The procession marched along a smoldering maize field. The stubble was set ablaze in early March to get the soil ready for sowing. The townsfolk of Güémez—some eager for further intellectual stimulation, some not having anything better to do—had exited the temple and gone to see the man who sat on a rock.
As was often the case on Sundays, on that far edge of the field, the man found himself surrounded by a crowd eager to be amused by his ramblings—and the ensuing heckling.
“We do what we do ‘cause we are what we are. We are what we are ‘cause we do what we do,” he said.
Some of the adults assented. A child scratched his chin. A red-billed pigeon cooed overhead.
“Problem is, by the time we start doing, we’ve already been. Been for a while.”
Gloria, an alcoholic spinster with no chill, frowned. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh well, that's mighty comforting, isn't it? I guess my mother was a whore because grandma didn't give her the tit.”
“Perhaps.”
“My ex-husband ran away with her because he got tequila instead of milk.”
“Unlikely.”
“Oh no, no! Poor babies, I'm just going to forgive them both.”
“Would you? Acting paradoxically, just to prove a point, sounds exactly like something you would do, Gloria.”
A child stepped forward and raised his hand. “What about Superman?”
“What about Superman indeed.”
“I mean, imagine I wanted to become someone else.”
“Superman.”
“Yeah, and I like, acted parxodially on purpose. Could I, you know, transform?”
The red-billed pigeon landed on a nopal next to the rock.
“You know, there’s an answer to that, but I don’t want to tell you.”
“Why?”
“Cup-a-coo, cup-a-coo,” the pigeon said.
“I don’t know. I just don’t want to. I really wish I were the kind of person who’d want to want to tell you.”
“Can’t you just choose to want to tell me?”
“Oof, sorry, kid. I really wish—” The red-billed pigeon pecked at the philosopher’s scalp. He swatted at it twice, then abdicated to the bird. “—that I were the kind of person who’d want to choose to want to tell you.”
“But—”
“Alas, I’m not.”
A rock came flying from the rear of the crowd.
The pigeon flew out of the way.
The philosopher didn't.
He died of a brain hemorrhage later that day.
— Bastian Espada