Bardo or Not Bardo

III. SCHLUMM

I was on a train; these things happen. I wasn’t traveling for pleasure. I had been entrusted with a task I had to carry out during the ride. An unpleasant task because it involved sending a man back into the nothingness whence he came forty-eight years before, like me, which is to say probably by mistake. It always sickens me a little to have to take out someone the same age as me and whose fate, deep down, could be compared from beginning to end with my own. I had been escorted until the last second and forced to climb into the car without any directions. It’s one of our hierarchy’s techniques, it rests on the conviction that, with each one of us perpetually lost in our own existence, there is no need to know where one is really going, especially when the vehicle in which one’s work will be carried out is being driven by someone else. Nonetheless, since I had struggled in the last few instants, I was able to wring out a few images and give myself an idea of the path I would be taking. I had been put on an urban line, in a large city, let’s say Hong Kong so as to say something and to respect the principle of verisimilitude on which it is customary to lay every narrative murmur. Let’s say on the line going from Mongkok to the sea. This line sees little use at certain hours. Clarifications can be whispered here without causing harm to the Organization, and even completely false clarifications always reassure the uncertain who are listening.

The train was moving. I was slouched in the same direction. Some claim that sitting in the opposite direction of one’s journey can cause serious physical distress. Until now I have never been sick on a train, I mean from the car’s lurching, or because I had been bothered by dusty smells or bodily odors. Admittedly, I was now having to travel under horrid conditions and in a state of physical and mental disrepair beyond the ordinary, but the sickness had already broken out or been incubating before I got on the train. In those days and nights, the mode of transport was therefore not relevant. It seems that certain illnesses are terrible when one travels. The bubonic plague, in particular, or beriberi, or even myonecrosis. I’m only citing the most well-known afflictions, obviously. In the case of short rides, the patient makes the best of a bad situation, but, when the journey becomes interminable, the symptoms are aggravated. Doctors have published on this, and not the least known of them at that. In my case, I was suffering from no major plague at that time. However, as soon as I took my place, I turned my chest and face toward the front, as if, instinctively, my body had dictated to me the best possible position to endure an accident or misfortune.

There was nearly no one else in the compartment when I boarded in Mongkok, and, after something like a minute, the Chinese passenger occupying the seat next to mine gathered her belongings and vanished. My outfit is disturbing, I know. My old monastic rags, which don’t always get taken to the dry cleaner, provoke negative reactions, aggravated by my preference for the squatting position, at the foot of the bench, though it is a natural and quite comfortable position. I happen to be questioned soon after I’ve settled. I’m pushed back by the tip of a shoe sole, someone fidgets, my presence is deplored aloud. As I am serving on orders and the Organization takes care of me on my return, I tolerate these humiliations valiantly. I absorb the insults without responding and, when there are blows, I take the blows. Faithful to the Chinese culture of fearlessness, the passenger had not let out any unpleasant remarks before disappearing. Like our instructors say, you can still escape beatings and, in any case in China, there are people who know how to live and let live.

I remained like this, squatting and shunted and in relatively good health, from Mongkok Road to Cheungwong Road, dozing in the long, dull hours.

A little after Cheungwong Road, Schlumm came into the compartment. At this period in his existence, that he had a human form was difficult to argue. It is true he resembled me greatly, which didn’t work in his favor. His destitute bonze rags stuck to his flesh and seemed to wrap right around his bones; it underscored the weird solidity of his frame and didn’t encourage making his acquaintance. He passed by me, not glancing at me, examined the area around the window as if he’d discovered a place of utmost importance, where perhaps he would have to spend several years in ascetic catatonia, then, having set-upon a course of action, he withdrew into himself abruptly and squatted against the ventilation system. He squatted in the opposite direction. His scarves and the very dirty rags clothing him, indigo, blackish brown, and very dirty, started flying and flapping around him. He extended an arm toward the air conditioning switch and cut the power. The rags fell immediately. Once there was calm among the fabrics, silence reigned, if one can call the din of railway journeys silence. I dozed off again; this lasted an hour or two.

