#its name is las manos

[genomesoldier]

Big fan of PNGs from hell

anyways go play Project Somnia

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

QUARTERFINALS MATCH TWO

"Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands)" (created in several waves between 7,300 BCE and 700 CE) / "NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt" (1985-present)

CUEVA DE LAS MANOS: its so basically human. the hunting and animal scenes are strangers to the every day life of many people, but this hasnt changed. this art makes me want to put my hand outline next to theirs and become part of it. (anonymous)

NAMES PROJECT AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT: fucks me up bc so many people died and so many people suffered and their partners didn’t have legal rights as next of kin and so many had been disowned by their parents and had to be held by a stranger while they were dying and if i could resurrect anyone in the world i’d dig up either reagan or thatcher and kill them again (jaskierx)

("Cueva de las Manos" (Cave of Hands) is located in Santa Cruz, Argentina and consists of outlines of hands, as well as some depictions of animals and hunting scenes created using various mineral pigments and gypsum on rock. The paintings cover about 60 m × 200 m (200 ft × 650 ft) of the cave.

The "NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt" is an ongoing community art project honoring people who passed away due to AIDS-related causes. It consists of approximately 50,000 panels of 3 by 6 feet (0.91 m × 1.83 m) panels, which is an estimated 54 tons of material. It is currently housed in San Francisco, but is often displayed in various places in the United States.)

[demonfox38]

Completed - Vampire Survivors (Base + Ode to Castlevania DLC)

This game makes my brain scream at me.

Like, okay. I'm an average office worker. If I'm not in a meeting, I've got something from YouTube running in the background. Music playlists, video essays, whatever. So, in agreement, in disagreement, whatever—the terms "hauntology" and "dopamine addiction" are consistently in my short-term memory thanks to the video essay portions. The rot of culture by failure to let new ideas bloom, clinging to nostalgia and old symbols. Taxing and abusing neurotransmitters in search of instant happiness. Fun, happy things to ponder while I try to burn these hours of my life away.

Do I think either are threats? Well, unchecked nostalgia, definitely—especially when it's faux 1950s Americana influencing law to restrict the rights of others. Dopamine addiction is a bit more of a mixed bag. Like, you've got to create habits of maintenance, absolutely. Cooking, cleaning, exercise, grooming, so on. But, if you're clever, you can figure out how to use your reward system to help support these habits. Starving it or trying to obliterate it won't help, especially if it causes rebound issues. It's just…ya know. Gaining an appreciation for slower processes over instant gratification and deriving lessons from the struggles of life over bodily abuse and obliteration.

I bring these topics up because I got both "Vampire Survivors" and its "Ode to Castlevania" DLC for the cost of a goddamn cheeseburger. This pixel-exploding throwback of a game lasted me for over 100 hours. Drug dealers and fast-food restaurants would wither and die at such a nexus of cost and effectivity.

Some killjoy could do real numbers discussing hauntology and dopamine addition as the subjects apply to this game.

Should I have gotten into "Vampire Survivors" sooner? Possibly? The communal vibes I absorbed on it were nothing but praise. I don't know if I would have felt brave about trying a Rogue-like prior to playing "Baroque," but I do enjoy a good ol' fashioned bullet hell / shooter, from time to time. It might be lame that it literally took the announcement of a "Castlevania" DLC for me to give this game a try, but hey. This DLC did better about pulling me in than "Dead by Daylight" or "Dead Cells" did under similar circumstances.

What's "Vampire Survivors" about? When I figure that out, I'll get back to you. Most of the narrative I'm picking up is derived from a mix of stage names, enemy bestiary entries, and the surnames of the characters I unlock. Generally speaking, it's about Belpaese and Ladonna kin coming together to endure waves of monsters until the cold, clammy fingers of death come for them. And then, finding a way to break past their power. The powers behind them. The limitations of space and time. Research gone horribly wrong, time and time again. Creepy things hidden at the bottom of towers. Fallen civilizations. Corrupted religious sects. Milk-based magic. Ya know. Wholesome stuff!

In another world—with another particular video game company and their infamously litigious team of lawyers—"Vampire Survivors" may not have made it past its first year. It's not hard to see what game series may have inspired the creation of its lead whip-wielding fighter of the undead. Arca Ladonna may be even more egregious in the video game celebrity look-alike competition. (Don't even get me started on those Blue Venus creatures!) But, the aesthetic inspiration certainly doesn't stop at Konami properties! "Bayonetta", "Batman", "Okami", "Sonic the Hedgehog", "Mortal Kombat"—there's gonna be at least one situation you'll have where you end up snorting with laughter with how close to the copyright line this game rides.

Also, "Vampire Survivors" is the most Italian video game I've ever played. Like, yes, tee-hee on "La Borra" and "Testa di Mano" enemies. Nothing is as fucking authentically Italian as naming a character after Cristina D'Avena. Like, goddamn. How do you top that? Make a stage based on the set design for Dario Argento's "Suspiria" and "Inferno" films? Have playable knockoffs of "Lupin the Third" characters? How about an entire race of sentient ducks running parallel to human society? Call their main hero Duckabolik or something. Goddamn.

Although, there were those ducks in space…

So, I put an RPG's worth of hours into the game without getting much in the way of plot. Obviously, something else is keeping me around. How about that core gameplay loop? It starts simple enough. Move your dude up, down, left, and/or right as needed. Hit enemies with attacks. Pick up gems. Level up. Repeat until you die or you hit 30:00, at which point the game sends a Reaper after you to finish you off for good. Run the game again, continue grinding up weapons, unlock more people and levels, etcetera. So goes this song in a round.

You determine your own progress with this game through the Achievements screen. Look at what items remain, make your next goal, and finish off what you can in your next game. Progress will remove some tasks from this list, but it may add others as more opportunities unfold. Empty out your Achievements? Well, guess what? You'll get an extra round of tasks in a brand-new Secrets screen as well! Clearing that may not get you bonus trophies in Steam, but it may get you some additional levels and characters, too. Ditto the Adventures mode too, while you are at it!

Actually, the Adventures mode is pretty strange, if you don't have other DLC for this game. It's really only two stories? Weird. Seems underutilized. Kind of strange that Konami didn't pitch something for this mode, too…

If you're looking for a general overview of tasks to complete, this may help:

Get through the first five game maps, performing well enough to unlock their Hyper Mode options.

Trigger and kill the special boss in Moongolow.

Pick up the Yellow Sign and use that to start killing Reapers.

Kill the special boss that now spawns in Capella Magna.

Gather all base relics (including defeating the damned Sketamari.)

Harass the final boss for two more relics.

Fight the final boss.

It helps to experiment with different weapons and passive items. Leveling up different weapons unlock different characters, so that makes it an easy sell. Using the correct combination of passive items with weapons may also augment the weapon, giving it different (usually better) properties. Getting proficient with different characters may also unlock Arcana cards, which can grant your character with random bonuses while in a battle. Long story short—don't go stale, and neither will the game.

Also, "Castlevania" fans: go look at the names for those Arcana cards. Come back when you've face-palmed.

Most of the game's complexity comes from making your randomly-assigned resources count. The enemies are simplistic, just ambling towards you. The pressure comes more from managing distance from them and your own powers as the enemy's strength grows over time. (Honestly, the biggest difficulty spike may just come from not getting a Garlic weapon, of all things.) Sketamari is the most complicated creature I had to deal with, and that was more building a viable weapon stack in a short amount of time and preventing any interlopers from building it up than anything else. Everything else is…well. Dodge the shit and don't get touched. Video Game Rules 101.

While aesthetically simple, the game is a glory when it comes to CPU resource management. Lesser machines could not handle the glut of objects and particles being rendered on screen, particularly in later parts of a level. I suppose a creature doesn't need more than three frames of animation when a hundred or so of them are being rendered on screen at once. It's amazing this game is as stable as it is, for all of what it is doing. I've had it chug once, sure. Even had it lock up my computer, one time (although one of my poodles was a contributor to that mess.) But, man. Whatever is going on with managing the location, health, and appearance of all on-screen objects is nothing short of technomancy.

The music is also pretty solid, too. Loops well; doesn't get distracting. Honestly, it sometimes gets crushed by the sound effects, but you can adjust the audio and music tracks to balance it out. I appreciate the soundtrack not being above having a joke or too, as well. (Remember: this is an exceedingly Italian game.)

With this game, you need to pace yourself. If you get every run perfect, you'll be spending somewhere between 15-30 minutes in intense play. (Assume you'll be more on the longer end than shorter.) The circular motions you'll be making can be taxing on your thumbs. Make sure to get up, stretch, and rest your eyes and hands every hour. Your body will appreciate it.

Also, seriously. Take the game's flashing warning to heart. You can adjust some settings to ease up on what is being rendered, but the game is designed to burn like a comet. There's gonna be tons of debris shearing off it, and you do not want that scalding your eyeballs.

For those of you hopping in via House Dracula, the DLC "Ode to Castlevania" provides an additional map, as well as…well, the marketing says 40+ weapons and 20+ new characters, but let me tell you. That plus sign is hiding a lot. Like, 90+ pieces of music, 25 bosses, and several dozen new enemies. Damn.

Much like the base game, you're not gonna get much more in the way of plot. It's mostly pushing as far as you can in a single go, punishing bosses as you gather the strength to tackle them and unlocking your Belmont, Belnades, or buddy of choice. However, there is a fun little treat at the map's end regarding the English opening cutscene of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" and Death being a goddamn nightmare. Like, damn, dude. I know the breakup of a bromance that lasted a millennium was rough on you, but this is not the best way to react.

Because of the map's ungodly size and number of tasks to tackle, you'd be better off making good headway into the main game before tackling this. At the very least, it will help you to get that time limit lifted with an Endless mode unlock. (You can also eventually invert the castle, if you're into that.)

The loop here is more like:

Unlock Belmonts (generally, in order of timeline, with a few exceptions.)

Use Belmonts to unlock ally characters, beat bosses, and unlock parts of the map.

Push forward until you finally get Richter.

Use Richter to fight Death.

Max out your new wave of characters.

Fight new bosses.

Find the Pile of Secrets and Wood Carving Score.

Continue until all secrets are exhausted.

That should hold you out…Oh, I don't know. A good 50 hours or more?

I can't get over how deep this DLC digs into "Castlevania" characters and songs. Finally, in 2024—after getting booted from two other games!—we have a playable Hammer. And a playable Mina Hakuba. LMAO. I know people didn't have her on their bingo card, but damn. There are all kinds of playable characters here that I never expected to see, whether in terms of capabilities, story fates, or just coming out of the wrong division of Konami Computer Entertainment. I don't know who wanted a playable Vincent, but uh…there you go. Congrats to you.

I mean, what? Am I supposed to be a shithead and ask for the merchant from "Harmony of Dissonance" or someone from Wygol Village? Fucking 80 goddamn characters, and two are the final Sorrow cast members that I was missing. And fucking Quincy Morris of all goddamn people, now that the copyright for Stoker's "Dracula" has gone to hell. Screw it. I'm take the W and leaving on this one.

With the way Quincy looks in this game, doesn't he look a bit like the North American cover of "Castlevania Bloodlines"? It's making me question some things about that box art…

The DLC takes a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to cast powers. Like, you're not gonna get soul or power absorption with Shanoa or Soma, but you are going to get unique boosts for each cast member. Every Belmont gets a unique way to use their whip, so that's neat! A great way to prevent stagnation, for sure. And, hey. Don't like the default weapon your character starts with? You can switch that out eventually, too. Just gotta prove your competence. Meet some achievements. Do the "Vampire Survivors" grind.

Most of the "Castlevania" remixes are pretty solid as well. Just take a YouTube playlist already. Enjoy. (I was particularly tickled by "Wood Carving Partita" and "The Sinking Old Sanctuary," for what that is worth.)

Now, the songs aren't exactly paired with the characters you may expect. Like, Christopher Belmont gets "Beginning", which then throws "Trevor" into "Aquarius", throwing Sypha and Yoko off, and so on. If you get the Magic Banger relic, it's no big deal to correct. It's just funny how preconceptions can make cool music otherwise seem off.

