Translation of "Motivos y fallos" by Ginés Cutillas

Motives and sentences

He had no idea how he just appeared in the middle of the desert with a revolver in his hand. Even less certain was the origin of the man that was lying on the ground in front of him and who seemed to be waiting for something to be resolved. Unsettled, he looked at the gun and the stranger, who was at that time lifting his head up begging him not to do it. Do what? he wondered. Shoot him?

                He weighed the situation while he paced in circles around the man without lowering his aim. There had to be an explanation for such a scenario. The last thing he remembered was leaving the office and… what was he doing there now?

                On the other hand, life had taught him that he had to take advantage of all possible opportunities. How many times could he kill a man and go unpunished? He then felt a disturbing power that ended in the tip of the barrel.

                Startled, he tried to clear his thoughts by expressing them out loud. The stranger stopped moaning. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. Was he trying to get the man to give him reasons why not do it?

                He then thought to ask him if he knew why there were there. He seemed to know but didn’t want to say.

                It didn’t take him long to find the definitive question: “Tell me. What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

                The man’s hesitation cost him a bullet.

Translation of "La puerta" by Ginés Cutillas

The door

It’s not that different from the others. It’s true that the others are wooden and this one is metal. It’s also true that it has two panels – instead of one – that open in the middle to let you in and out. But aside from those two small differences, it’s nothing more than that: just a door.

                I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the numbers above it. A scale from zero to nine just above the upper door frame, where the digits light up in sequential order but don’t always reach nine, although they always go back to zero.

                I couldn’t resist the temptation to peek inside and was surprised to find a cubicle, two meters squared, with mirrors all over. I guessed that when you close the door, one of the other three walls opens up giving access to…

                I sat down here, in the hotel foyer, studying it carefully and writing down everything going in and coming out in order to try to deduce some rules.

                At 7:45 p.m., a couple formed by a relatively young man and woman go in; he’s thirty-something and she’s twenty-something. The numbers successively light up to five and then the countdown begins back down to zero. When the door opens, the couple has aged at least thirty years. He now looks about seventy and she looks about sixty. Corollary number 1: when level five intensity is applied to a sample young couple in the small room behind the double doors, they age by approximately three decades. I also observed that they were now dressed differently. Maybe it’s just a dressing room that ages people.

                At 7:52 p.m., a kid about thirteen years old goes in. The scale goes up to three and stays there for a while. The door doesn’t open again until another teenager, around 15, arrives. Mysteriously, the thirteen-year-old isn’t there anymore. The second adolescent is swallowed by the fourth mirror, and level four intensity is applied. The door opens again. Again, there isn’t anyone there. Corollary number 2: it makes people under the age of sixteen disappear if they are alone. That explains the sign prohibiting children unaccompanied by an adult from using the dressing room.

                At 8:05 p.m., an eighty-year-old couple goes in. According to my calculations and applying Corollary number 1, which would age them thirty years, I doubt they’ll come out of this one alive. Intensity eight. Twenty minutes later – 8:25 p.m. – I confirm that my suspicions were correct: they don’t come back out. Instead, two very smiley twenty-something-year-old girls go in and level six intensity is applied – what determines the force that is applied? The result is two unsmiling kids with black skin. Corollary number 3: mood is another variable, which, combined with intensity, produces changes in sex, race and mood. Age remains unaffected.

                Nothing else happens until 8:48 p.m. This time the door closes by itself without anyone going in and level four intensity is applied. When it descends back to zero, the two young teenagers come back out dressed in athletic clothes. Rectification of corollary number 2: it does not make people under the age of sixteen disappear, it just retains them. Corollary number 4: more time is needed to put on athletic clothes.

                I start to get hungry with so many continuous discoveries. I reach the conclusion that there are infinite combinations of variables and that it would take me years to chart my findings. Before going to dinner, I decide to try the dressing room myself to complete my investigation. I take advantage of the open door to step inside. I observe myself in the mirrors. I still look the same. I wait a minute for the door to close and for one of the other walls to open, maybe to some clothes lined up on hangers. Nothing happens. I wait a little while longer. I move. Nothing. I decide to jump. At the third jump, the door closes. Corollary number 5: to start up the dressing room, you have to jump three times.

                 I see that the scale is also displayed inside the door frame. Intensity eight. I continue to stare at myself in the mirrors. I don’t see any new wrinkles, or exhaustion, and my clothes haven’t changed.

                When the door opens, I let out a scream. The dead eighty-year-olds appear in front of me with the same clothes they were wearing before. The foyer has disappeared. Behind them, there is a long hall with an infinite number of doors on both sides. Is this heaven? I wonder. “Going down?” they ask. To which I respond affirmatively with tears in my eyes while sobbing that I’m not ready yet. They come in. Our eyes do not part throughout the process of reincarnation. The intensity goes back down to zero. As soon as the door opens, the foyer appears before me once again. I throw myself down to kiss the floor. Thank God, I’m still alive.

Translation of "Mascarada" by Ginés Cutillas

Masquerade

When Fred told his wife that morning that he was going to buy the newspaper, little could she imagine that the police would knock on their door an hour later to tell her that her husband had died in a car accident. Apparently his car had smashed into a guard rail on the M-30 highway.

During the hours before the funeral, Mary couldn’t stop wondering where he was driving. He always bought the paper from the newsstand on the corner.

