An old man wakes up each day in a house that seems to shift and change shape, trapped between shattered memories and a night haunted by menacing presences. As he searches for food, shelter, and any glimmer of lucidity, a faceless girl appears in his dreams with a persistent question: «Who are you?» No News from Segismundo blends horror, memory, and strangeness to explore the fragility of identity when the outside world—and the mind—have begun to crumble.

Nº 09 | Short story | Science Fiction | 2749 words | Translated by Trinidad Montalva

NO NEWS FROM SEGISMUNDO

LUIS SAAVEDRA VARGAS

In the dream, the sun had set, and both the girl and the old man were huddled around a dim lamp. The flickering light fell on the girl’s head, but it was impossible to tell what was there. It seemed to be nothing but a black hole, a vortex of opaque stars dancing and sinking into what should have been her face. The room was filled with drafts and sighs, and the chill of unspoken contact ran down the old man’s back. He moved toward the light, and the girl cast a shadow that served as her mouth, forming a timid «o.» The old man jumped, making the girl recoil. «Who are you?» she asked the old man, «who are you?» And the dream became vague and turned into a ravine of murmurs.

Regaining consciousness was an arduous, sluggish daily process. The moans he’d heard and the arms wailing in the air were all his. That was his fully awake body, wrapped in a whirlwind of chaotic references, waiting for the self to emerge from the subconscious. It was barely seven in the morning and the rays of light that filtered through the shutters were a heavy flow of suspended particles. His agitated mind stopped churning, and he managed to untangled himself from the sheets, and sat up. A chill settled over him, a chill that wasn’t just physical, but also a crystalline moment of silence. The whirlwind returned to haunt him, and he fled the room, as if the hurricane was the physical presence of a kind of chaos that rearranged things, faces, and days. If he entered any room in the house, he had the feeling he had just left it. If he remembered a face, its name floated before him until it blurred and became thousands of names. If he looked out the window, whether night or day – who knows -, the sky was always reddened, pierced by eternal lightning, like a final wound on the scalp of the world.

The house’s labyrinthine layout was riddled with traps and hidden corners. Piles of newspapers and books huddled in the nooks and crannies, narrow hallways snaked endlessly. It took him an hour, maybe two – who knows -, to finally find the kitchen pantry, as if the room was always in a different place. Hungry, he’d open the drawer and gaze at the thousands of cans stacked on a monolithic wall. Some would roll under the cabinet. Some would fall into his hands, which trembled as they try to open them. That would take another few minutes or hours – who knows -. But he’d manage it, with the help of a spoon or a fork, and devour every last bit of food trying to find peace again. He would toss the empty can into the same corner, where all the others gathered and stank, shooing away the cockroaches that had built a complex and thriving megalopolis out of his own trash. He would wander aimlessly, murmuring a word, the word of the day, the one that floated above the middling shadows in his mind and settled in as soon as he awoke. He would sit down, without smiling, without crying, just chewing on the word of the day. His hands opened and closed in uncontrollable, cyclical routines; always haunted by an eternal feeling of something lost and difficult to find. Amidst the tangled hair and wrinkles, what remained of his humanity was concentrated in his frightened eyes, always alert and restless, never at peace with anything, neither with the geometry of the house nor with the broken bowl of his head. In the darkness of the living room, the murmurs from outside could be heard—both deep shouts and striking laughter—. They weren’t human sounds, but the night’s orgy moving around his house, demanding to be let in; sometimes seductive with its offers, with its whispers of a final, merciful death; and sometimes violent with its threats of a thousand teeth and enduring suffering, which would drill into him from within and regenerate his flesh forever and ever. But the old man paid no heed to the turmoil of the scratching, incessantly firing different combinations of his dayly word until, in an instant, he would stop, look around nervously, and began a journey in reverse that would take him one or two or three hours – who knows -, to his bed. Like a beast driven mad, he would crawl under the stained and filthy sheets, listening only to the rhythm of his heart, which also horrified him. Outside, the orgy of the night grew in vile celebrations. The word of the day finally died on his parched lips, replaced by his weeping, which ended when blessed sleep enveloped him in its shroud. Then, the girl with the black hole face reappeared. Her eternal question plunged him into sadness and despair: «Who are you?»

