NARCOSIS

      Francisco Garófalo

      Translated by Philip Walker

      NARCOSIS

      © Francisco Garófalo, 2021

      © Philip Walker, 2021, translation.

      © Tektime, 2021

      © Libros Duendes, 2021

      Cover design and layout: Libros Duendes

       www.librosduendes.com

      No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, whether by photocopying or any other means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holders.

      To God, for the continued gift of life. To my parents, for setting me a good example and for giving me an education.

      To all my friends who have known how to listen to me, who have read my work and who have given me their opinion. To them I dedicate this book.

      I

      He was sitting on a bench drinking a cup of tea. He lived in a white house, although he had never liked that colour. He had an absent expression, gazing in no particular direction. He was serene, nothing interrupted him, nothing bothered him, nothing disturbed him, until his hand touched a square object that felt awkward inside his jacket.

      Overcome with curiosity, he decided to take it out of his pocket; it was an old, creased notebook with a worn cover, dirty after so many years of abandonment. The strange thing for him was finding his name written on the notebook, as the title was “Lorenzo’s Diary”.

      Lorenzo opened the notebook to glance through it and after a short scan, he closed it. He was overcome by a deep sense of curiosity and anxiety. He opened it anew. Were they perhaps words that he did not remember, sentences without meaning, anecdotes or simply memories that at some time it had occurred to him to write down? He had no idea; he would have to investigate. He felt a pain in his chest. Were they events he could no longer remember, an existence he had lived, an endless number of thoughts grouped together by date? He would have to find out what it was about.

      He made himself comfortable on his bench in the Ecuadorian sunshine so that he could read carefully.

      It began: I, Lorenzo, have decided to write this diary in case one day I forget what I have experienced in my life. I have not recorded my surname because I don’t have one. The circumstances that, in the past, led me to commit acts I should never have committed now torment me in the present. I accumulated debts in the past but I did not honour them. Now I am paying them.

      The fact is, we all pay what we owe, although sometimes some people pay more than they owe. The worst thing is that I do not remember everything I did or failed to do.

      Who wants to remember their misery? Although nobody can say that my whole life has been miserable, perhaps my destiny was simply written in the stars. I don’t know.

      I do not remember where everything happened, nor when, nor the places, nor the times when maybe I was happy. I do not remember much. That is why I write. That is why I wrote to remember it, to not forget what I did, to not forget my sins, to not forget what I have already forgotten.

      My mother died giving birth to me and I never knew the whereabouts of my father. That’s why I went to live at my Aunt Carlota’s house. At the time I did not know why my aunt was taking responsibility for me.

      We arrived at the blue house with bone-coloured interior walls and I must confess I did not like those colours. I have never been very receptive to colours. I do not believe a colour makes a difference to how you live each day, as some psychologists claim, propounding theories that perhaps could be true. Personally, I think it is nonsense. Only our good deeds and our shortcomings make a difference.

      The important thing is how we act and proceed in this wretched world, and I use the word “wretched” not because it really is, but just because I was unlucky or because I borrowed too much and then I did not want to pay.

      We know that we are good at borrowing but very bad when it is time to pay. We know that and yet still we carry on doing the same things, justifying ourselves with the banal pretext that “we are only human”. But if we are human we should know that we are the most intelligent animals in the world. Maybe our intelligence is what makes us complete. I don’t know, perhaps I will never know.

      II

      I arrived in a place where I was not welcome, where nobody was happy about my presence. I was simply somebody who arrived to invade everybody’s lives. Especially her life.

      Later on I would realise that my aunt did not love me, nor did her husband or her son. It was to be expected. I was someone who had arrived to disrupt the family, an apparently happy family, and I emphasise the word “apparently” because it was all a façade, a false life, just as most people have. Most people who live each day without knowing what they are living for. Who lack purpose and sleepwalk through empty streets, like ghosts without ideas. Zombies who live their lives lost and trapped by the evil acts that condemn them to be confined in freedom to a life without meaning and without dreams.

      When I took my first step nobody was pleased, when I said my first word nobody was excited. Who was going to be excited when for them I did not exist? I was a non-entity, not even an object in that house. Someone who was never among their priorities.

      When I reached my fifth birthday nobody threw me a party, nobody congratulated me, nobody thought of me, but I understood it since nobody loved me. She was the only one who took any notice of me.

      I remember her. Of course I remember her. Her pink blouse, her curly hair, her red lips, her black eyes, her smile that gave me a reason to keep living.

      She started to become the reason for my existence. It was for her that I kept myself alive in that house. It was her that made me sigh; it was her that made me dream; she was the only one who wished me a happy birthday and who gave me a kiss as a present and said, ‘I love you very much.’ And from that day I knew that she was the one for me. That she would be my wife forever.

      Yes, I was a little boy with the dreams of a little boy, a little boy who loved with the love of a little boy, a little boy who clung to her because she was the only one who paid him any attention. A little boy who wanted to be loved.

      III

      I learnt. I began to know a lot. I learnt things by myself. Nobody taught me. I was a little boy who learnt day by day and I spent all day watching television since that was the only way for me to amuse myself and discover the world at the same time. I learnt, or maybe I didn’t.

      What can television teach us? Perhaps quite a lot. Mostly bad things, depending on what we choose to watch. And what does a little boy of five choose to watch? Cartoons which are either violent or where the main characters are two talking animals. It’s entertainment, or at least that’s what they tell us.

      But the truth is you end up acting like them and you get caught up in a vicious circle of stupidity and nastiness. The soaps, what do they teach you? The songs that make no sense? From that I learnt.

      I didn’t know how to select television channels. Action films fascinated me. Their cleverness for killing and the different ways of fighting. I ended up absorbed in pornographic films that I found in the drawer of my aunt’s dresser. An apparently moral woman. How could I find pornography in her drawer? There is seemingly no limit to people’s falseness. They put on a mask so that they are not exposed.

      I filled my head with rubbish. It was what the world offered me at the time and I took full advantage. And I took in everything I looked at, everything I heard, everything I could cram into my brain. If you ask me today, I admit that it was the worst way to learn. Perhaps I should have pored over books but what do texts matter to a little boy? I wouldn’t even have understood the links between several meaningless chapters because I didn’t have the education