A special doctor receives clients this weekend at the private restaurant Rey & Gaby, on G and 25, the heart of El Vedado. He wears a white coat but all splashed with red, with stains that resemble blood and guts that come out of the body. The whole place, like so many other establishments these days, is decorated, in the American way, to celebrate the night of the witches, Halloween, on October 31.
Skulls, spider webs, infernal clowns, vampires… Everything made of papier-mâché, including round pumpkins, which in the neighboring country to the north are natural, with their terrifying faces carved by hand, and on the Island they are a non-existent variety.
In Rey & Gaby you can see that they have gone to great lengths with the decoration, although what is really frightening is the surrounding reality. To begin with, their prices – a piece of cheesecakeanother product clearly yumacosts more than a thousand pesos–, capable of causing a heart attack in the most stoic body.
The darkness of the scheduled blackouts has increased unrest on the streets: the gloom is conducive to all kinds of assailants, much more alive than zombies
At the very door of the restaurant, the inspector is scarier hip breaker of transport, which tries to shove a crowd treated like canned fish into a bus.
People, for months, have been circumspect, when not irascible or directly violent.
Further on, the ruined houses of what was the richest neighborhood in the capital rise threateningly, with precariously balanced columns and faded facades, invaded by wild vegetation.
In recent months, moreover, the darkness of scheduled blackouts has increased unrest on the streets: the gloom is conducive to all kinds of assailants, much more alive than zombies.
And what about the horror stories that are rumored in the neighborhoods. According to one of them, in some neighborhoods of the city there are two police vehicles, actually camouflaged, which arrive by surprise at the corners where touts are found and mercilessly fine thousands of pesos.
Sadder than souls in pain, the relatives of the thousands and thousands of Cubans who have abandoned the island in the last year wander, in an unprecedented exodus that leaves behind ghost cities.
Definitely, in these times, Cuba is in itself more terrifying than any Halloween witch.
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