Leaving my language behind, I enter the labyrinth. Its streets are narrow and old and crowded with small fruit-colored buildings made of mud and stone. Here dogs speak in tongues and saints make deals with passers-by. I am greeted by a cockroach who kindly explains their price, plastic flowers and bottled flame. I see within the wicker shadows of their tiny huts how each saint stands stoic and faithful before their candles and the litter of past offerings; blackened, shattered glass and dusty clods of petals and wax but, at the hour the church bells ring, they wince in their solitude. I ask the cockroach if anyone else is in the business. The dogs, she answers, adding that I best consider carefully before choosing among them. Before I can ask more she scuttles off, disappearing into the crack of a flame red wall.
asha
Border Crossing
... excerpt from Obra Inconcluso — Mexico