The scenery went by indistinctly behind the window. Cheungwong Road’s sights had given way to Kamlan Street’s poorly maintained storefronts. My view of it was very fragmented, between two fits of sleep. I’d have to press my face against the window to get a better look. I had been avoiding the window area currently occupied by Schlumm. The window seat is often preferred, even if it sometimes means having to travel facing the wrong way, and thus risk falling ill. The passenger can see what’s passing by and thus thinks he can determine where he’s going. It alleviates his anxiety. However, when you think about it, the reference points you choose for yourself from external images are quite illusory. Illusory or unstable. Let’s take a simple example. Kamlan Street’s surroundings, for example, meld into Kamfong Street. Apartment buildings stand in similar upright positions; the same four-character wishes for happiness are above every door; the crowd’s Asiatic faces are all equally beautiful and touching viewed from the rooftops; the people all dress the same way. That’s why I prefer to stay near the ground when I want to gather reliable information. Near the ground, landmarks are fixed, whereas at window level, everything moves vertiginously. Near the ground, my geography relies on simple data, it’s limited to the metallic structures that dock seats to the floor. I can clearly see details lacking in momentariness, some hardened gum here, four black hairs rolled into a loop there, and, further away, a puddle of dark-gray dust. If there is anything that clears away my anxiety, it’s these modest elements, and the picturesque tread that doesn’t fade between lulls. I take comfort in that rather than in fleeting visions of architecture or crowds. Whatever it may be, as the end of the afternoon approached, I felt like going and observing what could be seen behind the window’s glass.

I rose, and, using my hands to keep myself from losing balance, I went toward the window. Twilight hadn’t yet completely overtaken the world, but I moved blindly, like I often did, which is to say without caring whether my eyelids were in an open or closed position. Certain mystics in the Organization insist that moving around by feel and while holding one’s breath offers fewer risks than other ways. Though I don’t always agree with these enlightened men, I admit that I’m not indifferent to such recommendations. I had already made decent progress when I heard Schlumm whine. My left foot was bearing down on a piece of his robe. I stepped several centimeters to the side and mumbled apologies.

“I wanted to see what was outside,” I explained.

“No reason to ignore what’s inside,” Schlumm said.

“Your robe was in the way,” I said.

“What robe?” said Schlumm. “That’s my skin.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I didn’t see.”

“Oh, you see?” Schlumm crowed in a sinister tone. “And yet, it’s inside.”

“Oh, inside, outside,” I said. “We’re not going to quibble. For the difference that. .”

I turned my attention toward the scenery and stopped talking. I made sure now to open my eyes wide. I had to grasp onto the crossbar to keep from stamping on Schlumm’s clothing or epidermis. The hour had changed, but the scenery had hardly done so since Mongkok Road. We were still in the city, surrounded by stalls set up on trestles, protected by canvas sheets and wall hangings, and it was raining. Shopkeepers came and lit bare lamps that exposed cheap trinkets, T-shirts, padded bras, pieces of burnished duck in soy sauce, assortments of pirated records. I noted in passing the presence, at the top of the stack, of some of my favorite Cantopop stars. I greedily scrutinized the market’s hustle and bustle for a quarter of an hour.

“Your name wouldn’t happen to be Puffky, would it?” Schlumm suddenly said, from down low, from his mouth exhaling words at the height of my left knee.

“No,” I said. “Puffky is dead. He was found on a mezzanine. With his blood, he had had time to write: Schlumm did me in.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Schlumm. “Everyone does that now. It’s in style.”

“I’ve seen the photos,” I said. “It was a bad death.”

“Bunkum,” Schlumm protested. “There aren’t any illustrations like that in the Organization’s journals.”

“An independent journal,” I explained.

“Oh,” said Schlumm.

The evening thickened, then Schlumm asked me if I knew who he was.

“No,” I said, “who are you?”

“Schlumm,” he said. “Ingo Schlumm. You might’ve already come across that name in the Organization. I have namesakes. Some Schlumms are dedicated to theoretical research, others are attached to the Action branch. Others still are just schmucks. But let’s cut to the chase. The Organization warned me that I was going to meet a certain Puffky.”

“Puffky?” I repeated thoughtfully. “No clue.”

“Yes,” said Schlumm. “Someone like me, not yet dead, but indisputably cracked. I say cracked so as not to dramatize the diagnosis. A guy who’s not yet dead, with identity problems. That could be you, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. My name is of no importance.”

“Fine,” said Schlumm. “All in all, if any name works, nothing’s stopping me from calling you Puffky.”

“Whatever makes you happy,” I said, then I frowned.

