I think the best way to explain my life is twenty years of them I lived in Southern Mexico. From a young age the environment was rough and alien. Not only that but a few of the neighbors in the village indulged in the dark arts, witchcraft, bad jo jo! What ever the case it was something that enraged the young me. I would stomp and destroy effigies of magic or altars because I found them disgusting against the beautiful mountain ranges and couldn’t stand their presence contrasted with the beauty of the Southern Mexican moon.
there lived a man, my cousin Joaquin, he married a woman who wouldn’t eat food she hadn’t prepared and never ate with other people. Her father was a big influence in her life and they were inseparable. He had a home pretty much next door to their door, so small in fact the patios met out from the back door. It was through this door that Joaquin tells us he witnessed how they both would remove their legs to the light from a raging fire. He first noticed his wife was not next to him in bed. It happened with more and more frequency. This night he woke up and was present to their transformation. Their legs or if you can call the faint idea of legs, that can be removed and tucked away and placed where the imagination can only imagine. He saw them remove what makes humans be able to have locomotion and in place there were talons like some sort of carrion.
He didn’t hesitate he said he knew right away that it was the matter of brujeria. Witch Craft.
This was a common practice; brujeria. I still remember My friend back when were about nine or ten. He had 5 books. A red one, a black one, a white one, a green one and an orange one. Hate and Money was the green and orange. The red magic book he said was the bad magic. I did flip around the book i won’t lie. But it was a morbid curiosity. I found out early enough this was not something I wanted to do or associate with. But living in my village or town or whatever you call a pindrop in map. I still remember how strange it got in some remote place. Some tucked away spot not observed but only by the knowledgeable and intrepid local.
I didn’t mind watching over people’s crops or property if they were going somewhere or weren’t able to tend to them. I would take a shotgun and some dogs and some lights. But this particular time I wasn’t protecting and tending my own crops and by crops I mean the one’s of my family. This time I had agreed to watch a neighbor from a different farm in a different part of the town. I planned to go there after partying it up from a dance on that side of town. I followed my plan to the exact detail. It was a pretty good ways out of the closest path but it was better than walking back to my actual home which was farther and more dangerous and outright a worse alternative especially after partying and dancing. I was young but I had the guts and inexperience to agree to watch someone’s farm. I never told my neighbor I had been drinking because it had been so long before I considered my self drunk and besides what I remember cannot be attributed to alcohol.
I had finally finished my trek up to the farm and I was settling down in the shed. Comfy in the blankets and warmth from the knowledge I had inspected the property and the perimeter of the farm. I enjoyed farm work it is a nice way to take care of your home and reap rewards. I enjoyed making sure poachers wouldn’t come in and steal your crops. This time I had not what every poacher and thieve and general evil supplier fears….A shotgun! But the fact I didn’t physically possess a shotgun didn’t cause me to refrain from acting like I had one. Besides you don’t need to point a gun at a poacher to dissuade them from looting you. I did everything and finally retired to a comfy and welcoming patch in the shed that had been designed for relaxing in.
It was almost immediately after laying down that the phenomena began. I know I was tired but I was not dead tired to imagine what I saw. I did not drift off into the channel of the dream in the current of the absurd. I was awake, I was in a new place and unknown place. I was beginning to feel comfortable when I notice that there was someone or something in the front door.
The shed was a small little dwelling for the storing of tools and nutrient absorbent and producing mulch and other forms of feed for crops. I noticed someone bouncing back and forth, left and right. One leg then the next…The person was dressed in an outfit. A dark blue color that looked wet and reflective against the summer moon. I noticed the two appendages protruding from the top. I tried not to imagine a horrible thing. That they were antennae or even worse some eyes. It knew I was in there but it couldn’t get the door open. I only imagined the antennae and eyes as a worse case sceneario of a horrible monstrosity. In reality it looked like a man jumping back and forth.
I was able to fall asleep eventually due to exhaustion. I never have forgotten how growing up in Mexico during the 50’s was not only strange but scary and weird.
I’ve lived the rest of the life in the U.S. A metropolis of civilization and not a small village. The Blizzard of 1979 in Chicago was the first time I thought about writing about my experiences but I thought I was too young. Now I want to share my experiences