la trompa de dios

Hiding between the red-blue plants that smell of toothpaste. She sees the  monkeys swinging like hairy little beans. The paper like sound of green parrots (not that red parrots sound different, but she knows those parrots are green), the smell of poop from something that could be a camel a hippo or a horse. A hidden jungle in the middle of Buenos Aires. A city zoo.  As the sun goes down the dogs start barking and after a while all the birds have joined in. The zoo is closed and the sky is orange and when the red has come all the animals are screaming.  The black monkeys scream, and there is a crane that sounds like its dying. After the big noise only the crickets sing, everyone sleeps.

She stays hidden. But hearing the animals from the zoo and their dramatic noises makes her think that all the noise has something of a stupid macho. How they make such a big theatre and then after a few seconds they fall down sleeping like peaceful idiot babies. This noise is an extrapolation of other noisy macho orchestras. Failures of fleshy towers collapsing, sometimes without excuses, followed by long sleeps. Orchestras touring with different players,  different beds, different backgrounds, a bar or a zoo is all the same. All those big catastrophic failures make her think of Gustavo, but tonight nobody should be thinking of him. 

She goes back and looks at the cage of the elephants, she looks at those old eyes, full of wisdom,  that are looking and searching, always searching. Those elephants have been searching all of their lives. And even though those elephants have been trapped in that tiny zoo jail, she knows that those eyes have been searching, looking for the same thing she ways looking for. 

The life of those elephants and her have been pulling towards each other. To fix something that it should have been.

To fix  football,  finally fix it. Many people do not know it but Carla understands it well. Football should be played with elephants, with humans and elephants. For Carla it is obvious, she has always loved Football, but there was always something awkward about it, something wrong at plain sight. 

It would be so beautiful, football with elephants,  imagine the players jumping like little frogs on a pond in a field full with elephants. The elephants would create gray islands in the field, that will join,  connect  and separate, like the continents from Pangea.  And the players will play on top of those islands. And so in the middle of the game, suddenly a player would be trapped in their own personal elephant archipelago and they would be forced to pass the ball.

In the way that Carla understood the game, elephants would not have a team they would just walk through the field, moving to where their hearts told them to go. For the humans the rules would be exactly the same with one exception , football will have to be played on top of elephants. 

Elephants would fix so many things!  imagine how ridiculous trying to bribe an elephant would be, and all those millions of euros that go to overrated players would go to the elephants, to take care of the elephants and make them happy. Hooliganism would be gone, there is no way you would mosh someone with sticks if you have an elephant watching you with those eyes of tired grandma. 

But above all Football needed elephants to make it more beautiful, just imagine a goal, the glory of it, but then with elephants in the background. Just for that it was worth it. Just for that Carla hide herself inside the zoo. And was ready to free the elephants and take them to the Boca Juniors stadium, to meet their destiny. 

 There were risks, the elephants would create some damages on their way to the field.  But Carla knew that all the judges in the district were fans of Boca Juniors and they would understand. Specially since the club was playing how it was playing. She was doing it for football and for Maradona. To finish what Maradona had tried to create. Because Maradona could only reach with the top of his hand what was meant to be created with an elephant trunk. 

It was passion, passion for football, and only the people that have it could understand it. What did it mattered that she chose to take the elephants through a specific route? what did it mattered that that route took the elephants exactly in front of her ex-boyfriend's  Gustavo house, the same Gustavo that cheated on her with that girl from work and the same Gustavo that had a brand new car, just parked outside his house without any insurance?  

 In the end the elephants go where they want, and if the ball comes to you there is nothing more than close your fists and kick it hard with all your heart. 

############ 

atrapado en el perro / Im Hund gefangen

Religions come and go and when the roman god Mithras lost all of his followers to Christianity he stood in silence in his orange palace in Zerzevan, like a lonely tower. He had passed from God to an antique heresy, all without noticing. Looking at his now empty square gardens, Mithras contemplated his irrelevancy with no more company than the plip plip plop of the water falling from the marble fountains. There was nobody to have the sacred dinner with anymore, so Mithras said to himself that he would stand like a statue and wait for new followers to wake up from the sleep of the salty earth. 

