Elia

Elia, on dry winter with rainy days, knew how walking on a strained calf feels when the crumbled sidewalk gets slanted, and the toe notches into the bottom crevice, and the body juts forward like the cliff in the concrete.

Elia wanted to ask the man on stilts at the entrance to the bazaar across the park how to get back home, but it was getting darker so the man seemed too tall. So they contented to letting silt filter through their nose while their mouth stayed taught.

In the park there were statues with small holes to nest in for the night. Elia crawled into a porcelain white jaguar. The sounds of outside reverberated through the jaguar’s esophagus like a purr. They were: creaking metallic stilts, tango footsteps, and a child yelling at his defense to cover a breaking striker, whose bare feet made little slaps on the pavement. Throughout the night, the belly of the jaguar felt like the digestion of sounds – converting to heat – and Elia dozed off and let their own snores metabolize.

Elia’s dream itself had no sound. It was projected like an old silent film. So the burbling jaguar stomach formed an ambient soundtrack. Their father introduced himself first. He was at the opposite corner of the park, sitting on his glutes under the legs of a spider monkey, back curled up to rest along the underbelly of the monkey.

“It’s warm under here,” his father said.

“Why?”

“My first toy was a small stuffed monkey. Not porcelain white but, I used to comb the hair, just like this, with my middle and ring finger, behind the ears. We spent hours talking, learning about the world from under my bedsheets.”

“You gave me a monkey once.”

“Not the same one.”

“He told me about the outside too, when I was under the bedsheets. Once he told me about the bark of the rubber tree.”

“They way they turn into tires?”

“The way they twist and burrow into the ground.”

“Yes.”

“The way they cannot be climbed.”

“Unless you have paws.”

“And thumbs.”

“And a tail for balance.”

“I tried to grow a tail when he told me.”

“I did too.”

“It’s not easy.”

“Not at all.”

“But one day at the fútbol courts my foot got stuck on top of the ball and sent me backward. I landed here, right on the tail, and pain went all the from my back to my neck.”

“That’s the bone!”

“But it never grew past my skin, I tried every night.”

“It’s difficult.”

“Did you have a jaguar also?”

“I had a jaguar. We played outside mostly. Until he was so covered in dust I couldn’t clean him so I left him in the cupboard next to the bed. And I would only say hello once in a while.”

“It’s warm inside the jaguar too.”

“Jaguars are very warm. They look so scary. But the fur and the belly fat - that’s a nice place to be.”

“It’s nice in here.”

“Oh yes.”

“There was a scary man on stilts today outside the bazaar.”

“Elia, you can’t be scared of them,”

“I know. But –”

“they just want money.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m scared.”

“Elia, I don’t need money anymore.”

“I know.”

“Now I live with monkeys.”

“And learn about the trees.”

“And my throat isn’t dry.”

“My stomach doesn’t stress.”

“But your throat?”

“It’s full of dust.”

“Just like my old jaguar.”

“I don’t want to be in the cupboard. I want to be with you.”

“That is ok, I followed my father.”

“Where did he stay.”

“Under the shell of an armadillo.”

“Oh!”

“It has ridges, so he liked to scratch his back”

Elia lifted their eyes and saw the ground from higher up than before. They noticed their left wrist, softer and stronger. They slinked forward and pressed their body up with their paws. Their tail involuntarily rose and curled upward, arching over their back. Their claws firmly dug into the grass on cold dry soil beneath. Through their eyes the park appeared in vertical slits. They looked right, and the slit was weeds growing through rock tiles, then above to an adobe veranda thatched with bougainvillea, then above to a stretching rubber tree, with a dangling branch that from a distance was a branch, but with precise eyes was a tail of a spider monkey, climbing up and in circles, with sticky paws and a tail for balance.

Image: Cuauhxicalli Océlotl, Archeological piece. Stone with remains of white, blue, red, and black paint. Collection: 22 Tomo V (1927) Cuarta Época (1922-1933). Anales del Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Historia y Etnografía.