THE
BURNING SANCTUARY

Hernan Ergueta

The Burning Sanctuary

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2015 Hernan Ergueta

Translation from Spanish to English: Ruxandra Lungu /
English correction: Daniela Aponte /
Spanish correction: Ana Peñaranda

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4689-5826-3 (ebook)

1
AS AN INTRODUCTION

There are times when you suddenly feel like you do not belong in this world, and so you decide to go somewhere else. This other place is a mountain, and it is closer than you think. I cannot tell you how to get there, but I am sure that you will find out if you do not already know.

You see, at this moment I am trying to explain the unexplainable, to tell a story. I am not sure when it began, and yet I know that it will end in tragedy, and since I am all alone with nobody around to listen, I have no choice but to tell it to myself over and over, time and time again, and to make out, through the tears in my eyes, that yearned-for mountain with the sanctuary perched on its peak, its trodden path and brownish-grey rooftops, and that moribund tree rising towards the heavens. The place of sleeping dreams.

Nobody brings any luggage when travelling to this mountain, only the verses that lovingly come to mind after a long period during which the words were created in silence. Nobody says goodbye when leaving for this mountain, just as almost no one does it when surrendering to death. Leaving without saying goodbye is like a sudden death: a quick escape and an unexpected adventure. It marks the end of the habit of being, that prolonged suicide we call life that we leave behind to take up our places among the dead.

Those who live here know this without fully realizing it, and yet look at them: they inhale and exhale involuntarily. Could they ever forget to breathe?

2
THE BURNING SANCTUARY

In the distance I saw the sanctuary, that sanctuary that emerges engulfed in flames from a mountain on the horizon, and that is when my heart broke into pieces, for at that moment noon was midnight and midnight was noon, and both were one and the same thing. The sun and the moon were shining together, and the neighbouring stars were leaning over the roof amidst a hurtful, deathly silence.

Only a human being on the verge of dying can live in such a sanctuary. Pay attention, and listen! When it speaks, it is even quieter than when it hushes, as if it sought to scare with silence the most terrible thoughts and the most unfathomable ideas.

The insanity in this garden of lunatics can be seen clearly, its seed having spread, sprouted, and given birth to clots that grow everywhere.

The worst thing about this madness is that you are aware of it, of its slow crawl and its rhythmical creaking. How can I describe it? I love it, except for when I hate it. Then all is fear and all becomes nothing, absolutely nothing. I wander the streets eternally, again and again, searching for who knows what, anxious for night to fall and for dawn to hide, as if I were building castles in the sky only to then destroy them by throwing stones at them.

Every day, the bloody placenta of my births breaks off into more and more pieces, on the stone on which it was beaten and on the flower petals on which it was laid out to dry. Those of us who used to be alive are now quiet, knowing that there is no use crying anymore because the silence that reigns is filled with wails and sobs.

The sanctuary is on fire, but it no longer lights up. The red sky is reflected in the ground and in the colour of my eyes, of my now skinless muscles without a soul, which turns into a permanent hunger that is no longer hungry but rather suffering continuously. This eternal sinking feeling in the gut is like a prickling memory that cannot be forgotten or explained, like a dream from which we could never awaken.

The sanctuary is burning on the hill and invites us in to live and die in it forever, in this garden of lunatics, surrounded by all the memories that are buried alive beneath tombs of living flesh.

3
THE LOGBOOK

Logbook of life in the quadrant of death, tragedy is written in ink that is sightless. From where I stand, the four cardinal points share the same horizon. For how much longer can I navigate across this restless and unsettling sea, adrift without a sail? The fog is descending, and another, darker one will surely follow it immediately. But for how much longer will the flame of life burn?

Logbook of life in the quadrant of death, tragedy is written in ink that is sightless. Up in the sky there is no more sun or moon in sight, no crescent moon, half-moon, waning moon or full moon, only the memory of the firefly and its frenzied flight that lulls and rocks me, lulls and rocks me, and when the delicate dance is over, death itself seduces me to sleep, always whispering the same words, always evoking the same cackles.

Logbook of life in the quadrant of death, tragedy is written in ink that is sightless. Why can the bitter pill of days, of sleepless nights and long-lasting pains no longer be made sweeter? The bow fills up with mist and the heaving line creaks on its cleat while the compass deviates, and its spinning red pointer admits defeat.

Logbook of life in the quadrant of death, tragedy is written in ink that is sightless. If pain is all that I have left and my destiny is my last consolation, then why do I not end up soon in a dream, perhaps falling from the sky in a shooting star or rising from the soaking crack in the deck of my ship? Why do you not appear through the fog and finally dock my vessel in your port, climb the mountain, close my eyes and forget my body in your fire?

Logbook of life in the quadrant of death, tragedy is written in my ink that is sightless.

4
DO NOT WORRY

Do not worry, it is nothing. Just sleep, my darling. Should death come to take you, I will come with you. I close your eyes, which no longer see me, I brush your hair, and I clean your skin.