But he could not wait for long because only after a few minutes an agent was in front of him pointing at a bunch of forms. "Your property has been embargoed due to your failure to pay the complete amount of your debts within the time notice". The agent explained  "You are legally obliged to leave the premises of your former palace" How could this be? said Mithras. "Listen, I understand your position, but I do not make the rules, in 3 hours this place should be empty and I do not want to see you wandering around or I call the police, capici? Do not make it awkward for the both of us" said the agent.

Mithras was at his lowest. Like a licked candy on the floor. Only dirt got stuck to him.  He had no money, and no future. His former followers provided him with everything before. But they were gone. Their faith in Mithras burned with the wind and only good christians remained. He was defeated and alone. A sad Mithras rode his white bull to the closest kiosk where he would look for work in the pages of a wet newspaper. 

With no education or former work experience, Mithras ended up homeless. There are no gods among the homeless and on the third night of sleeping outside, the sky welcomed Mithras to the vagabond life with heavy rain. A forgotten god is a sad sight, but a wet forgotten god is worse that sad, it is pathetic. Only the glassy eyes of his loyal white bull kept Mithras's spirit up. The rain increased. But no shelter would take him or his bull.

Hidden in the dirt. A bit of hope appeared. Mithras saw a dog sleeping in a corner. Maybe he could get inside the dog's mind and live there for a while. A big fury hotel just for him and his bull he thought, he could use the time inside the dog to think about his next steps. With this goal in mind, Mithras focused all that remained from his godly powers on a single intention. Make a door into the dog's mind.

It is not easy getting inside a dog's mind.  Mithras and his bull squeezed themselves between the thick wall of hairs. They travelled between dimensions unknown to us. They broke the dog walls. But they paid an entry ticket. Mithras and his bull stank of wet dog. That alchemist's mixture of old sock and animal made of cheese that only a wet dog can create. A disgusting smell but still makes one smile. 

Mithras opened his eyes. A wide valley with rivers laid beneath. It was the dog's mind.
-Who are you?- Said a thunder voice coming from the sky.
- Why are you here? - said the voice, angrier
-I am an angel... - answered Mithras freaking out.
- I am an angel and god sent me and my bull to keep you company. 
- Ohh , that is nice.. you can stay and talk with my friend then...  he is not called Mithras, my friend is called Simko, Simko Henker - said the dog voice without noticing Mithras lies. 

A yellow dog appeared next to Mithras. It was the same dog that spoke from the sky before. The yellow dog was just a body for the dog's consciousness. A costume to wear inside his own dreams. 

Before Mithras could talk with the yellow dog, a new voice appeared from inside the dog...  Help Help... Mithras looked for the voice and when he came closer to the source, he saw a man..  a man trapped inside a dog. The voice that talked came from a deep place.. like many layers of cardboard, but instead of cardboard, the man was trapped inside layers of dog dreams, dog dreams inside a sleeping dog, and inside the sleeping dog there was that man, a man trapped inside a dog.

How does a man ended up being trapped inside a dog? Mithras thought, and the voice answered immediately like it was reading his mind..

 "How did I ended up caged here? Well normal men are not trapped inside dogs, only me. I am not a normal man though.  I am not born out of a woman. I was dreamed by this dog. I did not exist but then one day this dog dreamed me and I was here. I was born old how I am today, knowing already things. I just woke up like this."

Mithras and his bull listened to the man the dog called Simko further..  the yellow dog didn't talk anymore though, but it waved its tail harder when it saw the man coming. 

"Even though I came to this world in a strange way, I am a normal man in everything else, the dog dreamed me as a man, a normal man, a man like all other men. I have the body of a normal man, the thinking of a normal man, and the dreams, fears, and passions of all normal men."

The man told Mithras to follow him. The man ran away, moving across the body of the dog.. from the dog's tail to the dog's ears, up and down he goes, but always inside the dog.

The man stopped.

"I am only miserable because I can only exist inside this stupid dog's mind" said the man  "Only when the dog dreams can I exist, when the dog is awake I disappear into a void. It is like sleeping without dreaming. I have only the dreams of a dog to live my life, and when I live I am not even free, i am trapped inside whatever the dog is dreaming."

