Reading on foot in the subway

I’m reading a biography about Alexander of Macedonia and I’m standing up, in the subway. Intelligently written by an author many times visited by me, Harold Lamb. And while I read, I think of the paths that the author cites for great men. One is the way of Alexander, the way of power, of the expeditionary will, of the creative impetus. Another, that of Aristotle, that of the wise, of the taxonomic, of the smith and cataloguer of concepts. The author speaks of a triumvirate of dominant minds of the time: the group is closed by Demosthenes. And I think, interspersing my thoughts with reading, that this last path, the politician, the discourse, seems to me wasted today. Earlier in the morning and while leafing through the newspaper, I saw pictures of smiling men under the title of their achievements, boasting perhaps for the piece of success they have stolen from the world. I thought later if perhaps they seek a little to deify themselves. And how far they are from the nature of the last god of the Greek pantheon, the incarnate Dionysus. However, the illusion of success, the permanent smile in the profile picture, is necessary for the support of his own life. Without success it seems that it is not worth living. Did Alejandro's sculptures smile? I wonder, suddenly. Or were they rather grim and serious? Wild beasts, animals, don't smile, Nietzsche said. Laughter is an ultimate tear. The limit gesture of a primate on the verge of madness. And that rehearses a form of new language. A Dionysian and lost revenge, in its animality, if you like. And what can you laugh at when you are in the same place as the others? I wonder then. And I observe myself on foot and in the subway. Better read on, I tell myself in silence.

Over times you learn to gain a comfortable place in the subway to read on foot, without staying in the ample space between the door and the hallways. That space is like a mouth that devours and vomits men. And I don't want to belong to that kind of men that is regurgitated by train cars. That's why I try to earn a space between the halls. But this time I have not been able to put myself between the small space between two women, given my broad back and my voluminous leather backpack, and I returned. A third woman asked me if I would occupy that space and I said no. She could fit, placing herself among those. I stayed on the edge, clinging to the mast, between the common pit of men turned into cattle and those of the most dignified class in the hall, in front of the seats, either reading or looking at their cell phones. The seats: they are for divinities. Rarely does one of them touch us, carrying the guilt that certain moral police restrict us when an old woman or a lady with a baby comes up. Being a man in these cases it is already a sin.

Luckily when we arrived at the station where it is for combined with the other line of subway, enough space was generated so that I could occupy a place in the hallway, a natural place where I belong. The woman who had entered the hall before me could sit down this time and in doing so gave me a smile. I think I stayed serious. She was a middle-aged and delicate woman, very worried about her appearance, by the way. She picked up her case from the floor, before I stepped on it and from there she extracted the tools she used to primp her aesthetics. There I suddenly understood how in public places like a subway train, we can steal such valuable moments of intimacy, but that have normalized today. After curling her eyelashes, she continued to hold a round mirror and began to paint her lips a purple colour. I tried not to look at her. I felt that when I looked at her half-open mouth and half-breathed, I stole something so her, that it didn't correspond to me. I looked at the window of the subway car that was behind her back and thought I saw in the reflection, the meticulous exercise of dyeing her lips: a beautiful act that awoke my imagination. I continued reading. Scenes of tortured souls in the eighth circle of hell, for now I’m reading the Divine Comedy. When we had to get off I noticed that the old man who was in front of her, smiled along with her and realized that I was not the only one who was captured by her charm. We got off the car like cattle, as happens every minute, and that free moment of intimacy was dissolved in the movement of souls through the underground river of the stairs of the Metro, not very different from what happens in the hell of Dante.

The cold gives its blow of purity to the mornings of Santiago. The streets are empty. Someone clarifies that the children are on vacation and that is why the subway car is more unoccupied. Strangely the cold makes me happy. I feel as if my body is cleansed or preserved, and that fat that bothers me is sacrificed to give me warmth. Who knows? I walk on the frost and my hands become cold. I have not written for a long time and I bring them back to life, to stir them up with the circulation of the words that run over here, perhaps empty, pure, without saying anything. What could a man lost in the land of shadows, Siberia, say after being awakened from death? In the book I read now, Timur-Lang drags his people towards the limits of the tundra. Load with pots, metal utensils, shovels and camels. Two horses per man, because a Tartar cannot live without his mount. You cannot live without the hypsodont teeth of these Equidae, who know how to tear the grass well under the frost. When I left my home for my truck, a short distance, I also witnessed my tundra. The frost on the grass showed me a purity that only related to death. I had to return a couple of times for a jug of water not warm nor hot, if not frozen, because it can break the glass of my car. Tamerlane, on the other hand, could not turn back on his journey to Siberia. Gone was the desert, the bones of dead men stacked for millennia under the rolling dunes; hunger. Once this threshold is crossed, all hope is abandoned, Dante read at the door of hell. What will happen next with the Tartar prince facing the Asian steppes? I do not know yet. I still have to read in the book. ‘When man dies, his life becomes destiny,’ Martin Heidegger would say. Thus the fate of these men facing the cold may be resolved with their death. Perhaps that is why they were looking for her when she went to hunt the khan of the Golden Horde. Only death, that final purity, white, rough and penetrating, could solve her destiny. I was sitting, like the lucky few, and the subway terminal station brought me to mine immediately. My reading was interrupted and I resumed my trip, now in a bus, to the north like Tamerlane.