Switching off the air conditioning had caused a rise in temperature. With the exception of a pinkish, dying nightlight at the neighboring compartment’s entrance, there was no functioning lamp in the train car. We were surrounded by the smells of siesta and mold. Inhabitable space, by which I mean the space we were inhabiting, was filled with mist, with damp condensation, with miasmas. My brownish rags, my indigo scarves, and my feet began exhaling pungent locker-room smells. My clothes needed wringing out. I remained stoically inert for an hour, then I started thinking that an action on my part would be justifiable and even desirable. Taking advantage of a moment of inattention on Schlumm’s part, I hit, using one of my good toes, the air conditioning switch. The vent went off, the scarves began undulating and flapping around me and around Schlumm’s head, as they had done at the start of the journey.

Outside, night prevailed, but, as we were passing through a new commercial zone, the darkness was pinpricked with garlands of white bulbs. There were numerous vendors sitting behind their merchandise, heads bent over bowls of instant soup. If it weren’t raining so heavily, we would’ve been able to make out what the noodles were flavored with, fish or crab or spicy cuttlefish or sesame shrimp. A short while ago the rain had increased. It was crashing down in vertical sheets. There were hardly any drops on the window.

“Tungchoi,” said Schlumm.

Strips of grimy cotton were fluttering in front of his lips, so his diction wasn’t very good.

“Pardon?” I said.

“We must be on Tungchoi Street,” said Schlumm. “We’ve been zigzagging instead of heading straight toward the sea.”

“Possibly,” I said.

“You know the Tungchoi Market?” Schlumm asked.

“Tungchoi Market?” I said.

“Yes. That’s what it’s called. Have you ever gone?”

“No,” I said.

A minute passed, cadenced by the skin or fabric flapping around Schlumm’s face.

“So this Puffky,” I inquired, “did you have any accounts to settle with him?”

Schlumm didn’t respond. I turned toward him, though until that point I had kept looking out the window. I lowered my head in his direction. Lifted by the ventilator, the pieces of tissue fluttered in front of his nose and occasionally slapped one of his eyelids, his forehead, his mouth. I know that some claim we look very similar, almost identical, but, in the shadow of the compartment, I felt no sympathy with Schlumm’s mask, a scrawny boxer’s, unkind and psychologically unstable.

“I’m telling you, I’m not Puffky,” I said. “Let’s stop joking around about this. My name’s Schlumm too. Djonny Schlumm.”

Schlumm didn’t react, so I turned toward the outside world once more. The train had slowed down, its movements softened, then stopped, like we were at a red light. The silence had grown considerably. Schlumm and I were unmoving, nearly petrified in the darkness, existing only through words and shopkeepers’ lights, through exterior wet flashes. The pinkish nightlight was far away from us, in another universe, inaccessible.

“A namesake even,” I continued. “In the schmuck category, I suppose, in your classification.”

Schlumm coughed. Who knows if he had fallen ill, traveling like this, in the opposite direction and next to the window. I’d heard talk about him, read reports on him, on his allergies and neuroses. I also knew he was doing research into the loss of individuality during the forty-nine days of death, the feeling of splitting in two that contaminates one’s journey through the first few hells. The Organization had tolerated these blasphemous studies until a recent date, as long as he reported his results, but it no longer tolerated them now because he no longer shared his notebooks with anyone. Hence my job, my mission. His emaciated and brutal face was awash with rents. Schlumm’s cheeks and even his skull, whenever smacked by the blackish tatters, did not make happy flesh sounds, but were instead reminiscent of an organism kept alive despite its profound desire for extinction, despite its violent attraction to a definitive and irreversible peace.

“I don’t believe you, Puffky,” Schlumm suddenly tensed, moving away from my right leg. “You’ve come here to eliminate me, the Organization ordered you to extract the results of my research from me and eliminate me.”

“You’re the one who crept in here, Schlumm,” I retorted. “Don’t go making wild accusations about me now. Don’t try to reverse our roles. You’re the one who just suddenly appeared in a car I’d been traveling in for hours already, since Mongkok.”

“Oh, you got on at Mongkok?” Schlumm asked.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” said Schlumm. “There was a woman. My presence bothered her. She changed compartments.”

“A Chinese woman?” I asked interestedly.

Schlumm shrugged his bony and solid shoulders, agreed with a weak breath, and added nothing else.

