by Gabriel Canul
Oh, poor little girl. Her story was such a terribly sad case.
You will see….
The father was, well, a washed-up madman. For this he had such a lugubrious fame…
… that the ignorant minds of this neighborhood all but blamed him.
I don’t want to sound presumptuous but a man of my lineage cannot allow space for this kind of nonsense.
He was a pathetic alcoholic, that you see sir, had banished his wife from his side.
As if the mother would be worth only a little or even nothing. She abandoned her little daughter with that bastard of a father.
Ha, ha, ha. Even though swine did end up paying a heavy price…
They say that the daughter hardened and found a way to defend herself against her father.
Not of course that I would contribute to this superstitious verbal diarrhea of the riffraff. As you know sir, I do not spread irresponsible hot air, even a few days before any of this happened, I saw the wretch walking by with a very terrible wound on his left arm. My head played with the idea that it could have been a bite.
Even though now, I reason that this kid could not possibly concur with this idea, in size nor strength.
Some type of gangrene had gotten hold of this fellow because the wound had festered and hurt him like the devil. Of course, it has to be said that he wasn’t known to be especially neat and tidy.
Who would have said however that this nobody of a man would have such a terrible end?
They say that the little sweet girl, defenseless and all, could not escape the evilness of her father and remained nothing more than a pestilent stain beneath the bed.
It was inexplicable the manner in which they found this man’s bed.
A huge fit or rage had led the poor creature to undergo a mighty change.
This must explain what happened.
They say that she was laughing
The smile on her face…
And her words…
I leave them behind, I have left them!
Surely they talked, the other remaining mortals, of her father.
And yes, all of this seems implausible, yet wait until you hear the tale that this leprous pleb has invented.
Only as a sign of my respect, well, all that it merits without taking into account its insignificance, I was able to attend the funeral parlor to see what remained of the heartless swine and this is how I was able to hear the end of the story.
They say that the little girl with the sweet appearance…
…hid within her the unknown capacity, like the circus freaks that can bend spoons with their eyes…
…or move crystal vases from one place to another with a certain gesture.
And with these cunning tricks she could escape the plague that was her father.
And with that which she had obtained, she conjured certain enigmatic powers.
I am going to confess to you that there has been nights of insomnia when I have heard things…
Guttural noises and rhythmic moans which undoubtedly were made by the girl.
Finally, we hope that with the disappearance of that pariah and the absence of the unfortunate girl…
…this neighborhood has won something akin to peace, to say the least. And now I must leave because, how it is to wait…
… in a ruined old place like this one…
… which has been built with the most rotten and decayed materials and now…
I see the denigrating necessity of renovating my elegant bedroom.
It will be better to start work in good time…
Before the darkness…
invades all.
Now I must bid you farewell…
I hope to have the pleasure of another talk with you tomorrow.
A special thank you goes to both Axel Flores for entering the Spanish text into the images and to Jack Little for providing the translation.
Born and raised in Mérida Yucatán, Mexico, Gabriel Canul Olivares is a natural artist. Painter, draftsman, and self-taught writer, his foray into comics was inevitable.
His love of comics began when he was very young.
His desire, was not only to read them, but to create them – which he does with “Comunidad de Dibujantes del Sureste”, a group of independent artists, where he is a drawing instructor, and one of the leaders.
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