When I returned home, I left Tamerlane’s biography forgotten in the office, leaving his story of war and cold unfinished in my memory. It was an unfinished day. At least he felt that way. And all this form of the routine of going from one place to another, of having to leave home, face the frost of the streets, with the mind away from them, away from the air and the flash of some buildings that at sunset can be beautiful despite its horribleness. Where does this voice that governs the world and that moves me from one place to another? How to silence the river of men that plunges into the tunnels where the teeth of a metallic monster roar? And winter will pass, men say, and the seed will break its shell along with the crunch of ice. But if it fell so little rain? Some are said, why do we want so much heat? But don't sing victory ahead of time, others say. Even the tundra can wrap your bones in a frost shroud. And what is the time before this tyranny of movement? An empty space? A space? A letting yourself be dominated by thoughts about the future? For this I always carry a book with me: to fill that engine, that recursion, that turbulence and pollution perhaps, called mind. And I am not able to see men. I am not able to see the emptiness left to man without nourishing himself, the seasons, and the repetitive circular of matter through routine. An old and severed tree barely resists with a leaf forgotten by the siever. A dog vibrates from the cold showing its teeth. Dirty and empty sidewalks on the way to the station during the morning. In the afternoon covered with blankets and cardboard, food, carbohydrates, cell phone accessories. The same trails over and over again. Of so many things I can save myself with a good reading. However I forget everything I read. Or rather I invent it badly when trying to remember it. It is another way of cramming at a time. Another way to fill and fill the text with words. Let's go. Breathe. There is little left. And to start again. Does the cold manage to clear everything from mind? Can the dream? Does a sudden awakening succeed? Perhaps it is sterile and everything is just to move forward and forward: a long arrow that advances and becomes a spear from the day we broke with the Palaeolithic myth. If my cold feet hurt today, how did those men faced with glaciation resist? I don't even touch the land I inhabit with my steps.

Over times you learn to gain a comfortable place in life to get on foot, without staying in the wide space between birth and death. That space is like a mouth that devours and vomits men. And I don't want to belong to that kind of men that is regurgitated by the hazards of existence. That's why I try to earn a place in this body. A fixed space that avoids jumping from brain to brain. The last time I drank from Lethe, I didn't drink all of its fresh water. And I remember that I was riding on my colt through the desert. And without stopping. We had survived the battle in the tundra and before riding on it, I burst two white horses for not wanting to interrupt my post. It was a form of pristine holocaust for the mountain fire god. What rushed me so much? Had I raffled to death in my bravery, thanks to the ability to use iron, to get fired like a smoking arrow in search of a horizon before venturing into its descent? My arm dripped blood from my shoulder wounded by death. Only the salty sweat that emanated from my gallop sealed the wound that suppurated. Galloped, wrapped in ashes and sand. My foal's eyes imitated the sun. Suddenly I remembered that in another life I was the colt. Suddenly I felt that the universe is a circle and that I was the colt, the man, even the sand, even the sweat. A scented princess was waiting for me in her tub. A delicate tattoo dyed on her neck in the shape of the moon. It was a small gesture of the pure nights that awaited me. It didn't matter to burn in my gallop to get to her. I was biting the pounding of the beast that fainted under my body. But the colt broke. I fell on my face and I was thrown on the stones. My seed became blood and burning, and I caught fire with helplessness and despair. I walked the rest of the day and my injured arm was mutating. I saw that it took the form of a lizard and looked at me with its frightful eyes. I pulled it from rennet and saw how it was lost in the hollows of the desert. My lady made her tresses smeared with milk and honey. She rehearsed her dress for her twilight wedding. Dress she kept for years, almost a decade. He burned it in the fire after being offered again by her father as a bride. And a strange lizard wreaked havoc in the desert. It was said that he devoured men and women. That even devoured horses.

Luckily upon reaching this new body, where my previous lives are combined, enough space was generated so that I could occupy a place in the desert, a natural place where I belong. Those rodents taste well. But I prefer to stalk the visit of those caravans that raise so much dust. My scales shine in the sun of rejoicing, when I devour that tender flesh that screams before it die. How will it be beyond the mountain ranges? A diffuse memory of when I was a man tells me about the cold. Who knows? I would walk on the frost and my legs would turn cold. I have not excavated for a long time, so I will bring them back to life, to sweeten them with the circulation of energy that is run over here, perhaps empty, pure, saying nothing. What could a lizard lost in the land of shadows, Siberia, say after being awakened from death? I would not be able to see men. I would not be able to see the emptiness left to man without nourishing himself, without sunny seasons, the repetitive circular of matter over the years. An old and severed tree barely resists with a leaf forgotten by the siever. A lizard vibrates with cold showing its teeth. And suddenly I am an opaque character read by a man on foot, in the subway. And who thinks about the paths that exist for great beings. The way of the colt that bursts on the whim of a man. Or the way of the man who is infatuated by a perfumed bride from the East. However there is a third way. That of the eternal and patient being who boasts of devouring others. And that road is not wasted.