There was one major part that actively pissed me off with this DLC, and it was unlocking Camilla. The flavor text on her unlock secret implies that a Belmont needs to kill her off (either Leon, Simon, or Sonia, whomever you consider the "first" Belmont to be.) The actual method of unlocking her is hitting her with a Nightmare spell. Like…okay? I'm hoping that'll be patched out later, but man. Wasting hours on that only to find out I was being misled was annoying.

I can't say the sweat needed to unlock Brauner was worth it as well. He isn't as immediately frustrating, but he takes way more time than seems necessary. Just go toss the Blood Astronomia and some compatible weapons on Dracula, get him up to the gallery, level him to a stable point, and park him for a couple of hours.

As shit tier as 2024 has been personally, I can't help but be comforted with the "Castlevania" game releases this year. The "Dominus Collection", the "Dead by Daylight" DLC, and the cherry on top, this. I shouldn't have needed such an incentive to play "Vampire Survivors," but I was more than happy to go hog-wild on this game and its DLC. God bless the development team for this game. They may have developed the digital version of a stimulant drug that makes my hands and brain scream, but I can only hope the best for them.

Good people put their fan translators in their credits, man. And poncle's staff…them's good people, that's what.

The base "Vampire Survivors" is currently available for $4.99 USD on Steam, although that price tends to frequently dip down a dollar for seasonal sales. "Ode to Castlevania" tacks on another $3.99 USD. There are additional levels of DLC and expansions past that point, if you want more. I'm not certain if you'll find more vampires to survive, necessarily, but at least you've got, like, actual vampires to survive now. Which, apparently, is a whole ass meme I didn't know about before!

What's the official count on that now, anyway? You don't fight Dracula, so I don't think you can count him. But, there's Walter, Joachim, Carmilla, Orlox, a Jiang Chi, Stella & Loretta…actually, do you count them? I mean, I know the Sanctuary spell works on them, so I'd say yes, but…Or, wait. Shit. Does "Vampire Survivors" mean the vampires you survive, or the vampires that are also surviving alongside you? Maybe I didn't think this through…

Man, counting vampires shouldn't be as hard as surviving them. Ah ah ah!

[annaflorsdefum]

ES|| Esta soy yo y mi gato imaginario.☀️ Para los que no me conozcáis: Me llamo Anna Valpuesta Farré y soy ilustradora infantil. Nací y vivo en Barcelona y me apasiona crear personajes adorables que solo con mirarlos me saquen una sonrisa. En mis tiempos libres soy una voraz devoradora de libros y siempre llevo una taza o termo de infusión de hierbas en la mano (fresquita en verano y calentita en invierno). Me encanta la naturaleza y los animales, siempre voy mirando los pájaros, las flores y plantas, las abejas y cualquier animalillo que me pase por delante… Me fascina descubrir animales que no sabía que existían en el mundo y tengo una llista mental de animales que sería un sueño ver en directo en su hábitat natural. Por este motivo siempre aparece naturaleza en mis ilustraciones. Ahh! Y me gusta hacer fotos, pero no que me las hagan y creo que esta es la primera vez que hago un autorretrato!! 🌻🐝

EN|| This is me and my imaginary cat.☀️ For those of you who don't know me: My name is Anna Valpuesta Farré and I’m a children's illustrator. I'm from Barcelona and I’m passionate about creating adorable characters that just by looking at them make you smile. In my free time I’m a voracious devourer of books and I always carry a cup or a thermos of herbal tea in my hand (cool in the summer and warm in the winter). I absolutely love nature and animals, I’m always looking at birds, flowers and plants, bees and any little animal that passes by... It fascinates me to discover animals that I didn’t know existed in the world and I have a mental list of animals that It would be a dream come true to see live in its natural habitat. For this reason, nature is always present in my illustrations. Ahh! And I like taking photos, but not being in them. I think this is the first time I've made a self-portrait!! 🌻🐝

[allergictocolor]

Character Profile - Thing T. Thing

"The Thing is often observed watching the family through the balustrades of the balcony over the living room. We don't know quite who or what he is, but, whatever, he's the soul of good nature - at least, he grins perpetually and may occasionally whimper." - Chas Addams

You may have noticed a weird little guy peeking at the family from odd places in some of the comics I’ve already posted in previous character profiles. It’s okay if you didn’t see him. He’s easy to miss. In case you missed him, I’ve circled him below:

That‘s the original Thing. Charles Addams created him as a silent observer of the family. He’s never fully visible, just poking out from the bars of the balcony or a closet, or mostly buried in the snow. He serves no purpose. He isn’t a butler like Lurch, or a helping hand like Thing was on TV. There’s one comic with a sign posted in front of the mansion reading “Beware of the Thing”, which may refer to him or may just be another silly thought Charles Addams had. Nevertheless, it was used in the 1960s sitcom.

There was a comic with some helping hands switching records while the family relaxed at home. This was probably the inspiration for the hand in a box that was Thing in the sitcom. He was in a dark, plain box in the pilot (and therefore the opening credits) and a more ornate box later on, as shown below.

It wasn’t initially made clear whether there was more to Thing than what the audience could see, perhaps in some metaphysical sense. We could see an arm as far as the elbow at times, but no more than that, and never a second arm. He almost always emerged from a box, but not always the same box. He could travel between boxes in all rooms of the house and out to the mailbox. He even came out of a safe, from behind curtains, and other odd places.

Thing’s full name is Thing Thing Thing, stated by Morticia in an episode of the sitcom. According to his Wikipedia page, he’s called "Mãozinha" (Little Hand) in Brazil, "Cosa" (Thing) in Spain, "Dedos" (Fingers) in Hispanic America, "Mano" (Hand) in Italy, "La Chose" (The Thing) in French speaking countries, "Eiskaltes Händchen" (Ice Cold Hand) in German, and "Rączka" (Small Hand) in Polish. My husband likes to say that his full English name is “Thing Tentertainment Thing”. I’m not sure if people younger than 30 will get that reference. Is Chuck E. Cheese still traumatizing America’s youth?

In the 60s, Thing was played by Ted Cassidy, who also played Lurch. I don’t know if they did this because he was 6’9” tall and that made his arms long enough to reach through the boxes. Some people have noted that his height made hiding his massive body more difficult when shooting those scenes. Then there were times when Lurch had to interact with Thing. In those cases, a crew member filled in. So presumably, anyone could have done it. But it was usually Cassidy. In the credits, it said that Thing was played by “Itself”.

No one ever explains Thing’s whole deal in the TV show, where the rest of him is, or how he does anything. He gets the mail, hands Gomez cigars and lights them, makes cocktails, helps Morticia with her knitting, and does so many other helpful things around the house. When the family goes to court, he goes along in Gomez’s briefcase. And in a flashback, there’s a portrait of his parents, a male hand and a female hand. So we can safely assume that he is just a hand. Of course, the effects in the 1960s didn’t exist to have a severed hand running around. They had to use the boxes because there was no alternative.

In the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, of course it was easy to just draw a severed hand out on its own. So once those came out, it was established that Thing is just a hand. Then in the 90s movies, the technology existed to make that become a reality in live action. In the musical, an actor pulls the curtain aside while obscuring the rest of their body, thereby “playing” Thing. Later on in the musical, Thing is a prop hand on a pillow. And if you’ve seen the behind the scenes footage from Netflix’s Wednesday, you’ve seen the amazing body work that Victor Dorobantu did, in addition to CGI, to bring Thing to life.

How does he see? How does he drive a car? There’s basically no explanation for any of that. In the 2019 3D animated film, sometimes there’s an eye on Thing’s wrist, but not all the time. In the 60s sitcom, Thing falls in love with a visiting woman’s handmaiden Lady Fingers. It’s clear to the audience that he’s taken aback by her beauty, so he can definitely see her. We’re just never told how. How he’s able to do anything is, according to 2022’s Wednesday Addams “an Addams family mystery.”

Is Thing a right hand or a left hand? It depends! Ted Cassidy almost always used his right hand, but would sometimes use his left “to see if anyone would notice.” In the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, it seems to have depended on whatever the animators felt like that day. It could change from right to left, even within the same episode. In the 90s movies, he was always a right hand. In the 3D movies, he’s a left hand. In Wednesday, he’s a right hand once more.

The most surprising thing about Thing isn’t that one severed hand can do so much; it’s that he manages to steal almost every scene he’s in. Must be that five-finger discount. I can’t wait to see him steal more scenes (and who knows what else) in season two of Wednesday some time in 2025.

[gmggmgracielasblog]

Aquel pájaro azul, es un hogar, y la paz. pero Volaba lejos, tan lejos, como si el amor no pudiera alcanzarlo, como si el miedo lo arrastrara hacia un cielo que no era el mio. El peso de su vuelo me llevó lejos, donde no hay nombre, donde no hay nada. Y después, la nada. Se va y desaparece, como si no existiera yo y como si nunca fue, como se va la luz al final del día, Y yo, quedó sola, con ese vacío en las manos, con esa ausencia que no se llena. Porque a veces, lo que más duele es lo que existe dentro del alma 🦅🌹 GMG ✍🏼❤️

That blue bird is a home and peace. But it flew away, so far away, as if love could not reach it, as if fear dragged it towards a sky that was not mine. The weight of its flight took me far away, where there is no name, where there is nothing. And then, nothingness. It goes away and disappears, as if I did not exist and as if it never was, as the light goes out at the end of the day, and I was left alone, with that emptiness in my hands, with that absence that cannot be filled. Because sometimes, what hurts the most is what exists inside the soul.🦅🌹 GMG ✍🏼❤️

ذلك الطائر الأزرق هو الوطن والسلام، لكنه طار بعيدًا، بعيدًا جدًا، وكأن الحب لا يستطيع الوصول إليه، وكأن الخوف يجره نحو سماء ليست سماءي. حملني ثقل طيرانه بعيدًا، حيث لا اسم، حيث لا يوجد شيء. ثم العدم. يرحل ويختفي، وكأنني لم أكن موجودًا وكأنه لم يكن أبدًا، كما ينطفئ النور في نهاية اليوم، وأُترك وحدي، مع ذلك الفراغ بين يدي، مع ذلك الغياب الذي لا يمكن ملؤه. لأن ما يؤلم أكثر أحيانًا هو ما يوجد داخل الروح.🦅🌹 GMG ✍🏼❤️

[esuemmanuel]

A diario se me recuerda de alguna manera lo extraño que soy para este mundo; lo diferente, lo único, lo ajeno. Cada día el universo me hace abrir los ojos con dolor y sorpresa ante la realidad de lo que es ser un ser humano; ese ente material, sujeto a la tangilibilidad y propenso a las leyes universales de la física. Me duele ¿sabes? Me duele lo que me hace ver la realidad. Me duele darme cuenta de lo raro que soy. Me duele tener el mal de la imaginación, del sentimiento, de la emoción... Me duele amar lo intangible y trabajar para traerlo al papel en la palabra escrita. Me duele tener presente que soy más que un pedazo de carne que se mueve, que piensa, que respira... ¿Que por qué me duele? ¡Porque no hay nadie como yo! ¡No hay nadie, puta madre, como yo! No hay nadie que cierre los ojos y busque ver el alma... No hay nadie que abra las manos y se entregue ciegamente a la palabra... No hay nadie que olvide su nombre, su cuerpo, su apellido, su casa para perderse en la plenitud de lo incorpóreo, en eso que sólo puede ser visto con los ojos del espíritu... ¡No, no hay nadie, carajo! Estoy solo en este mundo... He estado solo desde que nací, porque nací enfermo... Nací enfermo de luna, de aire, de éter, de sueños, de imaginación y de irrealidad. ¡Me duele! ¡Oh, me duele! Y nadie, claro que nadie, lo va a poder entender, porque no son yo... No tienen en los ojos las nubes del cielo ni en las manos las plumas de las aves... No tienen en el pecho el latido de una fuente que no deja de verterse en agua... No tienen en el plexo el fuego del mañana, de ese sol que arde buscando quemar con sus rayos la oscuridad que me castra... Me duele ser un alma que no sabe ser un cuerpo, que no sabe ser un nombre, que no entiende de necesidades físicas ni materiales... No hay día que el mundo no me lo recuerde y me haga sentir un alienígena... He querido aprender a ser humano, pero, fallo... Siempre fallo... Porque mi alma no fue hecha para este mundo y eso, carajo, duele aceptarlo.