Do not worry, it is nothing. Just sleep, my darling. Should death come to take you, I will come with you. I am left with your things, a handwritten note; the drawings and games are asleep too.

Do not worry, it is nothing. Just sleep, my darling. Should death come to take you, I will come with you. The sanctuary is in flames, and they are dancing around it while I try to look at you, learn you, and, in vain, memorize you. Do not worry, it is nothing. Just sleep, my darling. For your funeral is mine and you are buried in my skin.

5
EYNA IN A BOTTLE

For three months, Eyna has been growing and living inside a bottle, and she never leaves it. Eyna hugs a doll because she feels a bit lonely and a bit sad, too.

The bottle lies on the table in front of me, and when I let it out of my sight, I dream of it; when I cease to observe it, I imagine it, and I fear time and its alternating fast and slow passage. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to forget the pain; other times, I look at the glass covering it and feel imprisoned, so I turn my eyes away, and the emptiness sets in.

The sanctuary bursts into flames, and I feel my whole body shudder. Then, a sudden stabbing pain in my head releases all the worries, and the memories come flooding back.

“I´m afraid,” says Eyna from inside the bottle. “So am I,” I tell her softly, in a near-whisper, and no sooner do I utter these words than she begins to cry, at first quietly then loudly and openly. It is the much-feared cry, the one that enslaves me because I want to calm it, and so, desperately, I drink it sip by sip. But it is like blood, and may God forgive me for drinking blood.

When I finally reach the bottom of the bottle and take the last sip, she falls silent, smiles, and in a flash throws up a disturbing memory from my childhood before falling asleep, leaving me there watching her glow. Shh! Don´t wake her up. We must let her sleep to prevent her from crying again.

I drew her on a sheet of paper so that you may see her. She´s right over there in the bottle, on the nightstand by the bed. Watch what you say and think. She´s very sensitive, and you shouldn´t hurt her feelings. If you do, you better kill her and me as well since there´s nothing worse than hurting a lonely person. She´s only a child, and she´s my daughter, my little girl. Let her stay there with her doll inside her bottle. Tomorrow I´ll drink again to calm her cry and the reproachful voices in my head. The poor little one doesn´t know that we´ve been dead for a long time.

6
ON A ROADSIDE

I have pictured myself speaking to you on a roadside so often that it now seems like a dream that we are here talking about it, of all the moments I wanted to spend by your side, of how much I missed you, and of how relieved I was to imagine that we were talking on a roadside. I think that this is why we are here today, stealing sidelong glances at our silhouettes, trying to make up for lost time and in a way catch up on life.

Before, when I used to go to my room and lie down on my bed, the sanctuary would burn in the stillness of the night casting shadows on the ceiling through the window. Then I would blink, chase them and accidentally imagine that I was talking to you on a roadside. There, I would tell you about everything that had happened that day and you would always respond using the right words or, as you did today, with only a smile. And so I would just go on and on talking about the days, months and years that went by without you and the times when I imagined we were talking on a roadside.

Do you remember how my voice would always break off mid-sentence when I would speak, and then I would fall silent once again? You would notice this and turn your gaze to me, sensing my silence because I was crying, and suddenly I would feel you fading away into the air. I would try in vain to keep a clear image of your half-clouded face, and now… Now it is like a dream to have you here before me, to be able to see your pupils, the contour of your cheeks, the waves of your hair, but every time I think of this, the same thing happens: your smile merges into your face, covered by a veil that makes me dizzy, and a peaceful feeling comes over me. I sigh, open my eyes and make out the shapes on the ceiling, and then, just like yesterday, today and always, I blink and accidentally imagine that I am talking to you on a roadside.

7
THE CAT NAMED LONELINESS

All I can talk about are pain and death… and maybe also loneliness. I came across it one afternoon while I was roaming the streets aimlessly, searching for who knows what. Perhaps it found me? I cannot be sure, and maybe we found each other, but it does not even matter. All I know is that from the first time I saw it, I knew that its name was Loneliness.

So I picked it up and stroked its fur. It was so small that I tried to hide it in my pocket since I did not want anybody to see the cat called Loneliness, but it meowed and was so restless that it got away a few times. So I hid it in my arms and walked towards my room, went inside and locked and bolted the door. Then I placed it on the bed and offered it some water. In the distance, I could hear the news from a television and wondered what humanity and its news could possibly have to do with us. I pulled out a poem from my pocket and read it to the cat, which was drinking on and off quickly, with big licks.

Suddenly, the sun crashes in through the ceiling of my room, shattering my night into a thousand pieces, and it spills its fury all over my body, which cannot stand its fluorescent light. But finally, it releases all the raw suffering buried within me. My thoughts become muddled, and my logic creaks loudly as a result of the overly bright light. Light? I meant to say music. Yes, music, the dance of the cat named Loneliness! Oh, what beautiful music is made when I clench my fists in hatred, when violence debases me… these blows, these bells… listen to the bells, the violins and the choirs… what choirs!

