On the distance

Beyond the sunset on the west

Tag: creative writing

July 31, 2025

The Gospel of the Stranger

He’s just a man, or he pretends to be. He’s got one of those faces you forget, that look like someone or anybody. You will pass him at the market, maybe, or going out of church after Sunday mass, but later when your uncle mentions some guy he knew at the service, you realize he’s talking about the same face. It’s the voice that clicks, though. It’s too smooth and the words he uses are from another time; too sophisticated for a simple chat. You will find him charming, even handsome. People listen to him. He is clearly trained in science, and somehow also knows the scriptures by memory. Not only that, yet when artist met him he will slam some poetry and with the veterans he will share a drink and remember all about war.

But if you stand too close to him and put a little of attention; something shifts. The air around him feels older than it should. His voice carries echoes you cannot really place. You realize, slowly, that while you remember seeing him, you cannot remember him arriving. And when you ask others, those who swear they met him before, their stories never quite align. He was here yesterday. He was here a decade ago. He has always been here, and he has never stayed.

His eyes catch light but do not hold it. They are dark; not brown, but more like a pair of black marbles that swallow the room. When he meets your gaze, there is a recognition without empathy, attention without care. You have the unsettling sense that he is looking not at you, but through you, at something you cast that you cannot really see yourself.

He has crossed deserts on foot and passed through towns so forgotten, even time stopped saying their names. He has worn the garments of judges and whores, walked through jails without chains.

He helps build empires, uncover nature’s truths, raise temples that touch the sky; only to watch their rulers burn it all down, brick by brick, until nothing remains but ashes and blood.

He is no mere destroyer. The ground he scorches does not stay barren. Out of the ashes, men discover new beginnings, and with their need to rebuild, new inventions eventually come. He whispers of fire, and from fire they learn how to cast iron swords. He speaks of absence, and in absence they search for community. He shows them ruin, and from ruin others see opportunities.

He gives freely, yet nothing he gives is without a price. For each revelation you lose a feeling , for each tool the envy of others , for each truth a burden no soul was meant to bear. He teaches not to comfort, but to sharpen. He points to the exit, but he does not open the door.

What he takes is always singular: the one thing that made you hesitate. A father’s last words. The face of the first man you killed. The weight of consequence. He leaves you free; free to act without the friction of doubts, free to build without the burden of guilt. And you will build, higher and faster that you ever imagined. Until you realize that what you’ve built has no doors, and you are alone inside it.

A secret costs you a friend’s name. A fortune costs you the memory of poverty, and with it, all compassion for those close to you . He leaves you with power. With knowledge. With everything you asked for, and the inability to remember why you really wanted it.

And sometimes I wonder if he wonders too; whether his purpose is only to unmake. For he has witnessed the flowers that grow in the his tracks. He has seen cities rise on the bones he left behind. Creation is not his aim, yet creation follows him as surely as carrion follows war. Perhaps that is why he smiles, on those rare occasions he loses. For in loss he is not ended, but new opportunities that come with the passing of time.

He speaks in riddles or not at all. Every word has a purpose, every silence gives a moment to his ideas to settle in.

There are whispers of him in every language spoken by men. He has no home yet feels familiar wherever he appears.

Some seek him out. But he is not to be summoned, not to be found.
Wherever men speak of revenge, conquest, gold, or glory; he is already there.

He takes no pride in his actions , nor pleasure in the devotion of those who admire him.
But he thrives in the slow, unseen undoing of those who want to stand apart.
He is not interested in loyalty, only in influence.
A silent partner. A patient investor.

I have seen him. And I know you have too. He was there in the moment you called necessary. When the cost of your ambition fell to someone else, and you let it. He offered his hand, but it was your finger on the trigger. And by the time you realized it is not what you really wanted, you are already at his service.

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January 16, 2019

Write something and then not

Stuttgart , November 2013

We weren’t the best coders neither the best at managing a website, but for a time everybody was able to enter write something and collaborate in our endless-senseless writing. It was an annoying twitter for letting go our creativity and improve our writing skills. Somehow, it became a place to relieve secrets, tell amazing short stories, and let our feelings pour out.

One day the serves we had went down and most of the data was lost and many amazing short fragments coming from the hearts of random strangers with them. Bringing back the data was expensive and the book we planned wasn’t very successful. Eventually, we gave up and the server flashes a forbidden error.

I still refresh it sometimes, hoping that it will work out even though I was the owner of the server and I imagine some people still refresh it up to today and that we all connected with a single click and the little disappointing that it produces.

