I went to a writing workshop given by a Nicaraguan writer named Arquímedes González Torres. I wrote a short-short story in Spanish! This is a new use of Spanish for me. Usual I speak functional, day to day Spanish. It was exciting and challenging to try to use my second language to convey something more evocative and suggestive. Here it is with a translation.
100 Maneras en que un Viejo Puede Morir
Había un hombre viejo sentado en una silla plástica en el patio tomando un cafecito. El estaba pensando sobre una flaquita morena que conoció por tiempo corto cuando tuvo diez y ocho años. No la había visto a ella por cincuenta años, pero no había una semana durante todos los años en que el no tenia la imagen de ella en su mente.
El miró a la planta de pitaya. Había fruta madura. Hace cuarenta años un murciélago cagó en la parte superior de la pared y la planta creció. El viejo ha estado comiendo fruta deliciosa de esta planta para medio de su vida. El trajo su escalera de madera y su machete. Subió para cortar la fruta.
La esposa gritó, “?Viejo, que estas haciendo? ?Estas loco? No tiene veinte años. A su edad, cada día, hay cien maneras en que usted puede morir.”
El viejo bajó y presentó la fruta a la esposa. “Aqui tienes, mi corazón,” le dijo, “por favor hazme fresco.” Regresó a tomando su cafecito negro, fuerte y dulce. El nieto estaba dibujando con tiza en el piso. La esposa estaba cantando en la cocina un canción sobre flores y pájaros. Así es la vida del viejo, pero también el tuvo una vida de memoria donde una chica flaca, sin zapatos, esta besando sus labias y el corazón de este hombre todavía tiene diez y ocho años.
100 Ways An Old Man Can Die
There was an old man seated in a plastic chair in his patio drinking a cup of coffee. He was thinking about a skinny, dark skinned girl he knew briefly when he was eighteen years old. He hasn't seen her in fifty years, but during all those years there hasn’t been a week when he hasn't had the image of her in his mind.
He looked at his pitaya plant. There were ripe fruit. Forty years ago a bat shit on the top of the wall and the plant grew. The old man has been eating delicious fruit from the plant for half his life. He got his wooden ladder and his machete. He climbed up to cut the fruit.
His wife yelled, “Old man, what are you doing? Are you crazy? At your age, everyday, there are a hundred ways you could die!”
The old man came down and presented the fruit to his wife. “Here you go, my heart,” he said to her. “Please make me juice.” He went back to drinking his black, strong, sweet coffee. His grandson was drawing with chalk on the floor. His wife was singing in the kitchen a song about flowers and birds. This is what the old man’s life was like, but also he had a life of memory where a skinny, barefoot girl is kissing his lips and where his heart is still eighteen years old.
(The illustration is an old drawing I made about ten years ago.)
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