I, who am also suffocating from the gallop of the drugs,from the men kissing next to me, from the angst that he never came back from the bathroom, had desperately left to look for him, I see him with his fly down, his long, beautiful dick swinging, his eyes dramatically lined, his arrogant stride, his flowing hair and the tattoo on his chest, his fingers caressing the paper with which he’ll load the pistol, the sun rising.

I dreamed about him yesterday.

He and the man from the cave are the same.

One talks, the other understands, one nods, the other laughs.

An amorous monster exaggeratedly watching me.

21

THE DAY I GOT PREGNANT was the last day in July. The last day I visited the cave. It was all the semen. And all the love (clichéd, I know). Chespirito died that day. Three weeks later she told me: you’re pregnant. A nurse with slicked-back hair told me. She asked my age. I left the lab knowing something inside me was starting to die and felt strangely happy. Something tiny was on a path toward its death. I knew I couldn’t tell the man from the cave we were having a baby. I knew I couldn’t run away. I also knew I couldn’t go through another abortion. I knew I couldn’t have the baby. I knew time was splitting in two and that I couldn’t stay pregnant. I pictured myself watching the landscape: houses with windows, curtains, people walking inside, and my baby’s pale face sleeping in a car. Me breast-feeding him, again and again. Right breast. Left breast. A never-ending chore like washing the dishes. As never-ending as the warmth I feel when I look at the baby, like he’s a stranger I fall madly in love with, a heartwarming monster. Enslaved and battered by the hunger, by the voracity of his mouth. I pictured myself waiting for a cry. Touching his nose. Placing my hand on his inflated chest to check that he’s breathing. I pictured myself contemplating his old beauty, his little wrinkles, his long fingernails. Right breast. Left breast. I pictured myself pulling at the fuzz stuck to his hands. I pictured myself carefully pulling it off and smelling it. Then I pictured myself smelling his head and his neck, pictured myself cleaning out his thigh rolls, bringing my hand up to my nose to smell what came out. I pictured myself looking at the little feet, pressing my fingers against those soles, rubbing between the toes, cleaning his butt cheeks, holding the baby close. I pictured myself hugging that little body with all the weight of mine, squeezing the air out of him. I thought about killing him, but I couldn’t do that either, so I only thought about it for a second. Later, I imagined my tongue running over his whole body, polishing his head, back, butt, and then I pictured softly squeezing him, quieting his cries at night. Right breast. Left breast. In the afternoons, smacking his back with restrained fury, during the day changing diapers, observing the amount of shit—also never-ending—and wondering about the trash we’re producing, wondering about people, about the excess of people and shit, and I pictured myself next to a child without a face, or a face that only had eyes and soft skin, the soft face and stroller. The baby stroller. And I imagined myself at the birth. I’ve seen a birth, and it sent me spiraling into a black hole. I watched a video of a woman giving birth and felt nauseous even though it wasn’t me or anyone I knew, and it was like I was falling into the thickness of the pain. As I remembered the video, I pictured myself looking into the eyes of the baby that had just slid from my vagina, feeling his hard little body emerge from my hips, his bones formed of my bones. I imagine all this now and understand the baby must be born, I must feed him until my breasts fall like two hunks of flesh to the floor and I have to scoop them up to put them in my bra. The baby must come out, and I’ll catch him to care for him or throw him into the fishbowl I’ll have lovingly prepared for him: algae, an artificial respirator, and colorful stones. He won’t have a father, or he’ll have several, none his own, and then he’ll find his or invent one, like almost all of us do. And I’ll love what comes, period. Then I say yes, I’ll have it. But I immediately regret it because the panic is stronger. I can’t have a baby.