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November 16, 2018

The unseen truth

Monterrey, March 2010

Through life, people tend to focus on what’s near them. They move forward without noticing the crude reality that surrounds them, as if they were horses with blinders following whatever direction the carriage pulls them toward. I was no different. My life drifted without major worries or real problems, deaf to the noise that filled the news and social media. My concerns were trivial; chasing girls at the club, getting drunk at some frat party. I thought that was life; simple, harmless, endless. But reality creeps closer without sound; it waits until it’s too obvious to ignore. Deep down, though, you always know it’s there.

It was late, and the afterparty wasn’t good enough. My throat was dry, the booze was running out, and the pretty brunette I’d spent the whole night talking to wouldn’t give me more than a kiss. Disappointing, but fair. The yuppie friend hosting the afterparty bored me, and it was time to call it a night. My car was parked a few blocks away, and to my drunk self, the idea of walking didn’t seem so bad.

The sky was still dark as I left the apartment complex. The main street was silent, except for a few distant dog barks and the faint rustle of leaves touched by the dawn’s first breeze. I walked without thinking, without caring. My consciousness drifted, blurred by alcohol and fatigue, and for a brief moment, that numbness silenced the questions that usually haunted me who I was, what I was doing questions that never had clear answers anyway.

A block later, I saw it: a black Jeep with tinted windows parked in front of an old abandoned building. Two men stood by it, smoking. Something about them felt wrong. I looked away and kept walking; a fool pretending not to notice.

One of them turned.

“Hey, man, come here and help us with something!” he shouted.

He wore an oversized white shirt, baggy black pants, Jordans, and a Yankees cap straight out of a cliché, but clichés exist for a reason.

“Sorry, man, I’m in a hurry,” I replied, quickening my pace.

He started walking toward me, saying something else, but I didn’t wait to listen I ran.

Two blocks ahead, I saw a police checkpoint. Salvation, or so I thought. I ran harder, my mind sobering with the rush of adrenaline. For an instant, I believed it was over. Then the Jeep roared beside me, tires screeching, cutting me off. The same guy stepped out, shouting:

“I told you to come here, motherfucker!”

He didn’t show a gun or a knife, but I didn’t need to see one to know what came next. I turned and ran again.

All the violence I had heard about the kidnappings, the killings, the disappearances suddenly took shape. It was no longer a story told by someone else. It was here, breathing down my neck. I waved frantically at the road, begging for someone to stop. A taxi did. I jumped in and told the driver to head toward the university; campus security was nearby. For a moment, I thought I’d made it.

Then the Jeep pulled alongside us. Through the window, one of the men yelled at the driver:

“Stop if you don’t want trouble! We just want that bastard!”

Without hesitation, the driver stopped. He didn’t look at me and just unlocked the doors.

“Please, man,” I begged. “The police station’s close. Just drive.”

He met my eyes in the rearview mirror. There was sorrow there, but also fear.

“Sorry, mate. I can’t risk any trouble.”

The men stepped out of the Jeep, moving toward us. My heart pounded, and I knew if they got me, it wouldn’t end well. Fear sharpened my will. I threw the door open, slamming it against one of them, and ran. Ahead, I saw the guard post of an apartment building. A man stood outside, smoking.

“Let me in! Call the police! it’s an emergency!” I screamed.

He hesitated but opened the gate. I rushed inside, slamming it shut as the men yelled, trying to convince him I was a thief. But the guard wasn’t stupid. He looked at me once and knew enough.

He called the police. The men left after a while.

Later, I learned the Jeep was found days after—riddled with bullet holes, floating near the river. Apparently, a bigger fish had swallowed them whole.

For weeks, I couldn’t walk alone without watching my back. The world felt thinner, more fragile. That night stripped away the illusion that life was normal, that danger was something distant, belonging to headlines and strangers. I understood then that ignorance isn’t peace; it’s blindness.

Things could have been worse. They weren’t. I ran with luck… luck that many others in Monterrey didn’t have in those years the years of the war on drugs.

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October 9, 2018

As paths crossed

Rather unexpected and driven more by luck and casualty, she bumbed into me and gave me a warm smile. Her big eyes, infinte, starred at me reflecting the neon lights around us. The music and noise of the crowd went mute as we stood there silently looking at each other as we drew closely. An unplanned rencounter at the end of the summer,out of a cheezy movie script. And then we kissed, when I realized that my past & future didn’t matter and that for now on I could feel free and once again my heart took the wheel for the upcomming ride, a ride where my fingers slided through her blonde hair and my lips followed hers in an almost syncrhonized dance.