My feet take over and start dancing a frenetic saraband to the rhythm of my now roaring fits of laughter. All the objects around me are talking to me and crying, laughing, and dancing as hot tears are streaming down my face. The burning house begins to sway, and the light spilling from the windows reveals the six cow faces of my darkness. The weeping moon sheds tears of blood as the poor, sickly stars look at the transformation of the word “tragedy” written on my quadrant.

And now… Now all is quiet because it is all over. The cat named Loneliness watches me with its only eye, enormous and red like a thousand aborted fetuses, its look impossible to bear. I let out a sigh and kiss its eyelid, forcing it shut. People say that cats have seven lives, and a philosopher once said that loneliness has seven skins. Nothing can pass through them!

The worst loneliness is the one that surrounds you when you are in a crowd, the one that purrs at your weak spot, and the worst thing about it is the terrifying feeling of emptiness, that inexplicable need and appetite for everything, the unquenchable thirst, and the pain that you cannot pin down and that hurts without being truly painful.

I look in fearful disbelief at my reflection in the mirror that I smashed. My fists are bleeding, and the deceitful shards of glass are telling their lies while a thousand dark thoughts are clouding my judgment, flying out of my mouth in the form of overly incoherent babbling that is sadly too close to madness.

At night, when death is the only consolation, the cat named Loneliness leaps down from the moon and comes in through a gap in my windowpane, climbs up on my bedsheet, meows, purrs and crouches on my neck, sinking its claws into me. In the morning, the cat called Loneliness leaves, and I am alone once again in that room in the burning sanctuary.

8
THE INDECISIVE TEAR

A tear got caught between my eyelid and my eyelashes, as if it could not decide whether to slip back into my eye or run down my cheek. I looked up at the sky so that nobody could see it because tears make people laugh inside.

The tear stayed put, fearful and indecisive, and to avoid stares I ran to the burning house and climbed to the crown of this tree in which I am now hiding. If you look carefully between the leaves, you will realize that only you can see me. So I climb higher and higher, but no matter how high I go, you stay in my thoughts.

From here, I can see my dreams better. Do you think that dreams live in the stars? They are so far yet so real. Though you will not believe it, it´s true: they are above the stars, and I´m trying to leave the ground, to take my flight and float up towards you, but I don´t know how to explain it. You see, sometimes something simple can be so complicated, so hard to express, but I don´t think that I am breaking any rules by hiding in the crown of a tree waiting patiently for my time to come.

Perhaps someday I will be blessed with buckets of luck or I will find a key to your heart; maybe someday I will be your happiness and fulfil an impossible dream, which will never come true. Although I know this, I cannot understand it, and this is the price of death.

Sometimes you appear to me in a dream in the early morning, right before I wake up; a moving melody sounds in the dark night, making my heart sink, and I sigh. My memory of you is like a caress or birdsong, a sweet feeling as tender and pure as it is incomprehensible, but the pain always assumes a different form, and now it presents itself as the fear that I will not see you again.

Night has fallen, and I feel slightly nauseated as I am bleeding and getting cold. How can I still stand living? Could I not stand my death? Forgive the silence of my fear, but this question resounds too much in me. I think that it is late, it is too late and I am sorry, but I feel that all is already too late around me.

Now that on the blade of the dagger I have bled, flow, flow, indecisive tear, and leave your trace of red.

9
A KIND OF FAREWELL

I have seen the future, brother, and death is all there is. If you light the spark, the fire will rage in all directions, and there will be absolutely no way of turning back. The sanctuary… The sanctuary will be in flames that will rise up high, freeing the body and the spirit, separating the pure from the impure.

If you are going to do it, do it. Do it now, do it fast.

Play the entire melody and not only the chords.

If you are going to do it, do it. Do it now, do it fast.

Make the cut deep, not shallow or superficial.

If you are going to do it, do it. Do it now, do it fast.

Do not be afraid because tonight, when the sanctuary is in flames, the moon will sing the most beautiful song of all, and I will allow my eyes to wander over the ocean on which I sailed back in my last dream. Do not be afraid, for tonight, when the sanctuary is in flames, the cold premonitory ointment of death will cover my skin and force me into silence, the heroic silence that hides the strong urge to ask for relief. Do not be afraid because all of this will happen when I let the sanctuary burn, and, in the presence of the fire´s dancing flames, a white light will seal the openings in the black casket. Do not be afraid, for tonight, when the sanctuary goes up in flames, will be the last night, and tomorrow we will become one again among the ashes, you will see.

I have seen the future, brother, and death is all there is. You have already lit the spark, the fire is raging in all directions, and, already, we have absolutely no way of turning back. The sanctuary… The sanctuary is in flames that rise up high, freeing the body and the spirit, separating the pure from the impure.