Short story
His country’s capital city dazzled him by its size and unknown customs. There, people were not used to walking, but driving, motorcycling and piloting. They would only eat in public and picturesque dinning rooms, and would dream awake sitting on vast gloomy cinemas, where the shared dream is projected at the forefront by musical pictures and colourful lights.
At nightfall, he went for a walk and saw people going out one by one from their little and identical flats. Each of them, very responsible, went out to their doorsteps to leave a well-covered and even, in some cases, shiny and outstanding package. He had time to select the neatest and best one. Only ribbons were missing to make it look like a present. He took it home to find out what would be inside that package, thinking it would reveal the big city’s unknown and lovely customs. He opened it and, inside the clean container, he found the most fetid and sickening rubbish a man could ever imagine.
Book:
Zavaleta, C. (2019). El provinciano. Pueblo azul: Edición conmemorativa. Fondo Editorial ACELA, Huarás. Fondo Editorial ACELA, Huarás.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. «The countryman», a short story translated by Pablo Alejos Flores.
Conpedepatria 