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September 14, 2018

The meeting room’s window

Stockholm, September 2018

I’m sitting in a meeting room, wearing a dark blue suit with a white shirt without a tie. Actions plans are discussed, a budget plan is proposed and a connection with our international partners is made. My colleagues speak and even though I am listening, my view is lost in one of the big windows. We are sitting in one of the tallest buildings of the city (which if you compre it to any industrial city is not that tall) in one of the upper floors and due to the flatness of the skyline and the lack of ugly glass skyscrapers I am able to see how the city spreads with its black metal roofs through the islands that and beyond them the archipiélago  seems not to end in the distance.

A plan is made, a critical path is analysed, someone is worried about the deadlines, the schedule is changed, their voices fade as my sight is lost between the boats sailing, the blue trains going back and forth in between the islands, and the people that look like little dots. I’m sitting here, but I am not really here. I have pursued to be here, but a side of thought of be somewhere.

I comment, collaborate, propose and discuss, yet I am a preconceived version of myself. The water reflects the white clouds and the birds fly down and up the water hunting for distracted fishes, while a part of my consciusness flies with them, away from what I call my life, away from who I am supposed to be.

Hands are shaken, roles are proposed, and everybody leaves the meeting room. As I walk through the corridor I look once again into the distance behind the glass window. I’m here but I am also there, because that is how I have always been, nowhere.

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Quote | Featured

Behind the words

“Behind this sad spectacle of words, unspeakably trembles the hope that you read me, that I didn’t die completely from your memory” – Julio Cortázar

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July 15, 2018

Beyond the desert plateau

Real de Catorce, May 2016

I ride at dawn passing by the peaks which mark the limit of the town, leaving behind our group, leaving behind the familiar into the dusty planes that extend beyond the horizon. The air still fresh from the dying night hits my face as I ride knowing I am going nowhere and my horse gallops at a firm phase through the bushes.

I pass by the old railroad station, far into the plateau, far away from any road. The sun rising up in the clear sky, warming the soil and with it the sounds of the animals hidden in the nature, singing like a coordinated orchestra with a feral touch. There were no signs or men, just the face of nature and its creations dwelling in the bushes and through holes along the soil.

I ride along the high mesas and the ground resounds under my horse hooves and he gallops faster as I slightly press him with my boots. Our blood heated as the sun warmed our skin and our mouths dry up and our breath becomes heavy. I turn into the old hill road and he goes anxious as if he knows our time is coming to an end and I know that what I was seeking to discover in the desert was a think that I’d always knew; that our shadows would never be one again and that my future was beyond the distance under a different sky, in which we will not ride again.

I ride through the old mining compound, silent and abandoned through the times of the revolution and I take down the mounting of my horse and we both drink water from the small pound under the ruins of the old mill. I look at his big brown eyes that seem calm, yet he looks at me quietly as if he know my heart was full with sadness. We stand there without making much sound as the cold breeze of the nearby mountains cools down our bodies and I prepare the mount again to head up into the old road.

We encounter cowboys and their cattle, jeeps full of tourists ready to venture in search of peyote, and later on I hear the bell of the church marking the entrance back into civilization and I ride back to the old hacienda, where my friends and family are having breakfast. I leave the horse at the stable with the other horses and he looks back at me from the fence quiet and still as if he knew we will not ride again, as if he was saying goodbye.

——

Stockholm , July 2018

Goodbye old friend.

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June 23, 2018

Train ride to nowhere

I’m sitting in the restaurant car of a train. The window reflects a landscape I can’t name. It could be the mountains of the Sierra Madre, but the signs inside the carriage are written in Cyrillic, and the air is too cold for summer. I’m wearing a slim black suit, sipping a gin and tonic that tastes better than it should. My head feels ready to burst, my heart beating too fast, as if I’d just snorted two clean lines of Peruvian snow. The train is empty. Time isn’t moving; only the train is. I don’t know where it’s going, but it feels like I’ve been here before.

You’re sitting across from me in a blue dress, your hair falling over your shoulders. You stare without expression. I can almost see your sadness floating behind your eyes. I reach for your hand, but you slip away and laugh instead, lifting a glass of red wine that wasn’t there a moment ago. The train begins to move faster. The cold turns into heat, unbearable and slow, and yet you seem untouched. The world outside shifts into an endless desert, pale and trembling under the sun.

From somewhere, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by Iggy Pop starts playing through the speakers. You laugh again and take my hand, this time with a grip that burns. I want to kiss you, but I can’t move. My body feels like glass. You’re still laughing when confetti begins to fall from nowhere, spinning in the air like dying snowflakes. The train races forward, and the desert outside catches fire.

