#plascencia

Saturn is not explained, like the falling sky, or the mechanical tortoise. Merced de Papel is folded, rolled out of paper. Just is.

And I love the way these things are so principal, grounding. Not because we know how they are. Because, the people of paper understand, get it for the non paper.

It feels like this book is meant to be read here. Where there are people, humans. Not of paper.

I have fallen in love with his last lines. The way that they break open, pour out onto the bodies of the characters. Sticky and sweet, affixing onto the texture of their skin, freckles. Sliding down the backs of their spines.

Lingering.

Let them press, swell into the pores of your skin. Fold into your sheets at night, fall asleep thinking of them. 

“The mattress and sheets tore, and the bed frame collapsed, but none of it has to do with decay” (51).

“Although Don Victoriano never admitted this to anyone, except once in the confessional, he never boarded the plane because he was afraid of dying away from his book” (116).

I don’t piss the bed. But sometimes, my dog licks wet spots onto my sheets. Near my hip, my toes.

My husband works overnights, and I read in bed alone. It is not always lonely, but sometimes, when I am rereading the lines that are most beautiful, it is. Reading to empty pillows. 

Federico de la Fe is lonely, too. A lost love loneliness, wandering thoughts loneliness. Wish that he did not wet the bed, flood their sheets, damp their bodies.