Every day I am reminded in some way of how strange I am to this world; how different, how unique, how alien. Every day the universe makes me open my eyes with pain and surprise at the reality of what it is to be a human being; that material entity, subject to tangibility and prone to the universal laws of physics. It hurts me, you know? It hurts me what makes me see reality. It hurts me to realize how rare I am. It hurts me to have the evil of imagination, of feeling, of emotion... It hurts me to love the intangible and to work to bring it to paper in the written word. It hurts me to keep in mind that I am more than a piece of flesh that moves, that thinks, that breathes, because there is no one like me! There is no one, motherfucker, like me! There is no one who closes his eyes and looks for the soul… There is no one who opens his hands and gives himself blindly to the word… There is no one who forgets his name, his body, his surname, his home to lose himself in the fullness of the incorporeal, in that which can only be seen with the eyes of the spirit… No, there is no one, damn it! I am alone in this world… I have been alone since I was born, because I was born sick…. I was born sick of moon, of air, of ether, of dreams, of imagination and of unreality. It hurts me! Oh, it hurts me! And nobody, of course nobody, will be able to understand it, because they are not me…. They do not have in their eyes the clouds of the sky, nor in their hands the feathers of birds…. They do not have in their chest the beat of a fountain that never stops pouring water…. They do not have in the plexus the fire of tomorrow, of that sun that burns seeking to burn with its rays the darkness that castrates me…. It hurts me to be a soul that does not know how to be a body, that does not know how to be a name, that does not understand physical or material needs… There is not a day that the world does not remind me of it and makes me feel like an alien… I have wanted to learn to be human, but, I fail… I always fail… Because my soul was not made for this world and that, damn, it hurts to accept it.

[spanishskulduggery]

Most Essential Vocabulary #4

This time I’m focusing on the vocabulary that’s probably the most confusing in terms of grammatical gender: words with confusing gender, words from Greek, words that are feminine that take masculine articles etc etc etc

This could be its own post on grammar but I’m including it in essential vocabulary because these are things that a lot of people either don’t fully explain or that aren’t touched upon in great detail. But just know that this post includes some grammar info in addition to simple vocabulary lists

I decided to do it this way because these are words and concepts you’re going to need to know, and especially if you don’t have a teacher or are doing self-study, this is something you’ll come across and be VERY confused by

Basic Vocabulary / Vocabulario básico

el género = gender / genre [of media]

la gramática = grammar

la sintaxis = syntax

la concordancia

el sustantivo = noun el nombre = noun / name el pronombre = pronoun

el subjeto = subject

el objeto = object

el adjetivo = adjective

la concordancia = “gender agreement” [meaning that adjectives should “agree” with the nouns; lit. “concordance” or “agreement”]

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Some Confusing Nouns / Unos sustantivos confusos

el día = day

la mano = hand

el barco = large ship, “ship”

la barca = small boat, “boat”

el bolso = purse, handbag el bolsillo = pocket

la bolsa = plastic bag, shopping bag

la bolsa / La Bolsa = stock market / The Stock Market

el rayo = lightning bolt / ray

la raya = line, stripe

el síntoma = symptom

el modelo = model [noun] el modelo, la modelo = model [profession]

el testigo = witness / something or someone that witnesses an event, “testimony” el testigo, la testigo = a witness / witness, someone providing testimony [legal]

la víctima = victim [always feminine]

el caballero = knight / gentleman / “men”, “gentleman” [as opposed to damas which is “women”; where sometimes gendered things like clothes or bathrooms are used with hombres “men” or caballeros “gentlemen”... and women with mujeres or damas] damas y caballeros = ladies and gentlemen la caballero = lady knight

el sofá = sofa, couch

el pijama = pajamas, pyjama [often used in singular while English says “pajamas/PJs”]

el karma = karma

Words like el sofá, el pijama, and el karma are called “loanwords” [los préstamos lingüísticos, lit. “language/linguistic loans”] - where el sofá and el pijama come from the Arabic/Sanskrit and the Islamic world, while el karma is a Hindu/Buddhist term

Most loanwords come into Spanish as masculine - el clóset [instead of el armario], el kiosk/el quiosco “kiosk”, el yoga “yoga”, el quipu “quipu” [from Quechua, an Inca string with knots for counting] el origami, el vodka, el samovar, el feng shui, or el básket [instead of el baloncesto for “basketball”]. There are some that come as feminine like la katana from Japanese, but it’s a rarer case

In general, most of the time a loanword will be masculine. Feminine loanwords do exist, but it’s often more professions that change forms. The most common is el chef or la chef from French as “chef”. 

See also: el/la gurú “guru”, el/la samurái “samurai”, or el chamán, la chamana “shaman”. Many loanwords that are professions can exist in masculine or feminine and most don’t change forms but some do - like el sultán and la sultana, or el vikingo and la vikinga. 

In my experience it tends to be more related to how long the word has been present in Spanish / Pan-Hispanic consciousness, and how easily it is to adapt to traditional Spanish linguistic conventions [like “Viking” goes to vikingo and so since it ends in -o, you could end it in vikinga]

Also note that there are some expressions in Spanish that are from Latin and considered loanwords in some cases, though they’re more established in Spanish - etcétera, or viceversa, versus, or something like a posteriori “after the fact / in hindsight” are common examples but may have other translations or versions... like de facto may be de hecho [in fact/in deed]. Others are more specifically legalese just like English.

And pay special attention to loanwords that come from English - anglicismos or “anglicisms” - as they may be more regionally used in some countries than others. Spain for example tends to frown more on English being adapted into Spanish. A common example is computer technology terms; el internet is sometimes referred to as la red “net” or “network”, and while some countries may say online, others may say en línea “on line”

One example that people use a lot for this preference towards keeping Spanish Spanish is el feedback for “feedback”, which in some countries may be seen as la retroalimentación which is literally “backwards feeding”

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Gender Matters / El género importa

el radio = radius la radio = radio [from la radiotelegrafía; feminine la radio often refers to the actual device]

el frente = front la frente = forehead

el capital = money, capital / “start-up money”, resources la capital = capital (city) el capitolio = capital building, ruling government building capital = capital, crucial, significant [adj]

el cometa = comet la cometa = kite [probably from the trailing tail on a kite]

el cura = priest [often Catholic in my experience; synonymous to el sacerdote] la cura = cure la curita = (small) bandage, “band-aid”, plaster [UK]

el orden = order (of events), sequence / order (not chaos) la orden = order (command), military command

el coma = coma, comatose la coma = comma [the , symbol]

el cólera = cholera la cólera = rage, wrath, ire

el mar = sea [common] la mar = sea [deeper water, poetic, or significant] / “sea”, a large number of  alta mar = high seas, open waters

el azúcar / la azúcar = sugar [both are correct; sometimes you’ll see either gender, so don’t be surprised if you normally see el azúcar “sugar” in one setting, but la azúcar morena “brown sugar” in a different setting”]

el sartén / la sartén = frying pan [depending on region it will be masculine or feminine]

el arte = art las bellas artes = fine arts las artes marciales = martial arts

With el arte it usually refers to “art” like a piece of art, or painting/drawing/sculpting and other forms of art.

The word las artes only really takes on feminine in plural form and it tends to mean “specific ways of doing something” as a kind of group or umbrella term.

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Words from Greek / Palabras que provienen del idioma griego

el idioma = language, idiom

el clima = weather / clime, climate

el planeta = planet

el síntoma = symptom

el cisma = schism, rift

el tema = subject, theme

el poema = poem

el teorema = theorem

el drama = drama / drama, theater [subject]

el problema = problem

el lema = motto, slogan

el trauma = trauma, hurt

el enigma = puzzle, riddle, enigma

el estigma = stigma

el sistema = system

el esquema = schematic, diagram

el magma = magma

el dilema = dilemma, problem

el aroma = aroma, smell, fragrance

el carisma = charisma

el diafragma = diaphragm

el cromosoma = chromosome

el fantasma = ghost, phantom

And as a general rule anything [at least 99% of anything] ending in -grama in Spanish is masculine:

el diagrama = diagram, chart

el anagrama = anagram

el telegrama = telegram

el holograma = hologram

el crucigrama = crossword puzzle

You should also know that the vast majority of words ending in -ista are unisex

el artista, la artista = artist

el dentista, la dentista = dentist

el electricista, la electricista = electrician

el especialista, la especialista = specialist

el futbolista, la futbolista = football player / soccer player

el ajedrecista, la ajedrecista = chess player

el budista, la budista = Buddhist budista = Buddhist 

el idealista, la idealista = an idealist idealista = idealistic

el activista, la activista = activist

deportista = sporty, “a jock”

optimista = optimistic

pesimista = pessimistic

perfeccionista = perfectionist

egoísta = selfish

realista = realistic

renacentista = Renaissance [adj]

modernista = modernist posmodernista, postmodernista = postmodern, postmodernist

derechista = right-wing, conservative

izquierdista = left-wing, “leftist”

racista = racist

fascista = fascist

socialista = socialist

comunista = communist

Additionally...

la tesis = thesis

la sinopsis = synopsis

el análisis = analysis [in plural it’s los análisis which can throw people off]

la hipótesis = hypothesis [in plural it’s usually las hipótesis]

la diéresis = umlaut, dieresis [the symbol with two dots on top like ü]

Another very specific word to be aware of is el atleta or la atleta “athlete”, which is from Greek and unisex, though it ends in A

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Feminine Words with Masculine Articles / Palabras femeninos con artículos masculinos

This is a larger grammar topic that isn’t always properly explained. 

There are certain words in Spanish that begin with A- or HA- that are technically feminine but take masculine articles in singular [el or un], but will take feminine articles in plural [las and unas]

This is a unique rule that is compared to the difference between “a” and “an” in English

The gist of it is that if that for this to occur, a noun must 

be feminine 

begin with A- or HA- 

have its stressed syllable be the first one; i.e. the A- or HA- is the stressed syllable

For example: el agua “water”... is technically feminine (#1), it begins with A (#2), and it is pronounced agua (#3). Another one is el hambre “hunger”, technically feminine (#1), begins with HA (#2), and it is pronounced hambre

All of this is done to preserve the A sound [which is why it’s compared to “a” and “an”]. If you were to say “la agua” it would come out as “lagua” due to the two A sounds melding together in Spanish syllables. In other Romance Languages, this problem also exists and may be fixed with apostrophes [’] or other symbols to make sure a word is fully pronounced and understandable

el agua = water

el hambre = hunger, famine

el alma = soul

el arpa = harp

el arma = weapon

el águila = eagle

el ascua = ember

el hada = fairy

el ave = bird las aves = birds, fowl [umbrella term, as opposed to el pájaro an individual “bird”]

el aula = classroom

el ala = wing

el álgebra = algebra

el ancla = anchor el áncora = anchor

el hacha = axe, hatchet / big candle, torch [depends on context]

el asma = asthma

el alba = dawn

el área = area, zone

el asta = antler

el hampa = gang, criminal group

el ama = female owner, “mistress” [not in the romantic sense which is amante; the ama female form of “master/owner” which is el amo], lady of the house el ama de llaves = housekeeper [lit. “owner/keeper of the keys”; in older contexts this is the seniormost maid or the one in charge of managing the female maids; today ama de llaves is often “housekeeper” or “cleaning woman”] el ama de casa = housewife

Note: There’s also el ampa which is also written el AMPA [la asociación de madres y padres de alumnos] which is basically the Spanish equivalent of the PTA [Parent Teacher Association]... literally el ampa means “the association for mothers and fathers of students”

Note 2: There’s a Spanish drama called Las señoras del (h)AMPA which is a pun on el ampa and el hampa; being a group of women in the PTA who get involved in criminal activity - the pun works since H is silent and in this case “optional”

~

Despite the masculine article, the word itself is feminine and takes feminine adjectives:

el águila calva = bald eagle

el ave acuática = waterfowl las aves acuáticas = waterfowl [pl]

el hada madrina = fairy godmother

el álgebra avanzada = advanced algebra

agua pasada no mueve molino = “let bygones be bygones”, “water under the bridge” [lit. “passed water doesn’t move the mill”]

This also applies to the continents: Asia and África are technically feminine but if you ever used an article with them it would be el and take feminine adjectives

For more of the grammar information related to this please see: THIS POST

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Indeterminate Feminine / El femenino de indeterminación

These are commonly adverbial phrases, but many of them use feminine or feminine plural - there’s no specific subject or noun [thus the “indeterminate” or “that which is not determined”], but many times these things that aren’t specified may take on feminine adjectival forms

a la ligera = “lightly”, “not seriously” tomar algo a la ligera = to take something lightly

a medias = “halfway”, “by half measures”, “half-assed”

a diestra y siniestra = “all over the place” [lit. “to the right and left”; diestro/a is the word for “right-hand/right-handed”, and siniestro/a is the older word for “left-hand/left-handed” which is now zurdo/a given the moral implications of “sinister”; so literally it means “to the right-hand and to the left-hand”; in some cases this expression is in masculine form but I’ve seen it most commonly in feminine]

a secas = “by itself”, “with nothing else included” / “ungarnished” (food context) [lit. “dryly”]

a tientas = by fumbling, by touch, “fumbling around”

a ciegas = blindly / blindfolded

a oscuras = in the dark, in darkness, without light [synonymous with en la oscuridad]

a solas = one-on-one, alone, privately

a escondidas = in secret, “behind someone’s back”

a sabiendas = knowingly, “knowing full well”, “consciously”

a gatas = on all fours

(despedirse) a la francesa = “to leave without saying goodbye” [lit. “to say goodbye the French way”]

a las claras = “perfectly clear”, “crystal clear”

de oídas = hearsay [lit. “from hearing” or “from what was heard”]

por las buenas = “the easy way”

por las malas = “the hard way”

Also in culinary things, you’ll see a la used a lot... like the dish pulpo a la gallega meaning “Galician-style octopus”, or albóndigas a la madrileña “Madrid-style meatballs” or huevos a la mexicana “Mexican-style eggs”

This is pretty common in most Romance Languages in my experience

[mighty-ant]

La Mano Delicata, Part Two

Part One

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Alberto’s father wears a thick, gold human ring on his thumb.

