The most important thing in these lines is in that army of rats that has invaded the city.
HAVANA, Cuba. – I quickly warn the reader that with these lines I do not intend to make a version of the story of the tooth fairy, of that cute little mouse that fell into the pot because it was savoring the onion. Nor will the very famous and conceited cockroach Martina be at the core of my prose; I don’t intend to make her the protagonist either. The important thing here will be the rats, the largest and with such prolific offspring, and above all the Cuban efforts to eliminate cockroaches and mice, regardless of whether their last names are Pérez or Rodríguez.
The most important thing in these lines is in that army of rats that has invaded the city, this city to which its boastful inhabitants call the wonder city. Havana, which was once an example of beauty and composure, has been filled with those animals that can end our lives, and the worst thing is the procuracies, I would like to write “procurancies”, to put an end to those despicable and extremely harmful, even deadly, bugs.
And there is already talk of pernicious events, of the attack of these bugs on the population that spends their days in that city that is the capital of “all” Cubans and which some crazy people tend to call the capital, and also the title, even more irresponsibly, of “wonder city”. Attacks by these bugs on the population that lives in the city are already being reported, and stories of illnesses and patients who have seen their lives at risk after a very certain bite are growing.
And in the midst of the many storms, the alarms in the city grow, and the “fishermen’s profit” also becomes enormous. And there they are, to prove it, those many sellers who make the trip to that place they call “La Cuevita”, and where I would not be surprised to know that you can also buy a plane. There it is shouted, already loudly, that the merchants have the best of all the solutions stored in colored envelopes, the most famous of all the “raticides” that have been in the world.
I already did the test, I bought the rodenticides, I did the test, and scared I took out the contents of the container, and I also paid those long 800 pesos that the sachet, the container of the rodenticide, is worth. I, very scared, have already paid the 800 pesos that the tiny envelope costs, the one that, they claim, has the best solution to put an end to what could be the most tremendous community of rats that exists in the entire world, and that survives in Havana.
They say that the solution is there, that the potion is, above all, a bait. They call it the most exemplary of the rodenticides that the world has. And maybe that’s why I woke up today with some enthusiasm, believing that I had found the solution, that a bunch of those bugs would be turned upside down, already showing their death rattles. I thought I had found the solution, in that brief envelope that is the container of rodenticide, the best solution, as the sellers claim to confuse those who have a house full of those bugs. The skilled merchants claim to be the carriers of the best solution, that very effective rat killer, perhaps the most effective in the history of the world.
And without hope you cannot live. Hope is the salt of life, the last of all resources. You have to try, you have to insist on the sanitation of the city and the house with the encouragement that the sellers give. There is no other solution than faith, because, as my grandmother said, without faith it is not possible to live. Then it will be good to sit comfortably to watch them fall plump and into the most eternal of all dreams.
And I want to have faith. I want to sit comfortably to see those bugs falling round, dead, and applaud then, applaud very loudly, clapping our hands with all the energy that comes out of us. I have faith, because without that faith it is impossible to live, without that faith it is impossible to put an end to that colony of mice, oh, and also with those cockroaches that inhabit every corner of this city that we still usually call “wonder city.” And I hope there is a way to make all those bugs disappear before they exterminate us.