The train set off again, the light must have turned green. I went back to squatting forward. Getting agitated hadn’t done me any good, talking with Schlumm had rattled me all over. This was causing me physical problems. I now had spurts of fever accompanied by shivers and cold sweats. My neck was sore. In my head I started going through atypical illnesses I might have been exposed to unknowingly. It’s not unusual to find infected gobs of spit in public transportation. I had avoided them until now, but I couldn’t be totally sure.

“Has anyone spit on you?” I asked.

“No,” Schlumm said. “Not that I know of.”

We went without making any significant sounds for several hours. We were right next to each other, sitting in our own way, at the foot of the bench, in the thick shadows, and, every now and then, I felt the ventilator’s wind hit me, soon followed by noisy rumpled fabrics, and, on my neck, on my forehead, the rips in our two robes became entangled, twisted together, folded back, snaked and flapped around. The train’s route zigzagged for a while between Pakpo Street and Hakpo Street, then made a beeline toward Yaumatei.

I was seized by a terrible feeling of weakness. I nodded off several times. In all likelihood, entire days and nights went by during my unconscious periods. People probably got on the train and then got off again, coming into the compartment and then leaving, all without my knowing. During one of these indistinct mornings, or at the start of one afternoon, Schlumm once again turned the air conditioning to zero, and the swishing fabrics around us died down.

“Three days ago, a Tibetan woman got on at Lee Yip Street,” Schlumm said.

“Oh, a Tibetan,” I said.

“A Tibetan woman from the Organization,” Schlumm clarified.

“So?” I said.

“She left,” said Schlumm, “a little before we got to Shek Lung Street. She was looking for a certain Puffky as well. The Organization’s put her on your trail. Her task is to extract information from you.”

“What kind,” I asked.

“Something you didn’t want to give, it would seem.”

Sweat began streaming all over my body, springing up in dozens of places at the same time and quickly spreading to all my folds and smooth surfaces, bathing me from head to toe, chilling me. I shivered.

“Information,” I sputtered. “Information about what.”

“About the seven weeks following death,” said Schlumm.

“Oh, there are many more than that,” I said.

“She was just interested in the first seven,” said Schlumm.

“And she’s gone now?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Schlumm. “As soon as. .”

“As soon as what.”

“As soon as you were done with your revelations,” said Schlumm. “You were talking in your sleep, you know.”

“I have no idea what I could have gone on about,” I lied. “The first seven weeks. Why not the last seven, too, while she was at it?”

“She looked happy when she got off at Shek Lung Street,” announced Schlumm.

“What could I possibly have said? You were there. You heard everything, since you were there. So what was I talking about?”

“I don’t know,” said Schlumm. “I was sleeping too. My health’s been on the decline these days, if you must know. I can’t fight against sleep and come out on top anymore, like in the past.”

He looked disappointed, concerned, but I felt like he was mocking me and I got up to fight him, or at least hit him. He knew too much, and it was time to eliminate him. We grabbed hold of each other. Both of us were soaked in sweat and smelled horrible. Our state of extreme exhaustion slowed our movements.

I started trying to bash his face in.

“What did I say during this so-called nap, huh?” I croaked. “Will you tell me, yes or no?”

He swiftly got the upper hand. I had been informed that he knew close combat techniques, kempo and jiu-jitsu moves, but he made do with kneeing me in the chest and then, at a point when I was sure my rib cage had been smashed to bits, tipped me backward and rolled me under the opposite-facing bench, with the same ease as if I had been a bag of bones and sawdust.

We stared each other down for hours, wordlessly, while our adrenaline dissipated. The network of ribs fencing in my lungs had reconstructed, bruises had ceased swelling on what should be called my flesh, for lack of a better term. I was suffering more from fever than the consequences of battle. Sometimes I had difficulty breathing, sometimes I didn’t. The train went by or through temples. The aroma of incense and smoke came in through the air ducts. So as not to founder in morosity by thinking exclusively about my conflicts with the Organization and its henchmen, I tried my hardest to imagine the pious chaos at the altars, and the devout waving fistfuls of thin, incandescent stems, praying to Guan Yin or bowing hangdoggedly before idols, calling out to ancestors, demons. I’ve always felt a keen sympathy toward these rites, even when they look absurd to observe, supposing that I might one day find myself in a situation where I’d be expected to display such demonstrations of piety.

