otras historias
(
The Imaginary City and Other Stories
, 2009), and
83 novelas
(
83 Novels,
2011). He has also written a collection of essays, a translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s
Politian
(
Poliziano
, 2010), two plays produced in the late 1990s, the anthology
Viajes celestes
(
Celestial Journeys,
2006) and a comic:
Horacio en las ciudades
(
Horatio in the Cities
, 2004), illustrated by Ricardo “Micro” Garcia. Mexican critics have cited his work as departing from common themes in contemporary Mexican literature to a territory closer to European and Latin American fantastic literature, merging everyday life with the extraordinary and mythical.
Amparo Dávila (Pinos, Zacatecas, 1928) is a poet and short-story writer. She has published the poetry collections
Salmos bajo la luna
(1950) and
Meditación a la orilla del sueño y Perfil de soledades
(1954). Her fiction works include
Tiempo destrozado
(1959),
Música concreta
(1964), and
Árboles petrificados
(1977), which received the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize.
Amélie Olaiz (León) is a writer and professor at Universidad Iberoamericana (UIA) and Universidad Intercontinental in Mexico City, where she has lived since childhood.
She studied Graphic Design at UIA and holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Design and a Diploma in Creativity from the UIA. In 1996 she started studying Buddhist philosophy. Her literary works have appeared in
Piedras de Luna
(
Moon Stones
, 2005, republished in Spain in 2007) and
Aquí está tu cielo
(
Here Is Your Sky
, 2007), and in the anthologies
Ficticia’s Citizens
(2003),
Prohibido fumar
(
No Smoking
, 2008), Infidelidades.con (
Infidelities.with
, 2008),
Antología mínima del orgasmo
(
Minimal Orgasm Anthology
, 2009), and
Vampiros mundanos y transmundanos
(
Mundane and Transmundane Vampires
, 2011). Her work has also appeared in the newspapers
La Jornada
,
El Financiero
, and
Reforma
, the journal
Castálida
, and in various Chilean textbooks. A participant in several writers workshops, she won three first-place prizes in contests organized by the Ficiticia’s Matina workshop.
Ana Clavel (Mexico City, 1961) is a novelist, short-story writer, and essayist. Her novel
Los deseos y su sombra
(
Desire and Its Shadow
, 2006) was a finalist for the International Alfaguara Prize. Her novel
Cuerpo náufrago
(Alfaguara 2005;
Shipwrecked Body
, Aliform 2008) became Cuerpo náufrago/ ready-made multimedia para bucear en la identidad y el deseo (a performance, photo exhibition, installation, and website).
Las Violetas son flores del deseo
(Alfaguara 2007) won the Radio France International Short Novel Juan Rulfo Prize and was the origin point of a multimedia project that included a sex doll exhibition, installation, performance, and website. Her most recent novel is
El dibujante de sombras
(Alfaguara 2009).
Ana Gloria Álvarez Pedrajo was born in her beloved Mexico on the 17th of December. Since then she writes: “I liked to listen to all kinds of tales, especially ghost stories. We Mexicans keep a tight relationship with our dead friends and family; we take food for them to the cemetery, decorate their tombs with lots of flowers, we sing and we talk to them daily. I remember the distress caused by the falling soil on my grandmother’s coffin. She always had been energetic and of cheerful temperament. My mind, then a child’s mind, couldn’t understand how that phenomenon, the one called “death” by the adults, could keep her from her sad fate. My father, aware of this, explained to me that this life is not the real one; that the happiness we all desperately seek is only possible in the eternity with God. I believe the recurrence of unearthly and mystic topics in my work is caused by this first impression. I can say that the spirits and I are friends, we understand each other. Neither they nor I belong to this world; them for their condition, I by my inability to adapt and because my soul longs and sensed the beauty of the intangible and immaterial universe.”