"If the dog dreams we are in the kitchen, then I am with him in the kitchen. If the dog dreams I am giving him a walk inside a forest then it's just him and me in a sea of trees. If the dog dreams of trips to the beach we are on the beach.  It does not matter what the dog dreams it is always just him or some other dogs, I am always alone, I am fed up with only existing inside this dog. I need to escape. I need to get away.  I am so lonely". 

Mithras nodded pretending he was listening carefully. He felt bad for the man but he did not want to make the dog angry. He liked living inside the dog and not being outside in the rain. If the dog kicked Mithras out, that was it, no coming back inside. So Mithras tried to ignore the man. But the man continued to talk bullshit, and cry and complain, and to tell Mithras, hey man you gotta  get out of here, i need to escape, etc.

The man made the same speech twice, and then three, or four times, crying and screaming more every time. 

At this point,  Mithras was fed up.  The man could rot in the dog as far as Mithras was concerned, But it was smarter to help him out, even if the dog got angry. Mithras needed to get rid of the man. So Mithras stood up and decided to fly and push Simko outside of the dog. Mithras approached the man and tried lifting him up. But the arms of Mithras could not hold the man. The arms went through him.  It was all empty space butter. He could not touch the man. The man was a thin spiderweb made of air, floating inside the dog.

The man noticed Mithras's arms passing through his body. He became first frozen cold, but he quickly panicked. His heart knew help was not possible anymore, but he screamed. "Get me out, get me out!, Get me OUT, OUT, OUT! " the man screamed and cried. 

- Do not cry.. Simko - said Mithras remembering the man's name - it will be ok..

- NO... NO.. , Do you even know how little dogs live compared to humans? I have no idea when this dog dreamed me!  if he was a puppy then I could have something like 7 years left to live, but I am sure it is even less..  I will die, I will die, I do not know when but I will die.  It will be too soon and I do not want to die inside this dog. I have much more to give.  Take me out of this dog! I want to go out! I want to go out NOW!"

Mithras did not know how to take the man out of the dog, he tried to reason with him, but the man was too angry to listen.  "Go to hell Mithras, and go fuck this dog with you"

Thinking back on how he was supposed to be an angel, Mithras remained calm and tried to give some wise advice.

"I know you are angry at this dog... " said Mithras, " but it is not too bad in here, it is dry, we have food ... perhaps you should be a bit grateful, at least this dog has dreamed you aware of the situation you are in. You understand what is happening and what your condition means. Even though you are trapped inside the dog you can see reality how it is. You are also free to do anything inside this dog. And you are not alone, you are with me.  Imagine not knowing where you were. Imagine living a fake life, not knowing that you are inside a dog, talking with people that are not real but just mannequins created by the dog to entertain you. Imagine picking up a book and reading about a man trapped inside a dog and not knowing that it is not the man in the story that is trapped but you! that would be much worse!

But you are here, you know where you are and you know your situation, you are free to do what you want inside this reality, maybe there is a reason for you to be inside this dog, maybe..."

"No no, you are wrong! you want me to stay here forever, you are a moron and a liar Mithras and If you will not take me out of this dog I do not want to talk to you anymore, I hope you and your bull die"

The man became a red-faced man. He grabbed a big stick from the ground and thought <I could hit that bastard Mithras with this>. But the size of Mithras's bull made him feel like a coward again, so he focused his rage on the yellow dog. <Eat my dick, fucking dog, I will kill you, I do not care if it kills me>. The yellow dog was too fast, so the man started to hit the ground with the stick, hoping it could somehow hurt the dog. Mithras did not stay to see what happened next, He took his bull and left. 

Outside in the rain, Mithras did not look back at the dog sleeping. The dog laid in a pile of old newspapers and slept like nothing had happened. Mithras did not see the dog again. But he picked up one of the newspapers from the dog's empty bed a few days later.While looking for  jobs,  Mithras read a small sentence on the backside of the newspaper: "In Bremen, Simko Henker's body has been found lifeless near the edge of the forest. A fall from a tree has been determined as the cause of death."  