By the end of the afternoon, my bouts of fever were spacing out. Outside, night was falling. We had reached, I think, the eastern end of Wingsing Lane. I still refused to investigate the exterior landscape to learn where we were in the world. Beside the disorder of my damaged and dirty clothes, I could see the ugly angle of my right elbow and, in the distance, a ball of black hair, some hamburger crumbs, a semi-circle traced by a shoe’s sole in an oily stain. I compared all this to what was already in my memory. Dedicating myself to this mental activity made me feel less affected by the shame of defeat and less tormented by the train’s jolts. The compartment indeed swayed relentlessly, which at present was upsetting both me and my stomach. Essential viscera might have also been damaged in the brawl, maybe. I watched Schlumm for a moment. The switched-off blower was no longer mangling his scarves or the top of his robe, which was now hanging in tatters, since I had yanked on it during our altercation. Schlumm didn’t seem to want to fight again, or dress himself in a non-miserable fashion.

Once we were past Wingsing Lane, I put myself back into a sitting position, a meter away from him, my spine pressed against the same bench as his. We stayed like that until morning, in the darkness modestly pinkened by the neighboring car’s nightlight, then dawn came. You could start to make out a new urban scene on the other side of the window. A corrugated metal shutter suddenly appeared, then vanished. It was lowered in front of an indistinct store. I had time to identify the very simple character meaning “ten thousand,” but that got me nowhere.

“Woosung Street,” Schlumm murmured.

Having sufficiently sulked, I decided to act as if nothing hostile had come between us. A hot humidity clung to the space we were cloistered in.

“Maybe we could turn the air conditioning back on,” I suggested.

“I was going to,” said Schlumm.

He stretched his hand out toward the control panel, but the system didn’t start up. He moved the notched button several times, pushing it back and forth on the aluminum rectangle, between an improbable flame symbol and the drawing of an azure snowflake. Useless movements.

“It’s borked,” he summed up.

“I can hit the top of it,” I proposed.

“If you wish,” said Schlumm.

I started to crawl toward the electric panel. When I passed by him, Schlumm grimaced.

“Your robe?” I asked. “Your skin?”

“Say, Puffky, I’m starting to wonder if you didn’t. .” he whined.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said.

“Thank goodness,” he said.

I reached the controls and banged on them with what was left of my cartilage, my bones. I was very close to Schlumm. I took multiple precautions so as not to walk on him again. I was in precarious equilibrium. We were suffocating, both of us were dripping with sweat, enshrouded in fetid exhalations, and at the limit of exhaustion, as if an insidious infection had destroyed our invisible internal organs, and prolonged its ravages whenever we moved or spoke. I kept attacking the no-longer-communicative switch all day, along with the system itself, which remained inert. The joints of my fists had split open, a liquid was seeping between my fingers, unusual beads, not really amber colored, but comparable enough to what grasshoppers leak when they’re captured and afraid. I stopped exerting myself, I clung to the window’s ledge, the crossbar, I straight my back until I was nearly vertical. I felt like I was accomplishing heretofore unknown acrobatic feats. Outside, the atmosphere was gray. The glass was covered in a dense mist. With my dirty, wounded hands, I scribbled a few words onto the damp surface.

“What are you writing?” asked Schlumm.

“Schlumm attacked me,” I said.

“What,” said Schlumm. “Why?”

“It’s also in case the Organization sends investigators,” I said.

“So, you should put Schlumm did me in instead,” said Schlumm.

We stayed there contemplating this for some time.

“As long as the murder hasn’t taken place, it’d be better not to write anything at all,” Schlumm finally said. “You never know in advance who’s going to kill you. You can anticipate it, but you can never be one-hundred percent sure.”

“That’s true, there is a margin of error,” I said.

I cast a sidelong glance at Schlumm. Evening was falling, and in the already-triumphant darkness, his features pleased me less and less. It looked to me like the corner of his mouth was wrinkled in a way that could only be explained as malicious irony. This man talked about murder indifferently, he talked about it like only a murderer can. Something bored into my marrow cavities and shot fear into my blood and, five minutes later, I moved away from the window and Schlumm’s withdrawn form, motionless and calm-looking, but now very disturbing as well. He looked like he was asleep. I couldn’t rule out that he might be actually sleeping, or that he was feigning drowsiness, or, and this is the worst hypothesis, that he was doing both at the same time.

