Muerto Parado

Violence consumes, violence unleashes, violence remembers.

Violence makes you and destroys you. When you are surrounded by it, you lose your sense of direction without realizing it — searching for peace in a valley of blood. There is no hope left: innocence has been deformed, and now it is you who must confess to not having killed.

As usual, I was helping my father in our small village — a place forgotten by God, so distant from civilization that anyone would think the memories of its inhabitants were buried in the thick of the mountain. Still, we tried to give life to that dead land by preparing and delivering meals to the laborers who worked in the remote fields, more than two hours away from the town square.

Our routine was simple: wake up, wash up, pack the lunches, and set off to deliver them. I hated walking at dawn along those dark trails, where the only sounds were the distant howls of wolves fading into the forest. The moon barely lit the path, but we knew it by heart. After several hours, we reached the farms, leaving the meals as hot as possible.

Around noon, at one of the farms, we were invited inside. For me, it was a blessing; for my father, a torment. The owner, Elíeser, had owed him money for months.

“Don Roberto, what a joy to see you!” he exclaimed with false cheer. “And look at this young man—already a grown man, strong and red-cheeked! You lack nothing, my friend, nothing at all.”

My father could barely stand him. Neither could I. We hid our contempt poorly, but unlike him, I didn’t know how to control my impulses.

When we were finally leaving, Elíeser stopped us with a strange request:

“Boys, don’t go yet. Do me a favor and take this lunch to Doña Martina, at the Los Nogales pasture. I’ll pay you well. And if you’d like, you can stay the night in my cornfields on your way back.”

Though it was another two hours away and the afternoon was already fading, we agreed. It had been a while since we’d visited Doña Martina. I noticed, however, that one of Elíeser’s sons set out in the same direction but stayed behind working at the farm. The glance was brief, and we moved on.

Exhaustion bent our knees. Between complaints about Elíeser, our voices faded until the silence of dusk settled on our shoulders. We finally arrived.

Martina wasn’t the same. She barely opened the door, greeted us coldly, and slammed it shut. When we turned around, we saw drops of blood trailing inside the house. We decided to leave.

The way back was worse. The mist was rising, darkness swallowing everything, and my father walked deep in thought. The night had claimed what belonged to it.

When we reached the corn farm, we entered utterly spent. The heat was suffocating — the corn was piled up to the second floor. I collapsed into sleep, but my father did not. Something dripped onto his shoulder, and after searching the house for a leak, he found nothing.

He climbed to the second floor. There, the unimaginable: Elíeser’s son was hanging from a nail that had pierced through his skull. We had seen him that very morning, yet his body was already showing signs of decay. The corn had absorbed the stench, which was why it didn’t smell of death. My father fled in terror and somehow managed to stay awake the rest of the night.

At dawn, he told me everything, and together we informed the police. But my father’s resentment toward Elíeser made him the prime suspect. They locked him up for five days, interrogating him — with no proof to condemn him.

The killer was never found. Since then, that farm has become barren. The earth itself decided not to bear fruit where a dead man once stood.