There’s a black stone inlaid on its surface, where a gold letter ‘M’ is engraved in sweeping, elegant, alien curves. It's out of place beneath the surface, among the seaweed and roughly hewn stone, a world that grows at the beckoning of nature. There’s nothing natural about the ring, or the other human artifacts his father leaves scattered in their cave, and for that reason they fascinate Alberto to no end. 

Most of of what his father finds is already broken: metal spindles on strange dials that shriek when forced to turn, bottles and cups that are as clear as water or dark as the deepest depths, smooth and cool to the touch but with jagged edges that cut his fingers and palms if he’s not careful. There are smaller things, metal things, with shapes that curve and point, but their names are unknown to him because as his father likes to remind him, he isn’t Alberto’s teacher. 

Their home is far from other sea folk, almost a two hour swim in any direction if he wants to see a familiar face. Alberto was young when they moved and his memories of before are vague, but he recalls the other kids that lived near him and how they played games in the coral fields. But the solitude is good too. Alberto knows he’s learning to become self-sufficient, like his father, and he wants to become like his father more than anything. 

There’s an alcove in the wall of their home where his father leaves his favorite human trinkets. Small chains of gold and silver, plates pure white as dead coral but cool and utterly smooth to the touch. When his father returns from his long absences with treasures and (if Alberto’s lucky) a fresh catch in tow, he always drops his gold ring onto the smallest plate, one more intricate than the rest with unfamiliar landscapes and writhing vines painted in the most delicate blue.

 The ring is there when Alberto returns from an afternoon hunt. 

Other sea folk aren’t the only thing scarce out here—most days, it’s an effort to bring home dinner, swimming out to the reef to find the schools of fish and scuttling crabs that hide there. He learned their migrating habits the hard way after a two-hour journey greeted him with an empty expanse, the fish having moved overnight to the entirely opposite end of the reef. He was so hungry when he got home that he scraped the barnacles off the sides of the cave and gnawed on them, shell and all, chipping a few of his teeth in the process. 

His father doesn’t tell him not to touch his favorite treasures, at least not in so many words. It’s understood that Alberto can play with the broken things he scatters around the cave, but the perfect, shiny, intact ones? Those are just for his father. 

And yet, when Alberto arrives, clutching a rough woven net with three fish and an eel inside, he finds their home silent despite evidence of his father’s presence. He often talks aloud, more than he ever talks directly to Alberto, about how good the humans must have it, how he wished they took better care of their belongings. But it’s quiet now.

 Alberto passes hesitantly through the opening to their home, scanning the corners and peeking into his and his father’s shared room. Again, he’s met with silence, and not even a glimpse of his father’s purple scales. 

He’s stalling as he sets their dinner down on the table, fashioned out of the wooden hull of a sunken human ship. He traces the whorls and grooves of the aged wood, picking at the algae growing there, wondering at the human hands that must have crafted it. But Alberto is impatient to a fault and he gives into his curiosity within seconds, dashing over to his father’s alcove. 

The ring is still there, still shining and still mysterious, and he picks it up carefully. It’s not that he’s worried about breaking it, exactly. He's learned that human things are made to last, even the broken ones. But he’s only ever looked at the ring from afar, and a small stupid part of him is certain that it’ll dissolve into seafoam if he exerts too much pressure. 

The ring catches the light just so, sparkling like the spray of sunlight across the ocean surface, and Alberto finds himself entranced at once. Up close, the ring is not nearly as perfect as he imagined it to be. There are small scratches etched on its surface, pale white and numerous, and he couldn’t count them all if he tried. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” 

Alberto almost drops the ring. He does drop it in fact, but he claps his hands together to catch it before it can fall more than a few centimeters. He looks up, cold dread sinking into his gut with the strength of a riptide. 

His father stares back from the shadowed entrance. His eyes, the ones Alberto inherited, shine out of the dark and his lean, barracuda-thin body is still. 

His head tilts to the side—he asked Alberto a question after all. 

“Oh, uh, y-yes, sir. Sorry, I was just looking at it.”

He hums. “Didn’t realize you needed to grab something in order to look at it.” His father swims closer, holds out his hand. Alberto drops the ring into his palm at once. 

“It’s-it’s cool, is all,” Alberto tries. “Human stuff. I can never find anything that isn’t already broken.”

His father slips the ring back onto his thumb, expression thoughtful. He curls his hand into a fist. “Hm. I haven't taken you to the surface yet, have I?”

He knows he hasn’t. Alberto has been told so many, many times never to follow his father under any circumstance, but he must’ve just been waiting until Alberto was ready . The weight of dread floats off of him like bubbles to the surface, bursting into shocked joy. 

“N-no, sir! Not yet,” Alberto says, grinning. 

His father smiles back. “Would you like to see it?”

Their vespa can’t move faster than a human can walk. What Alberto had mistaken for artistic license, Giulia informs him are large splotches of rust that deteriorate the metal and flake off under his hands like sharp-edged grains of sand that leave a tang of iron on his fingers. The handlebars are loose, the frame shakes and rattles under him and Luca worse than their homemade vespa did, and within five minutes the engine casing turns blisteringly hot to the touch. 

It’s perfect . 

But even Alberto is smart enough to realize that he and Luca won’t be going anywhere on this vespa, not further than Portorosso’s winding streets and certainly not around the world. 

Luca and Giulia run upstairs to go look at a book of all things, leaving him with the setting sun and encroaching neighbors. But the prickling sea urchin of jealousy that’s clung to his ribcage for weeks barely twinges. Giulia isn’t trying to take Luca away from him, he knows that now. It doesn’t change the fact that Alberto is still going to lose him when this is all over, at least for a little while. 

He should probably ask Giulia how long school lasts. 

Parking the vespa by the Marcovaldos’ back door, Alberto takes a moment to just grip the handlebars extra tight, feeling the aged leather creak against his palm. This isn’t like one of his father’s forbidden treasures–the vespa is Alberto’s to do with as he chooses, and he chooses to return it. Alberto still doesn’t completely understand humans, but he does know that Luca will need soldi to board the train and Alberto doesn’t need a vespa if Luca isn’t here to ride it with him. 

The Marcovaldos’ yard is bustling with neighbors and more food than he’s ever seen in one place. There’s pasta in all shapes, only some he recognizes from Giulia’s training regime for the eating competition he never got to win. Tables are brought over from nearby homes and they spill out onto the street in a delightfully chaotic train, each weighed down with bottles of wine, platters of cheese and olives marinated with pimientos, trays of focaccia and steaming chive garlic bread. Plates are filled and what little space remains is immediately filled with music, chatter, and gesticulating hands. 

The storm that pelted Portorosso during the race has passed and brilliant golden sunlight breaks through the lingering clouds. Drizzle falls intermittently, glittering like coins, and Alberto’s tan skin bursts into patches of indigo scales wherever the raindrops land. But the fear of discovery, of fishermen and their harpoons, is gone, washed away by the trust in Giulia’s smile and the reassurance of her arm around his shoulders as they crossed the finish line. The fear was dashed by the brazen presence of Concetta and Pinuccia Aragosta, le Donne Gatto, once hiding in plain sight but hiding no longer. 

The fear surged, brief but paralyzing, when they stood before Massimo, who loomed larger than the tallest wave of the most fearsome storm. 

Every omission, the terrible truth of Alberto’s existence, was laid bare and he couldn’t look Massimo in the eye. He’d thought of all their fishing trips, the comforting sway of the boat and Massimo’s sure hand teaching him how to haul up the nets. The human’s expressions were often difficult to determine beneath the bushy brows and mustache, but Alberto had been so sure that those keen, hidden eyes had looked back at him with approval a few times, maybe even warmth. 

He couldn’t bear to see them filled with hate. 

When Massimo instead grabbed Alberto by the wrist and raised him over the crowd, declaring them the winners, he might as well have raised Alberto to the top of the world. 

“Al-Alberto!” 

A pair of unfamiliar voices call him, almost identical in their stutter like they’re unsure of his name. Alberto startles ungracefully, nearly knocking over their vespa. He’s quick to catch it, not willing to risk any additional dents or scratches that could put his refund at risk. 

It gives the owners of the voices enough time to crowd in close to him, smiles too wide and webbed hands fluttering. 

Alberto smiles uncertainly, reluctantly letting go of the vespa. “Uh, hi, Signore e Signora Paguro.”

After so many months on the surface, it’s almost strange to see the faces of other sea folk. He’s not exactly accustomed to humans, but he expects to see them up here, where the air is light and the sun is blazing. And anyway, for a long time his father was the only sea folk he spoke to, when he was still around. 

While Alberto might’ve seen Luca’s parents at the finish line, they hadn’t exactly met.  They were too busy clamoring over Luca, hugging their runaway son, stroking and kissing his cheeks. They’d missed him, both of them had , and obviously came to the surface looking for him despite Alberto’s blind insistence to the contrary. He hopes Luca knows how lucky he is to have that. 

 Staring at them now, face to face, it’s funny how Alberto can recognize Luca’s features in both of theirs. Or the other way around, he guesses. Luca takes more after his mother in looks, though the green tint to his scales is definitely his dad’s. 

Alberto knows he looks identical to his own father, down to the seaweed green of their eyes and the yellow tint of their sclera. When he was very, very small, so young it feels like a dream, his father used to call him ‘Mini-Me.’

“Alberto,” Signora Paguro repeats effusively, like she’s eager to say it again now that she knows she got his name right the first time. “You’re Luca’s friend! The Alberto.”

He rubs the back of his neck, his usual veneer of cool skittering out of his reach. “Uh, yeah? That’s me.” 

“Luca’s told us so much about you,” Signora Paguro starts to say, before reluctantly amending. “Well, no, that’s not true. We don’t know anything about you.”

“We knew you existed!” Signore Paguro offers helpfully. 

Signora Paguro takes Alberto’s hands in her own, her teal scales matching well with the purple of his. Not like the humans’ strange, fleshy shades of brown and pink. These are sea folk like him. He should probably feel reassured by their similarities. Instead, he feels only panic, ratcheting up his spine with every word out of Signora Paguro’s mouth. 

“Alberto what?” she asks, her expression open and gentle, though her tone is insistent. “Who are your people? Your parents must be worried sick if you’ve been out here for as long as Luca has!”

“I, um,” Alberto replies intelligently. 

What can he say? That there’s no one? He’s not like Luca with a mom and dad and a grandmother. He can’t even imagine a home with so many people in it. All his life, it was just him and his father, and he got sick of Alberto before long. 