Mithras looked at his bull. Things were still clicking but the rest of the story was easy to put together. A yellow dog dreams of his death master every night. The memory of the master is angry at the dog. The dead  man does not understand why he is trapped inside a dog. But the dog understands that the master is dead and the master can only live inside the dog as a memory. The dog does not care if the master gets angry, he is just happy to see him. The master abuses the dog, curses him. But the dog does not care. He just misses his master a lot and wants to keep him alive. So the dog dreams of him every night. 

Mithras felt like a piece of shit. He was ashamed of lying to the dog. And ashamed of being of being just a crappy fake god. He knew he could not do what dog did to his master. No to anyone. not to his bull, not to his followers and not even himself. He told the dog he was an angel. What are angels and gods when there are things like dogs in the world?  We are nothing against the holiness of dogs. 

Mithras sighted and opened a a new page from the wet newspaper. Maybe this time he would find a job... perhaps in a big tech company or in a fancy french restaurant, a french restaurant with fancy tiny dishes served in tiny little plates, and prices that are the opposite of tiny. A place where you are busy dreaming about making more money, instead of being here, just dreaming about dogs that dream of men that dream about dogs.

####

Outside in the rain, Mithras looked at the dog sleeping. The dog had made a bed from all the wet newspapers. In one of the pages, a little black advertising caught his eye. He came closer and read. "It is with great sadness that family and friends notify of the unfortunate passing of Simko Henker".

Mithras looked at his bull, and just as things started to click inside his brain, his bull talked. It was the first time Mithras bull talked back at Mithras. The bull spoke with his deep sweet voice:

"The man inside the dog can only live as a memory inside the dog. dog understands that his master is dead though. The dog dreams about the man every night though because he wants that his master to keep on living. He does not care how angry the man gets. Even if he is angry he is happy to see him. I do not think I would do the same for you.."

Mithras wanted to say something to his bull, but he did not know what to say, he looked at the newspaper again, two months had passed since Simko's death. He felt ashamed.. ashamed of having pretended to be an angel...  What are angels and gods when there are things like dogs in the world?  We are nothing against the holiness of dogs Mithras thought. Mithras sighted and opened a different page of the wet newspaper, maybe this time he would find a job... perhaps in a big tech company or in a fancy french restaurant, a french restaurant with fancy tiny dishes in tiny little plates, and prices that are the opposite of tiny. A place where you are busy dreaming about making more money, instead of being here, just dreaming about dogs that dream of men that dream about dogs.

De Spookschilder

 The ghosts do not come from the death, they come from the mind. They squeeze each other out from our heads, green and transparent through invisible crystal tubes. I know this because I am a ghost maker. I go through the city and I invent ghosts, I plant them in the head of the people and watch them grow. It is very easy to make a ghost.  You just need to have a story and a target and have the patience to let that story grow into a ghost.  

The story does not have to be big,  it does not have to be clear either. The other day I felt a story beating in my mind so I went to a big furniture shop in the center Utrecht. Inside the shop, laying in a bed,  I just left a little paper that read "This bed is NOT possessed by the demonic spirit of a Scottish pirate" and just like that a little ghost seed was planted.  It did not matter that I wrote there was no ghost. People can't stop themselves, the paranoia takes over them and after a while, I can watch a bunch of fresh Scottish ghosts dropping into the streets like bananas from a banana ghost tree. 

I could have chosen a different profession, but this was the profession of my father, and like my father I do it. The pay is not bad and like my work. Since I am single, the ghosts keep me company. 

Today more than any other time. People need hope. People are sad, with news that are always bad, always people disappearing, always people dying. That is why people need ghosts. Ghosts help draw the shadow of meaning. My dad said that to me. He said ghosts are good,  they help people believe there is something else than the chaos of the here and now. My father said ghosts give reality a shape, a shape that makes sense for people. Without that meaning there is nothing. If there is nothing then there is no reason to do anything, no reason to wake up at 4 am and work on your bakery job where you do bakery things. If there is no bakery there are no sweet warm croissants. And if there are no warm croissants, then there is nothing for me to eat. I love warm sweet croissants.