“It’s the last time,” you say, almost whispering. “But not like the other last times. This is truly the last.”

“I don’t know if that’s how it’s supposed to happen,” I tell you. “Or if I can promise it ever was.” Tears gather in my eyes, but I can’t cry. I just smile, as if smiling could make it easier.

You tilt your head and sigh. “There isn’t much to say. Things become what they were always meant to be. You should go wherever this ride takes you…with or without me.”

You rise and come closer, kiss me like you did the first time: quick, sudden, full of light. Then the confetti burns into ash. The air smells like iron and smoke.

“There are no goodbyes,” you say as you walk toward the next car, already swallowed by fire. “Only jumps into different futures that sometimes meet again.”

You step into the flames. They don’t consume you. They just absorb your shape until you disappear completely.

Now I’m alone. The train rushes into a tunnel. Fire covers everything, but it’s cold, like snow that burns without smoke. My heart hurts, but I can’t move. Darkness fills the windows. I know I can’t follow you.

I start crying because I remember—I’ve been here before. I always reach the station alone. The train breaks through the tunnel and stops. The flames vanish. I find myself in an unnamed Eastern European city, the kind that doesn’t exist on any map. I wait for the next train to arrive, though I already know it never really does.

Then I wake up. The ceiling above me is white. The bed beside me is warm, but it isn’t you. I wonder if you wake beside someone else, and if, in the quiet moment before morning, you ever think of me…or if I’ve faded, like the confetti, into the air.

I make coffee and move through the day. The world lands slowly through my window , as if it’s still shaking from the rails. By evening, the memory begins to dissolve, until it returns again, uninvited, on another nameless night when I’ll find myself back on that same train.

Maybe you’ll be there or maybe not.

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January 30, 2017

Story: Something in this night. Part 1

It was dark as I looked from my window. The people kept moving and the cars were noisy. I scrolled through my social media: dinners, afterworks, friends, family, cats, political statements, and publicity. My phone kept ringing, my group chats flooded with notifications. I sat in front of my computer, frozen, silent, wondering about the night to come,   wondering about what is gonna happen. I grew anxious, as any other weekend night.

It has been been two weeks since I had sex, its  been thirteen weeks since I left home, its been 730 days since the last time I felt in love. It was 3 hours before midnight, my lips were dry, and my head feel like it was about to explode. I left, in a haste. I walked outside, it was cold. What I am going to do?  What I am expecting? I asked myself. I walked down Götgatan, crossing the junkies getting drunk.  I passed two hipster girls who looked at me and smile. My cheeks were freezing, my mind was lost, and my anxiety started to settle down as I walked down to the subway station.

What is going to be? Is it going to be another night? Is it going to be nothing? Like every other night, like every fucking time? I rushed into the trains as the doors were about to close. I saw myself at the reflection in the window as the train went into the darkness of the tunnel. What is this night unless I do something?

I turned around, my phone rang again: My friends wanted to meet and I had to pretend that I am having a great time; like any other fucking night. I fixed my hair in the windows reflection just before the train stopped. Or maybe something will happen?  Is it gonna be different to any other place or any other time? I resisted my thoughts and walked outside, fast. It started snowing as I walked through the street, my lips were dry.

I arrived to the place. I met my friends. The music was loud and I grew thirsty. I trembled, a cold sensation ran through my back, and my hands felt warm.

As I walked through the crowd, my senses felt sharper. Could maybe something happen or is it going to be just boring? I walked outside and lighted a cigarette.

The dark cloudy sky cleared out as I stood in the smoking area.

Is it full moon tonight? – A brunette with blue eyes asked me while approaching me.

It is gonna be something, I guess – I answered as I smiled and the moon shined through my contact lenses.

What do you mean? – asked the brunette confused as I stood facing here.

That it is not going to be like any other night – I answered. – Do you want to have a drink? It is on me – I said, as I started to walk inside.

Mmm.. sure, why not? – She told me as she walked next to me back inside.

In other news:  A middle-aged woman was found dead near the bridge in the middle of djurgarden. The police stated the probable cause of death may be of blood loss due to injuries suffered by an attack of a wild animal, most likely a wolf. The process of identifying the victim is underway as the injuries made harder for recognition, a forensic dental examination may be needed; stated the police department in their twitter account . Animal Control authorities have been notified and the visitors of the park have been warned of wild animals during the nigh inside the park premises.

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