For a few weeks, he thought it could be him and Luca. Now, it’s just him. Again. 

He tries to answer without lying. “You’re not gonna…find anyone. My dad and I…we lived pretty far away. Like, really far away. Farther than you’ve ever been, probably.”

 Signora Paguro’s smile falls. “Oh, no, sweetheart. Can we help you find him?”

Alberto almost laughs in her face. As if he hasn’t tried. As if he hadn’t spent the first three of the last thirteen months swimming further than he’s ever swam, up and down the coast, out into open ocean where the depths were endless and black beneath his feet, until his limbs ached and his eyes burned and his stomach ate itself. 

At the start, Alberto asked the sea folk he encountered in the rare villages by the shore. Have you seen someone who looks like me? But grown-up? He’d gone cave to cave, home to home, like a stupid kid who’s lost his goatfish. After all, what kind of idioti loses a whole parent? 

He’d watched their faces turn from confusion to pity too many times and he felt pathetic, abandoned all over again. His father had left him to flounder and humiliate himself in his loneliness. 

Signora Paguro is still waiting for an answer, so Alberto chokes down the sea urchins lodged in his throat. He doesn’t want to lie. 

Massimo calls him from the back of the pescheria before he can open his mouth and conjure more half-truths for Luca’s mother.

“Alberto,” he says, and nothing else. But Alberto has spent weeks bustling about a fishing boat with this human, and he recognizes the intent behind this particular summoning: Alberto, I need your help with something. 

Desperate for escape, Alberto starts backing away before even making his excuses. “Sorry, signora, I’ll be right back. Or, uh, Luca will be right back. I just gotta, y’know. Massimo’s calling me.”

Signora Paguro watches him go with a bewildered expression. “O-okay, honey.”

Alberto flees to Massimo’s shadow, away from the bustle of too many bodies and too loud voices. Bulwarked by his solid silence, Alberto’s finally able to breathe after shedding what feels like the entire weight of the midnight zone from his shoulders. 

“Yeah?” He hops from foot to foot. In the shade of the awning and out of the drizzle, Alberto can feel his scales start to dry and the tingle of phantom tail behind him. 

Massimo is still looking over his head at Signora Paguro, who’s pushing Signore Paguro toward a pair of empty seats. Nonna Paguro is already sitting down, chatting with one of le Donne Gatto. Under the gentle rain, they’re a rainbow of scales and tails. 

The reminder that their secret’s out is jarring. Even though Massimo abandoned his harpoon at their feet, raising them up as the winners of the race, part of Alberto is still waiting for the other shell to drop. For Massimo to change his mind, see him for the monster that he is and throw him out onto the street. Or worse, that he won’t care about the sea monster part and just doesn’t like Alberto . 

When Massimo tilts his head toward him, his mustache ticks up in a smile. 

“Time for dinner, ragazzo.”

Beneath the awning of the pescheria, slightly tucked away from the hubbub of the party, there’s a table set with places for four. Plates of trenette al pesto lie steaming, waiting for them, just as they did on his and Luca’s first night in Portorosso. The familiar sight pulls something up from Alberto’s belly, spreading bubbly and warm through his body like sips of wine. He doesn’t know what to do with the feeling other than to smile about it, his grin big and ridiculous. 

“Great, cuz I’m starving,” he announces, rather than give voice to the sensation of overwhelm. He bounds over to claim his usual chair, at least when they’re having dinner upstairs. Massimo takes a moment to join him, guiding the Paguros to their nice little cloth-covered table like a good host. 

Alberto grabs his forchetta, but knows better than to start eating right away. The table manners of surface folk were at the top of Guilia’s lesson plan, whether she knew it or not, and Alberto had been her reluctant student. He doesn’t care much about offending strangers but, against his better judgment, he wants Massimo’s approval and he figured early on that he wasn’t gonna get that if he was slurping up his meals like a half-starved seal. 

Besides, winning Massimo’s approval is nothing like trying to earn his father’s. 

Alberto’s dad liked to talk. Not to Alberto, but at him. Barbed observations about Alberto’s skills, or lack thereof. How lazy and stupid he was. They hadn’t lived in a colony since Alberto was seven and it’s been so long since then that he’s forgotten most of the elders’ lessons on maths and letters. And no matter how hard he tried, his father would rather mock than instruct, so he was left to practice alone until he got too frustrated with himself and gave up. 

After all, when Alberto’s father was his age, he was never dumb enough to wander into blue shark feeding grounds while searching for dinner. Alberto’s father was never so weak at his age. His father was a better swimmer, hunter, forager, you name it. Nothing Alberto did was ever good enough. 

By contrast, Massimo almost doesn’t talk enough . He chooses his words judiciously, like a nonna scrutinizing fruit at market day, and opts for none of them more often than not. But his silence isn’t a warning sign like Alberto’s father’s, the stillness of the sea before a storm. He’s simply a man of few words, a foreign concept to Alberto’s mind, having only known big words that mask small, cruel actions. 

 I haven't taken you to the surface yet, have I?

And yeah, sometimes the silence unnerves him out of learned instinct, has him second-guessing if Massimo even wants him around, but Alberto’s never been afraid of him. Even at the start, facing down the biggest human he’d ever seen, mustache impressive as a walrus’s and single arm thick enough to put a tiger shark in a chokehold, Alberto was in awe of Massimo. All of his talk about hunting sea monsters had been…concerning, but in an abstract way. It was tough to reconcile the mountain of a man who happily made them pane, burro e marmellata in the mornings while singing along to the radio with the lethal pescatore with sailfish-quick reflexes and a harpoon always within easy reach, the sort of dangerous land monster they’d been warned against all their lives.

It gave Alberto and Luca that much more incentive to keep their secret. 

But Massimo himself is kind and gruff, while humans like Ercole singled them out again and again with words and fists. It didn’t even occur to Alberto to be afraid of Massimo until he stood before the monster hunter in the rain, scaled and sharp-toothed, every inch the monster Massimo claimed to hate. Even then, it wasn’t even the threat of the harpoon in Massimo’s hand that frightened him. His father had batted him around enough times to teach him to expect violence from those bigger than him. No, it was the thought of the approving light in Massimo’s eyes dying, the suggestion of a smile turning hateful. 

Rejection. That’s what Alberto was afraid of. 

Only it never came. 

Now he can’t help but wonder, as he watches Massimo shoo Machiavelli off his chair, what happens next? Once he sends Luca out into the wide world that’s out there waiting for him, what’s left for Alberto once he’s all alone again? 

Massimo remains standing over his own place setting, not taking a seat yet. He looks across at Albero and raises a single, inquisitive brow. 

“Giulia e Luca?” he asks. 

Alberto rolls his eyes without any of the vitriol he might’ve felt a few days ago. Well, maybe just a little. They are keeping him from dinner, after all. “Upstairs. With a book. ”

Massimo turns toward the stairs leading up to the second landing, their home above the pescheria. “Giulietta,” he calls, at the same volume as his usual speaking voice. “È ora di cena.”

The window to Giulia’s room bursts open and she sticks her head out. “Two minutes, Papà!”

“It will get cold,” he chides but doesn’t argue. There’s a lightness to him that Alberto hadn’t noticed until this moment, a looseness in the breadth of his shoulders, a slight curve to his mouth that the mustache can’t completely disguise. He nods at Alberto, and the small smile becomes more pronounced. “Mah, we know better than to let good pasta go to waste, don’t we? Mangiare!”

He doesn’t need to tell Alberto twice. 

After his overnight sulk in the tower and terror-turned-elation of the race, he’s so hungry he could eat a sea cow. The last few weeks of regular meals have made him soft, he’s just now realizing. Time was, he could go a couple days on scavenged shellfish alone; he’d learned the hard way not to grab and eat the random vegetation that grows on the surface. But the pasta was filling, the pesto rich, and man had he missed Massimo’s cooking. And it had only been two days! That didn’t bode well for his plans going forward but. Oh well. 

He blinks back to focus when Massimo raps on the table with two knuckles, right by his water glass. “Eh, slow down, ragazzo. Dinner isn’t jumping overboard, either.” He speaks in a cajoling tone not that different to the one he uses with Giulia. 

Alberto swallows his current mouthful and fights embarrassment when he looks at the dent he’s already made in his plate. Massimo’s eaten maybe half of what he has from his own dinner. “S-sorry. Just a…little hungry I guess.”

Massimo jerks his chin at Alberto’s plate. “Don’t apologize for being a growing boy. You need to eat. But I don’t want you making yourself sick.”

Alberto starts eating again, but at a normal pace this time, not like he’s being timed by an impatient Giulia. “Thanks,” he mumbles, not really sure what he’s thanking him for. Not treating him any differently than before? For caring?

When he glances back up, Massimo isn’t eating. He’s watching Alberto instead, his smile replaced by a frown. “When did you last eat, Alberto?”

“Uh…” he almost wipes his mouth on the back of his hand but catches himself just in time and grabs the cloth napkin beside his plate. Alberto kind of wishes he could hide behind it. “Not that long ago,” he hedges. He thinks it was the sandwiches Massimo made for lunch the day he ran away. 

He casts about for a distraction. It’s almost like it’s been a point of pride for Massimo to feed him and Luca delicious new surface foods, so hearing that Alberto sat alone in his cold, dark tower for the last two nights feeling sorry for himself, too pathetic to think of eating anything, probably wouldn’t go over well. 

“The race!” he blurts. “Y’know, all that-that running and almost dying really tired me out. It’s been a while since humans tried to harpoon me, y’know? I’m a little out of practice.”

Massimo chokes on his wine, making Alberto jump. His expression is stricken when he lowers the glass. 

If Alberto was hoping to get Massimo’s attention off him, he’d failed miserably. 

“I’m fine, though, obviously,” he tries to excuse at the same time Massimo says, “I am sorry.”

Alberto’s mouth hangs open, ready to keep rambling, but no sound comes out. Does he have water stuck in his ears? Because he could’ve sworn he heard Massimo say–

“I am sorry, Alberto.”

There! He said it again. 

“Huh?” he manages. 

Massimo’s heavy brows furrow in consternation, and his hand on the tablecloth clenches into a fist. Dinner sits between them, growing cold just like Massimo warned. 

“You did not deserve to be hunted or attacked, now or ever. We were wrong, and I apologize for the part I played in harming you.” 

He glances down at Alberto’s left arm, and his fist tightens until Alberto can count each bleached knuckle. For the first time since Alberto has known him, he looks at a loss for words, not just silent. He looks…afraid. But what the heck could Massimo be afraid of?

“That scar on your arm. You said it was…land monsters who gave it to you.” 

Alberto follows Massimo’s line of sight, momentarily confused. He’d almost forgotten about his souvenir from the surface; the old scar is pale in his human form, a faint white line against his tan skin. It hadn’t bled too bad when he got it, and it wasn’t deep enough to even leave a cool scar. 

“Yeah?” 

Across from him, Massimo inhales deeply. His fist trembles faintly in a way Alberto has never seen it do before, even while winching up a fishing net heaving with fresh catch. “I have gone on many hunts,” Massimo intones gravely. “And struck at what I believed to be monstri marini many times. Did I…? Was that…my doing?”

It takes Alberto way too long to put two and two together. Some genius he is; it’s a good thing Luca’s the one going to school. When things do click, he gasps so loud that he makes Massimo jump this time, and he might’ve laughed if only Massimo didn’t look so gutted. 

“What? No! No, this wasn’t you. It was-it was night, but the boat was different from yours.” Night or no, he would’ve recognized Massimo’s silhouette too. He’s still the biggest human Alberto’s ever seen. 

Massimo looks him in the eye. “You are sure?”

Does he suspect Alberto’s lying to spare his feelings? It’s weird to think that Massimo might feel bad about maybe hurting him in the past, but nice to know he cares. At least a little. And giving it some thought, yeah, Alberto probably would lie, if only to spare Massimo needless guilt. 

“I’m sure.” Completely the truth this time. Nice. 

Massimo stares him down for another couple seconds, probably just to make double sure. After a few weeks on the boat together, Alberto’s gotten better at withstanding that stare, even with its raised eyebrow. At least when he’s in the right. 

Massimo leans back, the pinched look to his face smoothing out. “It will not happen again.”

Alberto blinks, caught off guard by the end of the staredown. “Huh?” 

