HAVANA, Cuba – I think of eggs all the time; I evoke them in the mornings and at lunchtime. I miss them in meals, too, and in sweets, in those sweets that without eggs become very bitter even if they are not lacking sugar. I miss eggs in the mornings of the most difficult times, and I remember them as if I suppose they are gone forever.
I evoke him when I wake up and also at noon, at lunchtime, at every meal. I want him at meals where he could be served in that container that is a sweet, without which meals become bitter, although not They lack sugarI miss him on the morning of the greatest difficulties, and he also reaches me in reminiscences if I believe he is gone forever.
Until today I have dedicated some venerations to him that are extremely sincere. And the fact is that he is greatly missed and has always been missed. Once, it is said, the Egg was the whole world, but that was a long time ago, in those distant days when the world was seen from that old theogony that we still call “Orphic.”
In those days, it was said, and very emphatically, that the world was very similar to an egg. The world was then seen according to old beliefs, as a gigantic egg, an egg of unsuspected dimensions; a colossal egg, a “super egg”, a great egg. And it seems that this theory has once again gained a certain preponderance and many followers, in Cuba, where the egg is strange and seen only in dreams.
And that egg, which we once called a lifesaver, has today gained other considerations, even genuflections. The egg is today our greatest utopia, it is our worst nightmarethe biggest one… and I am among those who wake up suffocated after the dream in which the egg became the protagonist.
The egg is thought of after the decision to make a flan, and then it fades away in waking life. I often dream about the egg, which awakenings decompose. I have strange dreams about the egg, and some could even be tragic; recurring dreams that end up being nightmares. I adore the egg and everything that contains it. And I am so fond of it that I would like to dedicate a monument to it someday, the bad thing is that I have no aptitude for sculpting, nor does the chisel achieve wonders in my hands.
My inability to sculpt leads me to draw it, and quite often, and more so when it gets lost. I have drawn many eggs in my life, and more so in recent years, on very white sheets of paper. I love their curves, always starting from the height where the egg becomes narrower in that continuity that is an entire egg.
I revere its curves, each stroke with which I put together its image. I like to draw it in the pan because it is a way of possessing it. The egg is for me the beginning and the end of the world; perhaps that is why I reverberate just imagining it. I love to take the egg in small pieces to my mouth, and vibrate as I taste its essence.
I talk to the egg even if they call me crazy, and in heated conversations I venerate it; savoring, vibrating in its flavor. I talk to the egg and I make claims to it. If Rachel Revuelta She said, in a movie, very moved and even tearful: “Mom, give me a gardenia”, I shout, with the same emphasis as Raquel, “Mom, make me an omelette…”
“Mom, a tortilla, a scramble, mom,” a scramble, a sweet that contains all the eggs in the world… I dream of a country of eggs and I wake up in a country run by lazy people who pay no attention to poultry production or eggs.
I think of the egg and I dedicate a lot of blasphemies to it, and I shout vulgarities against those who shamelessly distance me from the egg. And I even think of those congresses and assemblies in which its destiny is decided, and its million-dollar productions are exalted.
I dream of an egg that oozes all its densities. I think of the egg and I remember Deysi Granados throwing eggs in that movie called Plaf. And Plaf is perhaps the closest way to represent that sound that the egg makes when it breaks against a wall, when it falls irremediably on the ground or when it hits, and breaks, on the back of some Cuban.
Plaf, plaf, plaf, that’s how the egg must sound when it breaks on someone’s back. Plaf, that’s the sound of the egg that broke on the walls, on the backs, of those who decided to go north using the Port of Mariel. Plaf, plaf, plaf, that was the sound of the egg that the “commander” must have supplied to punish those who decided to “betray” him.
Plaf, plaf, plaf plaf; that must have been how the eggs in the Peruvian embassy sounded, broken in the bodies of those who would later board a boat to make the complete journey that had the lands of North America as its final destination. The history of the egg in Cuba is great. The egg in Cuba is a plow and a pedestal, it is death and life, it is hate and also love, desires.
And we once called him “lifesaver”; back then he was the “magnetic center” of our lives, the center of the vast majority of Cuban tables. And as Jorge Manrique said, “everything in the past was better,” especially for the hungriest Cuban tables today.
And the egg ended up disappearing, and now, in its brief reappearances, we have to pay a few thousand pesos for a “carton of eggs.” What was once called the “national lifesaver” is today a utopia, the greatest chimera, a very poor memory, and so much so that on social networks the egg is gaining unusual prominence, like right now.
And the egg has reappeared, but not in the basic basketThe egg reappeared in a giant poster. There are five eggs that appear in this gigantic image that circulated on the networks. Five eggs standing on a huge poster in which one certainty also stands out: “They will return.” “They will return,” is stated in the giant poster in which five eggs manage to be the center of attention.
“They will return, they will return,” but this time they will not be The five heroes those who return. This time the demand, the demands, are dedicated to the prompt return of the egg and not to the five spies who served brief sentences in American prisons for espionage. And in the poster, which is a parody, the return of the eggs and not of the heroes is demanded.
What must return is the egg, it is the food that is imprisoned in communist hands. The image is desacralizing, with the image that part of Cuban historydistances it from the ridiculous official discourse. What must return is the egg. What is happening is a re-semanticization of the official and communist discourse. What must return is the egg, and not one or two. What must return are the eggs that we want, without ambiguity, without beating around the bush, the constant egg rattling in the pan.