I do not know who pays for me to go and fill the streets with fluorescent spirits. The envelopes with money always arrive on time so I do not complain. I have enough money to sit in a cafe the whole afternoon. I just sit and watch my green ghostly balloons fly through the streets. 

 Sometimes I create ghost games just to pass the time. People are just like prisms where to point light to, so I just play with my prisms and see which colored ghosts come out of them.  

A game I like to play is to create a ghost description like: "the spirit of a cowboy, wearing a sombrero, and in top of that sombrero the ghost wears a smaller sombrero and in that smaller sombrero he wears an even smaller sombrero, and in top of that tiny sombrero he wears a very little toy sombrero, and each sombrero has a smaller sombrero and so on until infinity".  So many cowboy ghosts I make.  They go walking with their big sombrero towers. But people can't visualize sombreros until infinity. And that is the whole point. I just like to count how many sombreros a  person can imagine. Sometimes the ghost has 8, sometimes 6, if they are stupid 4 but sometimes I get a lot like 20. I change my descriptions and try to get the highest score. If a person makes a ghost with a lot of hats I give them a croissant as a prize, and that means a lot to me because I love croissants a lot. 

I  do more than having fun, sometimes I also like to do research. I investigate a topic that interests me, like  What makes an eyebrow ugly? it is difficult to say... So I give a vague ghost description like the "ghost of a boy with a single ugly eyebrow" and after watching all the boy ghosts with their ugly eyebrows I can really understand what makes an eyebrow really ugly. And I feel wise because I know things that most people ignore. 

I see my favourite ghosts crawling like a big snake, wearing hats and riding people pets, getting wet with the rain. Ghosts don't go to work, they just walk through the streets until they dissolve like wet green cotton candy.

Sometimes I am walking outside eating a croissant and then I feel how a ghost is crawling through my nose. The feeling of the ghost getting inside me makes me almost want to throw up my sweet croissant. Because when the ghost is inside my nose the smell of the ghost makes me notice my own smell. And I do not like that rotten smell. It is the smell of warm beer, of mediocrity, of repeating the same cycle and making the same ghosts and the people that give me money happy.

Those feelings make me feel sad with myself, and I wonder if I could not make something different, something that is not a ghost. Maybe a red horse that can talk or a blue papaya. Maybe a world without ghosts would not be a bad world.  But I know making things different can bring big trouble. 

When I was young I saw a strange man climbing a very big tree. The man had strange clothes and a big hat with coloured ribbons. Climbing a tree was something different. I do not know why someone would climb such a big tree. I  could not ask because before I could do anything I saw the man falling from the tree. The odd man fall and died. He howled until a little pool of saliva poured into his chin.  And before he died he cried with the same voice of the wind. 

This man had a life before, but now he is a translucid ghost. A ghost in my little army of ghosts. Back when he was alive this man was a real weirdo. His favourite hobby was to walk very slowly behind people... he would stalk them for hours and when they were not looking he would come close very gently and lick inside the ear. A wet warm lick deep inside the ear hole. He is dead now. But that does not stop him. He still goes around licking people's ears. He did not stop after dying..

 
Wait for a second and feel your ear.  Do you feel a little tickle? like an invisible brush,  Can you feel the tip of his tongue? it's only a little little touch. 

pip, pip, feel your ear .... pip, pip, pip, feel the little touch in your ear ....

I see the ghost following you home after you read this. He will follow you home and never leave. He will stay with you.  He will lick your ear when you are not looking. There is no priest that can scare him. No matter how hard you scream he will not leave. The ghost of that man will give little licks to your ear until the day you die and climb the walls of your toilet to watch you pee.  

Do not worry though.. there is a way. I know how to scare this bratty ghost away. Think of a fire that burns brighter than hell. Then open your fridge, take out butter and milk. Add flour, sugar, salt and yeast and prepare the dough into large rectangle shapes. Carefully, enclose the butter layer inside the dough and fold, repeat this process over and over. Once you have finished leave the freshly baked croissant outside your window at exactly 6 am. 

When the sun comes up it brings a new day with new sad stories. People that disappear. Some people that die. But in the windows the croissants  are waiting warm and crispy.