He nods at Alberto’s arm. “You and your people will be safe on our shores. Not everyone will be kind, but they will all think twice before trying to harm you.”

Alberto’s father used to talk a big game. Called himself an explorer when all he did was pick up humans’ lost junk, a better fisherman (but only when Alberto lost track of the spawning grounds or the fish were few), and always threatened to steal one of the human’s boats and raid one of their villages.

But Massimo speaks so little that when he does talk, Alberto believes it. He isn’t a pathetic loner like Alberto’s father; everyone in town knows and respects him. At the end of the race, he got rid of the fishermen (and their harpoons) crowding around him and Luca with a glance . He invited all of them, le Donne Gatto included, to his house for a party, to show all of Portorosso that he’s on their side. 

Alberto grins, and pretends there aren’t tears in his eyes. It’ll be nice, he thinks, to still be able to visit even when Luca’s away at school with Giulia. “Thanks, Signore Marcovaldo.” 

Massimo ducks his head, tapping on the table between them again. 

“Eat,” he grunts, artfully twirling a forkful of pasta single handedly. “Your food will get cold.” 

Alberto laughs under his breath and applies himself to his dinner without needing to be told twice. 

As he eats, he looks out over half the neighborhood that’s gathered in the yard. Most everyone’s still eating and chatting, but someone brought out a record player and there’s a little circle of kids dancing. Quite a few people catch his eye, smile and wave and call out greetings, and Alberto waves back hesitantly. Even the Paguros wave from the nice little table Massimo set up for them in the rain, movements awkward in a way Alberto recognizes in himself and Luca, sea folk uncertain if they’re doing a good job copying the humans’ mannerisms. 

Even if they don’t agree with Alberto’s plan, he knows things will be okay between them and Luca now. They came all the way to the surface to find him. Alberto’s father brought him to the surface to leave him behind. He may not know what makes a good parent, but he knows what a bad one looks like, and the Paguros are far from that. They might even be good enough to let Luca go. 

There’s a clatter from upstairs–Luca and Giulia are finally coming down for dinner. And Alberto’s running out of time to work out the details of his plan. 

“But, but, hey!” he stammers ungracefully. “Random thought. The, uh, the prize money. The soldi. That we used on the vespa. Hypothetically, could I get it back and use it instead for, I dunno, a train ticket?”

Oh man it sounds so stupid coming out of his mouth. Is that how “soldi” works? Can it be returned? Anxiety latches onto his brain like an ocean parasite as one of Massimo’s brows ticks up incrementally. He peers down at Alberto from beneath it. 

“Hypothetically,” Massimo rumbles, “that would depend on where the train is going. Like Rome. Or Genova, for example.” 

Alberto freezes, staring hard at his water glass as Massimo reaches over to brush Machiavelli off Giulia’s chair. The cat just jumps onto Massimo’s shoulder, which he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“If the shopkeep gives you a full refund–and knowing Mattia, he would–you will have just enough for one ticket to Genova. But only one.”

Massimo sounds a little sad at the end, but it’s just what Alberto needed to hear. The specifics of the humans’ barter system continues to elude him but he’ll figure it out in the end. Maybe Giulia will help him out. 

Speaking of which: she and Luca come stampeding down the stairs like a horde of elephant seals, yelling about who got to the table first (Massimo keeps everyone’s plates from getting thrown to the floor in the chaos). 

He doesn’t even have time to start feeling left out before Luca looks at him, grinning and breathless, and Alberto’s heart skips a beat. Santa ricotta. He’s gonna miss him. His first friend. 

“I think Luca won,” Alberto chimes in, and tries not to laugh when Giulia squawks in outrage. 

Like gravity, Alberto’s plans usually lead to a quick, painful fall. 

Following his father up to the surface and getting himself stranded is one such example. 

Eating some weird surface plant that had him dry heaving all day and through the night is another. 

Wanting to ride a vespa around the world almost got him harpooned a couple times. Plus, it turns out vespas need to eat something called benzina to turn on and move. And (according to know-it-all Giulia) the world is way too big to travel by vespa, much less Italy. 

But this plan, Get Luca a Train Ticket So He Can Go to School and Make Something of Himself, has gone off without a hitch.

Step 1: Corner the Paguros at le Donne Gatto’s house where they’re staying until Giulia (and Luca) leave for school in two days. Apparently the old couple are Nonna Paguro’s poker buddies? Who would’ve thought. 

Massimo goes with him. Apparently his “hypothetical” questioning wasn’t as subtle as he’d hoped. But Massimo sits back with his lap covered in cats and shares a bottle of wine with le Donne Gatto and only speaks up when the Paguros have a practical question, like where Luca will live if he goes to school in Genova, which yeah, Alberto hadn’t thought about that. Whoops. 

“I have already spoken to Giulia’s mother,” Massimo says, which is news to him. 

Besides, Alberto has a different job. 

It takes the better part of an hour to explain to them how smart Luca is, how much he wants this, needs this, deserves this. Alberto’s spent too long putting Luca down, and now this is his chance to pay him back for all of it. 

And somehow, in the end, it works. He convinces them. Signora Paguro hugs him, which is weird, with tears in her eyes. “You’re a good friend, Alberto,” she tells him. “I’m-I’m glad Luca met you.” 

And Alberto doesn’t know what to say to that (cause he’s not, not really. Luca’s the good one; he’s the screwup), so he laughs and salutes super awkwardly before practically diving out the door. 

Step 2: Return the vespa in exchange for soldi to buy a train ticket. 

After leaving the cozy home of le Donne Gatto, he goes straight to the vespa shop. Alone this time. But it’s night time, and the shop is dark, so Alberto camps out on a nearby set of steps until morning, the vespa propped against the side of the building. He can’t risk going back to Massimo’s and having Luca find out about his plan. And the more he sees Luca, the harder it will be to say goodbye. 

In another rare stroke of luck, it isn’t that cold out on the steps and he’s able to sleep in fits and starts until the sun rises. Then he’s up and pounding on the door until the half-awake shop owner unlocks it and lets him in, already rambling about how he needs to return this vespa for money, signore, please and thank you.

“Ah, si.” The old man covers a yawn with his hand. “Massimo warned me you were coming. Let’s see now—si, leave that rusty thing outside. Come, come, I have your refund here.”

Money in hand, Alberto makes his way to the train station to buy Luca’s ticket. Giulia helpfully wrote down the number of the train she’ll be taking and the time it leaves. 

A113 Genova via Portorosso at 2 p.m. 

Step 3: Spend one last great day with Luca. 

He’s under no illusions. Once Luca goes to school, with all its people and telescopes and books, he’ll forget all about Alberto. But that’s fine. He’s used to it. Maybe he’ll see Luca next summer, when he and Giulia come down to visit their family.  

In the meantime, he’ll cherish the golden memories of building their ramshackle vespa together, the glitter of seaspray on his face as they ducked and rolled with the waves, their first taste of gelato. 

Today, they ride bikes through puddles and play pallone in the square, and when it rains they laugh when they change into their true forms instead of running for cover. Giulia slaps her hands over their eyes when they start another staring contest with the sun and even that’s okay. Alberto wants her to promise to take care of Luca, but he has a feeling she already will. She’s a better friend than him that way. 

All the while, Luca’s train ticket burns a hole in his pocket. 

Step 4: Figure out what he’s going to do for the rest of his life. 

That last one is, admittedly, turning out to be a little bit trickier. 

He can go back to the island and keep doing what he did before he met Luca. Survive, look for cool treasure, scare hapless sea folk with his deep sea diver suit. Only now he can apparently pop into Portorosso whenever he feels like. It’s better than what he had going on before. A thousand times better. 

So why is Alberto frozen on the shore, unable to move any deeper?

The night was black as squid ink when he made his way down to the beach– the beach, the little spit of sand thick with boulders where he revealed his true face to Giulia to prove Luca wrong, where he was singled out, where he was betrayed. Not that he’s applying any sort of special significance to this place. That would just be…sad. 

This beach happens to be where he left from last time. Nice and out of the way, with a quick, deep dropoff, perfect for a quick getaway. 

Not that Alberto’s gone anywhere yet. 

The horizon line is paling with the faint blue light of predawn. And he still hasn’t swam back to the island. 

Eventually, though, he does get tired of standing. 

Sitting in the surf, the tide lapping at him every ten seconds, his entire lower half becomes blue and scaly. His tail curls comfortingly around his waist, a secret sort of hug he rarely allows for himself, especially with him being human almost 24/7 these days. 

He can sorta see the outline of the island in the distance, mocking him with its nearness. 

“Leaving again without saying goodbye?”

Holy–! 

Alberto whirls around so fast he falls sideways into the surf. Water splashes on his face, revealing a riot of scales, and his instincts scream at him to hide before his brain catches up with him. 

Massimo watches, silent and shadowed, with a softly glowing golden lantern held aloft in his hand. 

Alberto quickly affects a casual pose, propping his chin up on a fist. The tide keeps breaking over him, and he knows his fingers must be webbed now, pupils sharp and inhuman, curly brown hair exchanged for purple frill. He pretends not to notice. “H-hey!  How…uh, how long have you been standing there? And who said anything about leaving?”

He hasn’t seen Massimo since breakfast, when he slunk in through the front door after returning from the train station. Giulia and Luca were already up and eating Massimo pinned Alberto with one of those inscrutable looks of his and pushed a plate of biscuits and a tazzina di espresso in his direction. 

Massimo plants himself on a nearby boulder, setting the lantern down beside him out of reach of the sea spray. Clearly, he’s not planning on leaving anytime soon. Great.  

“I was downstairs mending the nets when I saw you leave. It is not safe to be out alone this late.”

Nerves jangling, Alberto resists the urge to roll his eyes. “What, afraid I’ll drown? Not to brag, but I think I’m a better swimmer than anyone in town.”

Massimo raises one of his eyebrows but even that silent warning isn’t enough to get Alberto to back down. He feels…jittery, exposed, like there’s a big spotlight on him even though it’s probably too dark for Massimo to even see him well without his lantern. 

He doesn’t understand why Massimo is still here . 

“Alberto, what’s wrong?” he asks, so softly Alberto can barely hear him over the crash and pull of the waves. 

And that’s just…what do the humans call it? The last straw?

“Nothing! Nothing’s wrong!” Alberto struggles, splashing to his feet. His tail lashes against the water and his eyes must be glowing, reflecting the lamplight, like a monster . “Why would you think something’s wrong? Cause I’m helping my best friend leave forever?”

Massimo frowns. “He won’t be gone forever, anymore than my Giulia will be. They will have vacations from school, summer, and you can travel to Genova to visit—”

He’s never raised his voice to Massimo before, or any adult, really. Definitely not to his father. But Massimo keeps being all calm and reasonable, as if Alberto hasn’t been lying to him, as if Alberto isn’t the monster the parents of Portorosso warn their children about at night. As if Alberto isn’t painfully, irrevocably alone. 

“How!” he demands. “I don’t have help, not like Luca or Giulia. It's just me. It’s just been me for…”

Massimo keeps being calm. Keeps being reasonable. He asked about Alberto’s father, a week and a dozen fishing trips ago; Alberto had sort of lied then. 

“For how long, Alberto?” he asks now. 

383 days. Until he stopped keeping track. 

“A…a while.”

Not a total lie.

An understatement? Definitely.  

“Where were you living, all that time?” Massimo sounds determined, but also like he’s a little afraid to know the answer. 

Alberto wonders how long he’s been holding back all these questions. Massimo’s not exactly a chatty guy, after all. But Alberto sat at his table, ate his food, and slept in the treehouse he built for his daughter. At this point, he probably owes him some honesty. 

“Over there.” He points at his island, still a hazy shape against the lightening sky. 

Massimo doesn’t gape, but it’s a near thing. He stands up, boots crunching on the sand, and his eyebrows go really high up on his face. “Isola del Mare? But after the war, it was rumored to be…haunted.”

Alberto shrugs a little sheepishly. “So maybe I messed with some of the boats that came by. I didn’t want anyone discovering my hideout!”

 He didn’t set out to scare the humans at first; he was just trying to steal food. But he learned how superstitious they could be and he couldn’t not take advantage, especially when they had so many shiny and new and unbroken things. 

But Massimo just smiles at his admission. “Clever. So what is your plan now, ragazzo?”

Alberto blinks. “Whadaya mean?” 

