Master of ceremonies, narrator, the double, habits and behaviours or patterns that repeat themselves.... What if it were not a 'Trojan horse'? The double can manifest as a symptom of the dissolution of the self but also as a revelation to be interpreted and exploited to one's advantage. What is the character's intention? The answer may be that it is a process of self-knowledge and an awareness of the realization of the self: a search for the peculiarity of the individual in the face of false wrappings and unconscious suggestions.

 

*

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"Two words changed my life forever: no heartbeat. It was the 39th week of gestation, and I was almost embracing her when the dream of my life was dynamited in a second, taking away my joy, faith and illusion. I skirted the precipice, watching from above the depth of the fall. I still get a knot in my stomach when I reach into bed and do not find my son in his crib. But despite the suffering, I have never given up. I find it therapeutic to write. Maybe it's because I haven't lost faith completely, and I still believe in that energy teaching me to walk again by missing him. No one is ready to have to trade diapers for Kleenex. Sometimes, I smile as I think about those 39 weeks together. His life was extinguished, but not his magic. And so great is the love in me that is mending this broken heart that once beat for both of us."

Virginia del Río.

 

*

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By that mechanism in psychoanalysis called displacement, the characters direct their hostility towards the objects of the scenography: objects that now rush upon her, that hit her, that bury her, that stone her. It is a neuroatypical body, faceless, afraid to make decisions and move in space, searching for its identity within a society that judges and punishes.

 

"It's like being in a transparent box. No one can hear you. Well, they can see you, but no one can interact with you, and no matter how hard you hit the wall, you can't get out of it. It's very lonely being inside a box all your life. Because no one can get in, and you can't get out. And no one can understand you".

 

*

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Standing on the rooftop, he points his fingers toward the city as if he had a gun. He points at the couples he sees on the street. He has no partner and seems somewhat confused, observing something he cannot understand or even feel. How much filth does he know within himself that he cannot comprehend and handle? He drops his arms at the precise instant he watches a couple, perhaps, propose to each other.

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"Some of the veterans do not fit back into their lives, feeling that they have lost their power, importance, significance, and the roles they played before the war, as well as the activities they performed on a social level. Often, they attempt to reassert their masculinity after the trauma by engaging in exaggerated stereotypical masculine behaviour, such as aggression and increased sexual behaviour, to compensate for the injury the trauma had on their identity. Feeling sexually desirable temporarily suspends those negative thoughts about self-worth."

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Again, the shadow. Its inexorable advance engulfs the light and devours bodies.

 

*

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The main character is weighed more by his impulses and the feeling of guilt than by a sentence he would have had to serve for another crime. The figure and texts of the biography of pianist James Rhodes accompany us towards that instant in which the character realizes that salvation lies solely and exclusively within himself: Really, have you been here all this time?

 

"The ancient Egyptians had a peculiar belief about death. At death, at the entrance to paradise, the gods would ask the soul of the deceased two questions, depending on the answers, to see if it could enter:        Have you found bliss in your life?

                                                                                                                                      Has your life brought joy to the lives of others?

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Essential questions that speak of commitment to oneself. Finally, the task sought by all (or many) is to achieve happiness together with the contribution of our existence to the well-being of others".

Manuel Arboccó de los Heros.

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