Mass was quiet. Children, friends and colleagues hadn’t expected to attend a death so soon. The few whispers running through the halls and vaults were those that praised the generosity and honesty, the good father and even better husband he had been, now lying before them. Nobody skimped on flowers, wreaths and more than one of the mourners even wrote poetry.

Right before being closed up, two sinister whistles echoed inside the coffin.

Instinctively, the attendees looked at the widow who, after the initial shock, moved closer to the coffin, patted the corpse’s pockets and took a cell phone out of the front inside pocket of his jacket, which she had been unaware of. She was so nervous that she gave the phone to her son who, after confirmed that the unfortunate caller was a Laura, read out loud: “Honey, where the hell are you?”

Translation of "Cualquier dia" by Ginés Cutillas

Any day

Manuel gets up in the morning and wakes the kids up. He makes coffee and has breakfast with his wife. Later he affectionately says goodbye to his children as he drops them off at school. When he gets to work, he greets all his coworkers with a friendly good morning. He’s been there a long time. He calls his clients, eats from the lunch box Aurora prepared for him and throws out all his invoices. Later, he jokes around while saying goodbye to each of his coworkers.

He takes advantage of the down time between the end of the work day and picking up the kids from the pool to go buy groceries at the supermarket. With a trunk full of food and the car flooded with children’s laughter, he heads home. She still hasn’t arrived. When she finally does, a delicious, steaming hot dinner waits for him in the kitchen. He kisses her, cuddles her, tells her how pretty she is, how lucky he is. He puts the kids to bed, giving them a kiss goodnight after reading them a story. He goes to his bedroom and sees his wife asleep with a book in her hands. He takes off her glasses and puts the book on the nightstand. He sits next to her on the bed and fixes the covers around her. Then, he opens a drawer in the nightstand and takes out a revolver. Aurora shifts a little and turns. He looks straight into the barrel. He sticks it so far into his mouth that the pain causes him to shed a few tears. He pulls the trigger. She clears her throat. Manuel inspects his brain splattered all over the headboard with his fingertips, as if it were the first time he’d seen it. He’s tired. He turns off the light. Tomorrow he has to stop by the IRS before going to the office.

From here

From here I can see all the people walking to their respective destinations, driving their cars and scooters and bikes, riding the bus, looking around or looking inward. It amazes me that everyone cannot be conscious of everyone else in their everyday lives. I always imagine the rest of the story behind the momentary glimpse of people’s faces, body language, as they pass by… For instance the waiter who delivers dishes of food slipping around on the plate without paying attention if it’s the right table, while he imagines his girlfriend of 4 years, who is lying in bed thinking of packing her bags because he doesn’t want to have a baby. Or the toll-booth collector who drops lifeless coins in my hand as he quietly hums the melody that’s been forming in his head over the past few hours, so as not to forget it when he goes home to his parent’s basement where he has accumulated a plethora of instruments and sound recording equipment. Or the mom fumbling through her purse as unnecessary lipsticks and receipts and hairballs fall out, a line forming behind her while that damn bus ticket continues to escape her, as do her two little boys who were just moments earlier tugging on her drool-stained blouse that her not-so-tiny toddler has fallen asleep on with the dead weight of a KO’d pro wrestler. Or the old lady who has painstakingly matched her babygirl pink lipstick with her shuffling flats, her breast-level skirt and her delicately doilied jacket just to go to the fruit shop a block away, and then shuffle back to her silent, empty home.

Maybe they’re wondering how someone like me, who seemingly has nothing in common, could feel what they’re feeling.

Or maybe they’re all just wondering what I’m staring at.

Electricity

There’s something electrifying about the air around you

Do you mind if I stand a little closer and breathe you in

So close, the hairs on my arms stand up and reach towards you

Our bodies separated by the energy charging between our skin

I shake the shivers off and imagine enveloping your warmth

Permeating every corner of my being to fingertips and pinky toes

I can’t find the right words so I invent them blindly

They pour out of me in a drunken stupor that grows

Inebriated by your silence

And I’m thirsty for more

Translation of "Una historia doméstica" by Ginés Cutillas

A domestic story

Discovering the plants was strange but pleasant when all is said and done. I always thought my bachelor’s studio could use a feminine touch.

It was less pleasant when I found used tampons in the bathroom wastebasket. Not because it was an odd place to find them – I wouldn’t want my words to offend anyone – but because I lived alone and, as far as I knew, without a stable partner or any other kind, for that matter.

It was rather disturbing when the wall color changed from one day to the next, but I quickly got used to it. It gave the apartment a certain warmth.

Soon, the furniture changed positions. That bothered me. Nevertheless, I had to admit there was a certain logic in the new distribution. A new shower curtain followed, a rug in the living room, blinds on the windows, new dishes, but also long hairs in the shower, piles of panties in the drawers and items from a makeup kit scattered all over the house.

When I started to wonder what to do with the intruder, the romantic dinners began. I got home from the office and all I had to do was sit and enjoy the music, the candles and the exquisite dishes I had no idea that my precarious kitchen was even capable of producing.

In gratitude, I began to leave sweet notes on the refrigerator and roses on the pillows, which later appeared in vases.

I work. She takes care of me. I’m sure we're the envy of all the neighbors: they’ve never heard us argue.

I don’t know her. And I think it’s better that way.