Plan: Get Luca a Train Ticket So He Can Go to School and Make Something of Himself is basically finito. He left Luca’s train ticket with Giulia, who’d taken it grudgingly. She thinks he should say goodbye to Luca in person. 

Massimo steps forward slowly, like Alberto’s a goatfish he doesn’t want to spook. He kneels and takes Alberto’s shoulder, his palm broad and callused but gentle in spite of it. “Luca and Giulia are leaving for Genova tomorrow. The Paguros will return home. What would you like to do?”

 “What can I do?” 

He’s never had a choice before. Or at least, he’s never had anyone tell him he does. Anxiety crawls under Alberto’s skin like a hundred tiny ants. He wants to shrug off Massimo’s hand but at the same time he wants to clutch his wrist, half afraid that he’ll fall apart and dissolve into sea foam if Massimo lets him go.

Massimo clears his throat once, squeezes Alberto’s shoulder. 

“You could stay. Here. With me. I wasn’t joking when I said I’ll be needing help with the pescheria.” 

Alberto’s certain he has water in his ears again. There’s no way Massimo just said—

“Stay?” he repeats shakily, not daring to answer one way or the other, as if Massimo will rip the kind words away and laugh in his face for hoping. But Massimo isn’t his father. He says Alberto’s strong. Massimo asks questions because he wants to know more about him, not because he wants to trap him in a lie. He followed Alberto to the beach when he could’ve just looked the other way. 

“But I’m…” He looks down at himself, still purple, scales shining dimly in the gray dawn. There’s no way Massimo can look past what he is. Can he?

“You are Alberto,” Massimo says, firmly as stone. Water is wet, the moon isn’t a fish, you are Alberto. “That is all that matters.” 

Massimo’s hand has been on his shoulder this whole time. His blue and purple scaley shoulder.

“Okay.” Alberto grins, and if his face had started to dry then his stubborn tears are ruining it by cutting twin blue trails down his cheeks. 

Massimo ducks his head a little, meets Alberto’s tear stained eyes. “Okay?” he repeats. A question this time. 

Alberto laughs, scrubbing away the tears. “Okay. I’m gonna be the best employee you’ve ever had.”

That makes Massimo chuckle too, which maybe shouldn’t be much of an achievement, but it is to him. Even if Massimo’s only his boss, he’s still nothing like his father. 

“Well then, we had better return home. My best employee will need rest if he wants to continue being the best.” 

Home. That sounds…too good to be true, to be honest. 

Massimo shakes him a little with the hand still on his shoulder before standing back up. Alberto moves first, grabbing the lantern to lead them back to the pescheria. Even with the change, his eyesight is still better than any human’s, and it’ll be darker the further they get from the beach. Besides, there’s no harm in living up to his self-appointed title as best employee as soon as possible. 

On their walk back, they’re allowed glimpses of Portorosso waking up around them. 

The air is still cool, a chill lingering from the past days of rain that the sun isn’t strong enough to burn away yet. The gentle strains of piano drift down from an open second story window. Fruit vendors load their carts with crates lowered from heaving truck beds. An old man sipping coffee on his balcony waves to Massimo, who returns the gesture. Padre Eugenio is opening the huge wooden doors of the church, while il maggiore makes the first of her rounds through the plaza. 

These sights and sounds are becoming familiar to Alberto, more than his father’s quiet cave in the middle of an empty seabed. More than the island, with its lone building of crumbling stone and only the waves and the calls of seabirds for company. But soon he’ll only have Massimo to share these bustling mornings with. 

Alberto stops in the courtyard. Above them, he can hear Giulia and Luca laughing, the clatter of plates. They’re probably waiting to surprise them with breakfast. 

If he had swam back to the island, would Luca have come looking for him before he left? He did once before, so maybe…yes? 

Yes. 

He feels Massimo’s eyes on him. It wrenches the truth out of Alberto once more, choking and sharp, like he’s swallowed sea urchins. “I’m gonna miss him. Like, really gonna miss him.” 

Massimo sighs heavily, a great gust of wind against a broad sail. His father never would’ve let Alberto see his eyes get shiny with tears, or hear his voice tremble. He would’ve called it weakness. In Massimo, it looks like strength. 

“Of course you will. We always miss the people we love. I love and will miss my Giulietta. You love and will miss your Luca.”

He peers up at Massimo. “And that’s…okay?

With a hand on his shoulder, Massimo guides him to the stairs. And breakfast. And home. 

“It is love, Alberto. And love is always okay.”

[obscureoldguy]

Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas

The Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, contains an exceptional assemblage of cave art, executed between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. It takes its name (Cave of the Hands) from the stencilled outlines of human hands in the cave, but there are also many depictions of animals, such as guanacos (Lama guanicoe ), still commonly found in the region, as well as hunting scenes. The people responsible for the paintings may have been the ancestors of the historic hunter-gatherer communities of Patagonia found by European settlers in the 19th century.

Perhaps tens of thousands of years old; this should be in a modern art gallery somewhere.

[thecanvasofmadness]

Me cansé de dejar migajas en el camino… Ya me perdí y nada de lo que dejé caer detrás de mis pasos me ha ayudado a recuperar el sendero de regreso a mí. No hay regreso. No hay nada. A lo lejos, detrás de mis espaldas, se asoma un enorme muro que se ha ido agigantando conforme me he ido alejando más de mí… No hay manera de atravesarlo y regresar suena absurdo. No tiene caso siquiera voltear los ojos hacia allá. No hay nada ahí. Nada. Pero, este dolor, éste que se escuece en mi garganta, el que me quema los ojos, el que arde en mis mejillas y atosiga a mis labios, es real… tan real que no se acaba… tan real que no encuentra el punto final; se ha hecho de punto tras punto, de coma tras coma, dejándome encerrado en un bucle de eterna frugalidad y, conforme avanzo, sigo mirando las mismas figuras que me han atormentado desde siglos atrás; una tras otra se han ido formando a mis costados, mientras señalan a mi pecho y su falta, recriminándome la razón de lo que perdí. “Sí, lo dejé atrás y estoy cada vez más lejos de él…”, les grito al caminar con paso trémulo y hastiado. No voy a volver, por una razón lo dejé y esas figuras no me obligarán a buscarlo. ¿Qué gané teniéndolo? ¿Qué logré usándolo? Si mis manos lo único que hicieron fue sangrar, lo mismo que mis labios… Si sigo caminando es por esta ilusión que me arrastra hacia la nada, porque yo no me muevo, no… no lo hago. Mis pasos son imaginarios. Mi cuerpo y mi mente yacen encerrados en una caja de metal de la que ni tengo la llave. El que me arrastra no tiene nombre, ni rostro, ni alma… Es un esbozo anónimo de lo que fue ser yo. No lo reconozco. No puedo. Necesito… necesito… el corazón para hacerlo.

I got tired of leaving crumbs on the path... I'm already lost and nothing I dropped behind my steps has helped me regain the path back to me. There is no return. There is nothing. In the distance, behind my back, looms a huge wall that has been getting bigger and bigger as I have been moving further away from me... There is no way to get through it and going back sounds absurd. There is no point in even turning my eyes there. There is nothing there. Nothing. But, this pain, the one that burns in my throat, in my eyes, in my cheeks, and haunts my lips, is real... so real it won't end... so real that it doesn't find an end point; it has been made of dot after dot, comma after comma, leaving me locked in a loop of eternal frugality and, as I move forward, I keep looking at the same figures that have tormented me since centuries ago; one after another have been forming at my sides, as they point to my chest and its lack, reproaching me for the reason of what I lost. "Yes, I left him behind and I'm getting further and further away from him...", I cry out to them as I walk with trembling, jaded steps. I'm not going back, I left it for a reason and those figures won't force me to look for it. What did I gain by having it? What did I achieve by using it? If my hands the only thing they did was to bleed, the same as my lips... If I keep walking it is because of this illusion that drags me towards nothingness, because I don't move, no... I don't do it. My steps are imaginary. My body and my mind lie locked in a metal box to which I don't even have the key. The one who drags me has no name, no face, no soul... He is an anonymous sketch of what it was like to be me. I do not recognize him. I cannot. I need... I need... I need... the heart to do it.

[latamclassiclitbracket]

Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada - Pablo Neruda

Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada es una de las célebres obras del poeta chileno Pablo Neruda. Publicado en junio de 1924, de la mano de la editorial nascimento, el poemario lanzó a su autor a la fama con apenas 19 años de edad, y es una de las obras literarias de mayor renombre del siglo XX en el idioma español. El libro pertenece a la época de juventud del poeta, su origen se suele explicar como una evolución consciente de su poética que trata de salirse de los moldes del modernismo que dominaban sus primeras composiciones y su primer libro, Crepusculario.

Lee más sobre esta obra en Wikipedia.

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair - Pablo Neruda

Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair is a collection of romantic poems by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, first published in 1924 by Editorial Nascimento of Santiago, when Neruda was 19. It was Neruda's second published work, after Crepusculario and made his name as a poet. Veinte poemas was controversial for its eroticism, especially considering its author's very young age. Over the decades, Veinte poemas has become Neruda's best-known work, and has sold more than 20 million copies. The book has been translated into many languages; in English, the translation was made by poet W. S. Merwin in 1969. It remains the best selling poetry book in the Spanish language ever, almost 100 years after its first publication. As of 2020, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Read more about this work on Wikipedia.

[marte-awqakuq]

La Transverberación de Santa Teresa de Jesus (The Transverberation of Saint Teresa of Jesus)

“Quiso el Señor que viese aquí algunas veces esta visión: veía un ángel cabe mí hacia el lado izquierdo, en forma corporal, lo que no suelo ver sino por maravilla; aunque muchas veces se me representan ángeles, es sin verlos, sino como la visión pasada que dije primero. En esta visión quiso el Señor le viese así: no era grande, sino pequeño, hermoso mucho, el rostro tan encendido que parecía de los ángeles muy subidos que parecen todos se abrasan. Deben ser los que llaman querubines, que los nombres no me los dicen; mas bien veo que en el cielo hay tanta diferencia de unos ángeles a otros y de otros a otros, que no lo sabría decir. Veíale en las manos un dardo de oro largo, y al fin del hierro me parecía tener un poco de fuego. Este me parecía meter por el corazón algunas veces y que me llegaba a las entrañas. Al sacarle, me parecía las llevaba consigo, y me dejaba toda abrasada en amor grande de Dios. Era tan grande el dolor, que me hacía dar aquellos quejidos, y tan excesiva la suavidad que me pone este grandísimo dolor, que no hay desear que se quite, ni se contenta el alma con menos que Dios. No es dolor corporal sino espiritual, aunque no deja de participar el cuerpo algo, y aun harto. Es un requiebro tan suave que pasa entre el alma y Dios, que suplico yo a su bondad lo dé a gustar a quien pensare que miento”

“Our Lord was pleased that I should have at times a vision of this kind: I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord’s will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful—his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying. During the days that this lasted, I went about as if beside myself. I wished to see, or speak with, no one, but only to cherish my pain, which was to me a greater bliss than all created things could give me.”

Gouache on paper. 42 cm x 29,6 cm. 2022.

On Instagram.

[aevyk-ing]

I'm bored and I need to get my mind out of stuff (life's getting impossible again, thanks), so I'm doing a whole bunch of questions to distract myself:

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

I tend to listen again and again to the last songs that I've discovered recently, so I'm going to share my favorite ones:

Patience- Take That

I want my tears back- Nightwish

Take on me- Aha

Spirit in the sky- KEiiNO

Moonlight shadow- Mike Oldfield

Yo contigo, tú conmigo- Álvaro Soler

2: If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

My soulmate.

3: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.

The book closest to me it's actually the last one I've written and I'm revising it so it's not published yet... I'm going to take the second nearest... huh, The Neverending Story:

Original line (Spanish): (Lle)vaba en la mano derecha una diminuta bandera blanca, que tremolaba a (sus espaldas).

Gonna search for the English version...

In its right hand it carried a tiny white flag, which glittered behind it. 

4: What do you think about most?

About how lonely and unlucky I am.

5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?

Morning!!@ thank you

It's from a group and they weren't talking to me.

6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?

Eh... skip!

7: What’s your strangest talent?

I can detangle the cord of headphones (the tiny ones) quite fast.