I moved while taking a thousand precautions so I wouldn’t get entangled in the trails of fabric extending from Schlumm’s body. I wanted to avoid bothering Schlumm or waking him. I got back to my original place, where I had sat at the start of the journey, then, since the distance between us still looked ridiculous to me, since Schlumm had just to lean over and hold out his arm to grab me and send me back into nothingness, I continued moving toward the car’s entrance, and crossed through it.

I crawled down the corridor. The single nightlight still working was emitting slender rays to guide me. I had decided to go into the neighboring compartment, where just this light was burning, so as to assure myself of more decent survival conditions. It wasn’t a question of escaping the agents the Organization had ordered against me, I didn’t have that hope, but only to gain some time and space. In the unsupple night, its temperature the only warmth, I fixed my eyes on that faded lilac, wilted fuchsia lamp, which had become my pathetic star of continuation. I use continuation here to mean everything that allowed me to avoid immediate aggression, and thus still keep myself, for the moment, away from the terminal void. From time to time, I made myself go completely rigid, so as to hear whether or not the killer was on my heels.

In reality, I didn’t perceive anything truly nerve-racking.

In reality, I didn’t perceive anything truly nerve-racking. The train continued on its route toward the sea, the wheels swallowed the ruptures between the rails without complaint, the shock absorbers grated regularly. The whistlings of air and iron striated the shadows in a clearly not-infrequent way. My body escaped me a little, I felt like it was prowling and crawling around beyond me, already unable to fight against stiffness and fear, but the notion of not having fully perished yet had drilled into and stimulated me. Rather than gruesomely collapsing, I lifted my head. I braced my limbs toward the lamp and continued my progression.

Hours passed. I didn’t stop for one second, even when I felt faint. I had finally reached the haven I had dreamed of, and which had been designed to seat about eight living people. The benches were softly brushed by the nightlight’s rays. Tonight seemed denser here than elsewhere, most likely because my eyesight had diminished. Staying on my guard, I settled in as well as I could, at the base of one of the seats, facing frontward.

I spread pieces of my robe in tentacles around me, so the pain would warn me if someone were creeping up on me in the dark. It’s a technique the Organization teaches to monks in the Action branch. It reassured me to know that no one could covertly slip into my life and remove me from it, however deep the shadows surrounding me. The Action branch’s instructions also specified, for better security, that one had to abstain from making any kind of noise, such as breathing or other things. I kept myself from breathing, concentrating on thinking about the journey rather than oxygen.

The train was no longer moving. In the distance a loudspeaker was making an announcement. I tried to listen. The acoustics outside were bad. I thought I caught, however, that the next stop would be the Haufook Street station. So we were still far from the sea. Doors slammed in another car. Everything around me was now silent. There was no one behind the partition.

An hour flaked away, then the train started up again. The darkness, the soothing movements, the state of profound extenuation I found myself in were all right for me. Though I can’t affirm it with certainty, I think I lost consciousness for a night or two, since, soon after, the compartment was filled with morning’s glow. It sneaked in gently through the droplets covering the opaque window. I attentively examined the surrounding visible world. My memory was scrambled, my mind impotent. I saw things without coming to conclusions about them. For example, there were, beneath the bench facing me, a piece of hardened gum and several hairs, but I couldn’t say if they were familiar to me or not. In the mist, someone had written in a clumsy and soiled hand: Puffky did me in. I remained there, before these humble pieces of information, trying to connect them to build a coherent intellectual edifice, but my thoughts didn’t click. I wasn’t building anything. I had a single constructive obsession, I continuously made sure I was still sitting facing forward.

From the other side of the partition, I thought I heard snoring, then everything that could have had a connection to life or sleep went quiet.

“Are you there Puffky?” I shouted.

There was no response. I waited a moment, then repeated my question.

“Come on, I know you’re there,” I said.

I started tapping on the partition to make contact between us.

“There was a murder,” I said. “Are you alive?” I asked.

I continued knocking on the bench’s supports, on the air conditioner’s grill, with my right fist, my feet.

“Listen, Puffky, don’t stay over there in your corner, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said.

Puffky didn’t respond, and, for several days, while we made our way to the sea, I had no idea if a murder had taken place or not.