Structure Of Prayer. Diego Maenza

      © Tektime, 2020

      © Diego Maenza, 2018

      © Omar Alberto Alarcón, from translation, 2020

      Original title in Spanish: “Estructura de la plegaria”

      PART ONE

      ON BEHALF OF THE FATHER

      SUNDAY

      Darkness is the blindness of thoughts, it is the thunder of silence. Darkness is a plague that turns into dizziness, a caress of nothingness, a cold that pierces the bones, a bitterness that swallows with tears. Darkness is a condemnation to the fears of the past, an uncertainty to the calamities of the future, a nebula that compacts the senses. The darkness. And suddenly, my children, you can contemplate the world. I emerge to the vigil as if excreted from the abyss of the womb. I feel reborn though aware of the deception of my senses. I perceive my morning smell of liver stench adhering to my muzzles, impregnated in the pillow cloth or simply integrated into the atmosphere of the room. Meanwhile, the world remains there. I stand up and the glare coming through the window blinds me and forces me to cover my face. I have woken up from an uneasy sleep that my soul has endured not without shocks. I observe almost in amazement, as if it were the first time, the dryness of the walls of the room, the sadness that distills from its old cracks, the grey photos held in contrast in the colourful frames, the painting of a world enclosed in a glass bubble that may be a protection so that some external danger does not hurt the surface again, or it may remain as a containment so that the evils embedded in that devastated land do not germinate, so that no curious Pandora will ever uncover its stench again. In the background, behind the world, I observe once again the image of God. Closing my eyes, I pray. Beloved Father, deliver me from all sin, for yours is the kingdom of earth and heaven and your designs are pure and unquestionable, cleanse my soul from temptation and bless my day.

      I get up and feel the bitterness of the wine established in my entrails, somewhere in my tissues. I slide into the bathroom where the mirror shows the sediments that stain my eyes and that I push away with my fingertips, making the process cause me a shudder. I shake my face with soap and water. The toothpaste rinses my mouth, which gives off the morning stench that I am used to. I excrete with pleasure and notice on the front of my underwear the accumulated splashes that give away the viscosity of the morning and almost daily substance of rare radiance. Oh, Lord, how beautiful and cruel dreams are. Inside a dream is the only space where I can show myself as I am.

      The newspaper shows him the same news every time. But he is struck by a headline on the center page that shows the latest statements of the Holy Father. He reads the content printed in small letters and examines the full-color photo that has been placed next to the review. Adorned with a cape and leaning out, as is tradition, over the main balcony of the Saint's Basilica, he announced the eve of the major week. Father Misael, we say his name now, prays and prepares for mass.

      I can't isolate that image. It's in me and it doesn't leave me. How much I suffer before the altar in the moments of this memory. How I bear that torment at the moment of spouting the worn-out slogans of each mass that the parishioners receive as new words. How much I resist seconds before God's blood and body purify me. And all because of that image. It is reticulated in me and dominates me, it is a curse arising from the underworld that bends my spirit, and I can only have recourse to the safeguard of the Almighty who illuminates my path.

      Sitting at the table, putting aside one of the vegetable dishes, I consider that I have prepared an excessive lunch. I contemplate with undeserved attention the cleanliness of the furniture, of the floor, of the now dust-free shelf, of the imitation imperial porcelain that sparkles with an unusual brilliance and shows the naked cherubs with their pale spectral faces. Thomas, disciplined, blows from below, making an imitation of a greeting with his tail. The boy sips the orange juice that spills in drops from the corner of his mouth and smiles at his clumsiness. I only eat the salad and half a glass of the fruit juice and put aside the fish that I don't want, as I have put aside the rest of the food. My right eye has again secreted eye booger that I remove with modesty and a little annoyance, since the boy has directed a face of astonishment to me while commenting on some passages of the Bible. Thomas follows me into the kitchen with a martial step, imploring with his panting some satisfaction that will mitigate the emptiness of his stomach and prevent him from running his spit.

      I'm going upstairs to the bedroom. I try to rest. It's no use. I return to the dream that weighs on me like a sysiphic rock that when I wake up I think has been discarded. The darkness. And suddenly the recurring image is shown, repeating itself over and over again as if I had my eyes inside a kaleidoscope whose refractions will take me at every moment to the only image without distortion. I pray to God that I may be spared this torment and that my spirit may rest from these shocks. Cyclopean ears split by the edge of a knife. It is the image and I know where it comes from. From my memories of the painting in my room, there is no doubt about it. From the permanent and never-tiring evening study that I often make when contemplating the painting every time I allow its doors to open. It is a bastard imitation, and almost ruined, of the great painter's famous triptych, which I paid for with my life's savings. We must admit that it is a futile object in comparison with the original, especially in art, despite being a faithful copy, of equal proportions. I contemplate the world. I allow the doors of the nuanced work to open on the oak board and I look at another parallel world: that of paradise, the garden and hell. I marvel as I do every evening. The painter's art is so flawless that I shudder even through a bad interpreter. I frequent the fresco in the evenings, exploring the gears of its constitution, trying to decipher the alchemy that brought about the now devastated paradise, the art of demiurge that forged hell, and pretending to know, because only by knowing are we in a position to reject, the path of perdition that leads to this Calvary.

      I leave the dream with the aching body, with the slumber that blushes my flesh and incites me to sin. I have the feeling that I am no longer the same, that I want to escape into some kind of exile without worrying about carrying on my forehead the stigma that gives me away to men. To flee from God's gaze, so that his eyes no longer rest on me, and thus be able to satisfy my delusions. The sacrilegious thought comes to me every day. I pray that the devil will depart from me and I feel that God is reanimating me in faith, that he is taking Luzbel away from my flesh which is beginning to grow cold. And I pray, I cannot do anything else but beg the heavens to be able to escape the trap of my body, to appease the perfidies that I plot in my felony, to flee from the inclinations towards which my senses are tempted. I resort to some introversion that saves me, at least for the moment. I pray and prepare for mass.

      The boy crosses in front of my door and stops for a moment, bending down, putting some damage in his slippers. His white pajamas make his flesh transparent and give his figure the appearance of a voluptuous ephebe. But in his face there is innocence, chastity. The artificial light makes her cheeks reverberate with a pale pink that flashes in the half-light of the entrance. He is completely unaware of his powers of seduction, of the dangerous attraction he produces in his wake. He stands up, looks into my room and in his eternal shyness tries to say goodbye to me with a bow that seems distant and annoying. With a gesture I encourage him to come closer. I give him a blessing and mark the imaginary sign of the cross over his eyes. I descend my hand almost transformed into a fist at the height of his mouth, seeing his lips caressing my fingers, contemplating his face close to me and succeeding in making a tremor invade me, since by the aspect of his features he resembles the face of an archangel. I take him by the shoulders and on this occasion I make the sign of the cross with four kisses that I implant on his forehead. I have no choice but to let him go and go to prayer.

      Young Manuel has placed his trust in the words of Father Misael. Every evening, he invites him to pray the major prayer with him. He instructed him in the mystical art of prayer, the spiritual interiorization that, the priest claims, will purge his soul, leaving him absolved of all sin to become