8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)

Okay, I'm actually having trouble with this one. Remember about my last book? It has a lot of gender identity issues, so...

9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?

Does it count if I'm the one who wrote it? I used to write a lot of poems while I was in high school and depressed (I still write some from time to time). And guess what? I collected some of them in a book.

10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?

LOL, last Tuesday. It's actually the last dance move in one of the songs from my Zumba videogame.

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

I have trypophobia.

12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?

Nope. But in my first nose surgery, they stuck like one meter of gauze there.

13: What’s your religion?

I'm baptized, but I don't believe in God since high school (guess why?). Right now, I define myself as a pantheist. I like to believe in the energy of the universe that surrounds us.

14: If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?

Doing errands.

15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

Behind.

16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?

Probably Nightwish, but KEiiNO has been fighting hard for the spot.

17: What was the last lie you told?

That I hadn't try the last sweets my mother bought. I had carefully opened the bag and took one the day before.

18: Do you believe in karma?

Yes. But I think it takes its time.

19: What does your URL mean?

First it was "aeviking", which was literally my two initials "AE", plus "viking". I used that name for my drawings and stuff. Since I change it to Aevyk, my URL is now "aevyk-ing", which is like "doing my own thing".

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

I have a really low self-esteem. I'm stubborn, so if I want to do something, nobody is going to stop me.

21: Who is your celebrity crush?

I don't have one. It used to be Orlando Bloom.

22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?

Nope.

23: How do you vent your anger?

I listen to really loud music and write.

24: Do you have a collection of anything?

Maybe books? I have too much stuff anyway (even thought most of it is in boxes right now).

25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

On the phone. It's bad enough trying to do your best when you don't see the face of the other person, but I hate seeing myself while video chatting.

26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?

I don't know. I'm glad I'm stronger and I've improved in a lot of ways, but I'm still not 100% (not even an 80%) happy with who I am.

27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?

Babies crying. Hearing the first notes of my favorite songs when they play on the radio.

28: What’s your biggest “what if”?

"What if I had known I'm neurodivergent sooner?"

29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

Not ghosts per se, maybe spirits or spiritual forces. I do think there has to be another planet with life, even though not in the way we expect it.

30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.

My stylus pen. My desk lamp.

31: Smell the air. What do you smell?

I think it's the rest of the watermelon milkshake I had one hour ago.

32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?

Anywhere with scorching sun and no shade, like that time I went with my sibling so they could skydive and I was so pissed off I was waiting in the sun they thought I was the one whose jump had been postponed.

33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?

Spain doesn't have an West Coast (we limit with Portugal there, if you don't count Galicia). If you're referring to the USA, I'm going to say East Coast.

34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?

Shawn Mendes.

35: To you, what is the meaning of life?

Finding what you will be remembered for.

36: Define Art.

Letting your soul show while creating.

37: Do you believe in luck?

I believe I have the worst luck ever, so I guess so.

38: What’s the weather like right now?

Sun, not a cloud in the sky, too hot for this hour and month.

39: What time is it?

19:52.

40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?

No, I hate driving (I wonder why?). I've had a lot of dreams where I crash my father's car.

41: What was the last book you read?

Howl's Moving Castle. It was nice, but too convoluted at times.

42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?

I don't mind it.

43: Do you have any nicknames?

Aly.

44: What was the last film you saw?

The Cat Returns. It was weird.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

I broke my nose when I was four years old. It was too bad my nose grew crooked and it needed several surgeries to make it look normal.

46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?

No. I like them, but they're still bugs and I don't like touching them (only ants because we used to have a lot of them in our garden).

47: Do you have any obsessions right now?

One of the Webtoons I'm currently reading: Your smile is a trap, Ghibli movies and the last songs I've discovered, including Escaping Gravity by TheFatRat.

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

I'm straight and ace.

49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?

Yes. A lot of them. All of them bad.

50: Do you believe in magic?

I try to, but it's getting hard to keep on believing. Also, I mean "magical" moments, like when you have some good luck or something good happens to you. For me, it happens almost never, so it does feel like magic.

51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?

Oh, yes. I don't forgive easily.

52: What is your astrological sign?

Leo, but I don't identify with it.

53: Do you save money or spend it?

Both?

54: What’s the last thing you purchased?

Some fabric for a commission.

55: Love or lust?

Love.

56: In a relationship?

No.

57: How many relationships have you had?

Zero (can we please switch topic?).

58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

Nope.

59: Where were you yesterday?

I went to a shopping mall.

60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?

A rubber or eraser.

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

No.

62: What’s your favourite animal?

Cats.

63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?

I try to make them smile.

64: Where is your best friend?

My ex- best friend? I'd love to know.

65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.

evermore-fashion, akindplace, justgotawesome, folkfashion and chibird.

66: What is your heritage?

I did a heritage test a while ago. I'm mostly Iberian, with North and East European blood. I also seem to have Jewish and Central American blood, according to my parents' tests.

67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?

Trying to sleep.

68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?

He doesn't have one.

69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?

(I had to Google the meaning) WTH? Skip!

70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?

I'd do everything for a friend, so I guess so.

71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?

Save the dog and take a picture so they know I have a good excuse.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

a)I won't tell anyone because they usually don't trust what I say. b)I'll put my projects in order and try to do what makes me happy. c)It might be because I'm feeling quite down right now but... sometimes, I wouldn't mind dying.

73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.

Love.

74: What’s a song that always makes you happy when you hear it?

The Nights, by Avicii.

75: What are the last four digits in your cell phone number?

1617.

76: In your opinion, what makes a great relationship?

Caring about what the other person wants and needs.

77: How can I win your heart?

Listen to me and hug me.

78: Can insanity bring on more creativity?

Yep. I don't recommend it, though.

79: What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far?

Going to therapy.

80: What size shoes do you wear?

A 38.

81: What would you want to be written on your tombstone?

Maybe one of the lines from my Legends of Gingaria books.

82: What is your favourite word?

I don't have one. But "rielar" comes to mind. It's the Spanish word for when the moonlight hits the water.

83: Give me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word; heart.

"Heart and soul..."

84: What is a saying you say a lot?

I don't know.

85: What’s the last song you listened to?

Escaping Gravity by TheFatRat.

86: Basic question; what’s your favourite colour/colours?

Blue. Also purple, turquoise and quinacridone.

87: What is your current desktop picture?

It came with the computer. It's a road in a field at sunrise.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?

Not going to say names but it's someone that has been hurting my family from a year or so.

89: What would be a question you’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

"What's wrong with you?"

90: One night you wake up because you heard a noise. You turn on the light to find that you are surrounded by MUMMIES. The mummies aren’t really doing anything, they’re just standing around your bed. What do you do?

I'd try to talk to them and show them the door.

91: You accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow you with the super-power of your choice! What is that power?

Shape-shifting.

92: You can re-live any point of time in your life. The time-span can only be a half-hour, though. What half-hour of your past would you like to experience again?

I'd go back to the worst time of my life and make sure it doesn't happen.

93: You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be?

What I said before. If you need to know, it involved my crush and the rest of my schoolmates. And it ended up with me depressed.

94: You have the opportunity to sleep with the music-celebrity of your choice. Who would it be?

Guess what? I'm sticking with Shawn Mendes.

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

Disneyland Paris.

96: Do you have any relatives in jail?

No. Two of them are actually cops.

97: Have you ever thrown up in the car?

According to my mother, once when I was little.

98: Ever been on a plane?

A lot of times.

99: If the whole world were listening to you right now, what would you say?

Read and buy my (Legends of Gingaria) books!

[esuemmanuel]

Hoy estoy en otra parte, en otro cielo, en otras nubes... El sol me cubre con el calor de sus colores y el agua de mis ojos me baña, purificando mis sinsabores. Hoy, el corazón me canta con la voz de mil gorriones y, en el centro de mi pecho, nace una rosa con el perfume que lleva Tu nombre... Hoy, el amor me habla y toma mis manos para pintarlas con el blanco de tus faldas... y me lleva a esos mares que, en la distancia, aguardan por los versos de mi boca... y la prosa de mi alma.

Today I am elsewhere, in another sky, in other clouds… The sun covers me with the warmth of its colors and the water in my eyes bathes me, purifying my sorrows. Today, my heart sings to me with the voice of a thousand sparrows and, in the center of my chest, a rose is born with the perfume that carries Your name… Today, love speaks to me and takes my hands to paint them with the white of your skirts… and takes me to those seas that, in the distance, await for the verses of my mouth… and the prose of my soul.

[baladaenmediodelacaceria]

La ciencia de la pérdida

Vi un total de tres veces a mi madre

en los dos años que duró la enfermedad

que se llevó a la única persona que me amaba incondicionalmente.

Me quedé muda cuando alguien

preguntó qué tenía. Tuve que decir no es grave,

se va a curar, tuve que decir los doctores no están seguros,

todo menos cáncer.

Un mediodía la vi recogiendo sus mechones de cabello,

se cayeron cuando los peinaba con cuidado en un intento

por cubrir su calvicie lo más que se pudiera.

Los vi caer a los pies del pequeño templo

que hay debajo de un espejo de cuerpo entero en su habitación.

Recogió los mechones y entrelazó sus manos

rezando, con los puños bien cerrados.

No sé qué pidió ese mediodía mientras rezaba

¿Pidió por la cura de su enfermedad?

¿Pidió que le volviera a crecer el pelo?

Creo que dijo que nunca le pase algo así a mi hija.

Que el pelo de mi hija crezca,

que viva, que viva mucho más que yo.

Poco después de su partida, revisé todos sus expedientes.

Escaneos, resonancias magnéticas, radiografías, revelación de tumores que matan

en un cuerpo que da vida.

Leí cada uno de los reportes, descifré su ciencia

descenso de corpúsculos rojos, recetas de Tarceva

antiácidos y antidepresivos,

índice de radiación, catarsis de quimioterapia,

dosis de fármacos, diarios del deterioro.

Aprendí y hablé el idioma del cáncer,

con la esperanza de que ella volviera

porque por fin había reconocido

su sufrimiento y su nombre.

He adoptado esta ciencia y la he hecho mía, cada vez

que toso, voy a WebMD y tecleo mis síntomas

un sarpullido que pica o una mancha debajo del ojo, absorbo

más ciencias para aprender sobre nuevas enfermedades

que tal vez podrían unirme a ella

me toco como dice la revista

en busca de masas o bultos extraños

pero sólo tengo un corazón hinchado

y una inflamada sensación de pérdida

que ningún examen de sangre puede diagnosticar

La ciencia de la pérdida

se pierde en mí

Preetti Vangani Versión al español: Brianda Pineda Melgarejo Link del poema:

The science of loss Preeti Vangani

I saw my mother for a total of three times

over the two years that she suffered from a disease

that took away the one person who loved me unconditionally.

I couldn’t gather words in my mouth, when someone

asked me what she was suffering from. I’d say it’s not serious,

she’s getting better, I’d say the doctors are still unclear

but never say cancer.

One noon I saw her collecting her locks of hair,

fallen when she tried combing them out thinly

to cover as much baldness as she could.

I saw them fallen in the feet of the little temple

that lies below a full-length mirror in her room.

She gathered up those clumps and folded her palms

in prayer, with her fists holding them tight.

I don’t know what she asked for, that noon in prayer

did she ask for this illness to recede?

did she ask for her hair to grow back?

I think she said, nothing like that ever happen to her daughter.

May my daughter’s hair grow long,

may she live long, may she live much longer than me.

Soon after she left us, I opened all of her files.

Scans, MRIs, X-rays, exposing life-taking tumors,

on a life-giving body.

I read each one of the reports, decoding their science

dropping of blood corpuscles, prescriptions of Tarceva

anta-acids and anti-depressants,

rate of radiation, catharsis of chemotherapy,

dosage of drugs, diaries of deterioration.

I learnt and spoke the language of cancer,

in hope that she might come back

because I had finally acknowledged

her suffering and its name.

I have taken this science and made it my own, every time

I cough, I go to WebMD and key in my symptoms,

an itchy rash or an under eye spot, absorbing

more sciences to learn about new diseases

that could potentially connect me to her

I touch myself like the magazine says

to look for odd lumps and swellings

But all I have is a swollen heart

and an inflamed sense of loss

no blood test can diagnose

The science of loss

is lost in me