The word of the day was «adobe.» Along with the word came intertwined images of rain, leaden clouds, puddles reflecting the fading sun, tame animals mooing a greeting, fire, fire in a stove, warmth, bread, steam rising from a wet poncho, an old lady, a boy eating cheese who was himself, five or six or seven decades ago – who knows -. He hadn’t suffered the girl’s visit today, or perhaps he didn’t recall. He wandered through the labyrinth looking for the kitchen and took even longer than on previous days, assuming he remembered that well. Finally, at the end of a passageway that crossed a ruined garden, he found it. The day was bright, like an ordinary day from before, not like the reddened skies and menacing echoes of the present. An ordinary day that felt like a new hallucination, more sophisticated, glittering in its details, that felt like jumping down a rabbit hole. In the garden stood a plaster figure holding a jug. Not a drop of water had fallen from the jug in a long time. The statue of the girl seemed familiar for a second or two – who knows -. She was barefoot and wore a very simple one-piece dress; her face was rapidly changing, and the jug in her hands was broken, though the girl was holding a fragment with one hand, as if preventing it from shattering completely. He watched her, but ultimately the urgency of the day’s word compelled him to move to the next room. The light returned to its familiar, dim tone, and he scanned the shelves, searching for an unopened can. A difference whispered unease in his ear. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find one, and the word of the day was replaced by terror. His nervous hands explored the rusted textures of the drawers; terrified. He fumbled with jars that reflected his frightened image. He rummaged desperately through the pile of empty cans until he found a small, still edible piece. Two or three pieces – who knows -, that somewhat calmed his hunger. He couldn’t remember the word of the day, so he chose a new one. «Adobe.» He walked toward the sofa, his heart still pounding in his chest, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He found a newspaper page with an image that completely consumed him. The sky, as always, red and white, crisscrossed by cracks, and in the middle a hole from which a claw emerged. A caption in white letters pierced him with urgency, in a language that lay somewhere in his knowledge. The symbols danced, avoiding his gaze. He began to tremble and groan; his hands clenched. What were those symbols telling him? He choked on a deep sob that laid him flat until his gaze drifted back to a vanishing point on the wall.

That night, or another – who knows-, the orgy of darkness was at its peak, but it didn’t bother him. The noise in his head was louder. He went to the window and saw the specters. They were fondling the front gate; they desired it, they longed to pass through it. He stepped outside and faced the contortionists. By the blood-red light of the night sky alone, succubi and incubi drooled just two meters away. Claws and horns, fangs and bones, night-blind eyes and forked tongues. Blasphemous words spewed into the air, ancient insults vomited up in vulgar Latin. Erect members and swollen vaginas with a life of their own. A wall of limbs stretched toward him and called to him seductively, or insulted him, licking their jaws with anticipation. They roared for a consent that would never come: without a name that was a word of power, the old man simply wavered, one step forward, one step back. He felt utterly weary. The infernal race trembled with pleasure, exploiting every cubic inch of the human soul, crowding against the gate. It was barely a drop from the vast ocean of life contained within each human being, but it was enough for Luciferian orgasms. A gigantic entity crawled through the throng, violently clearing a path with great arcs of its broad, shovel-like arms. Reaching the gate, which towered far above it, the creature rested its limbs upon the iron, which groaned and threatened to collapse. Its face was a pulsating, oozing sphincter. The old man recoiled from the sheer violence of the stench, which even made him forget the word of the day. Fear froze the grimace on his face, and he clung to the threshold with a weakened hand, as if a whirlwind were about to rise and hurl him into the air and the night. The entity sat up, turned around, and bent over, presenting its rear end. The anti-face opened its rheumy eyes, the wings of its anti-nose extended, and its anti-mouth spat out a whitish substance. An even more fetid smell swept over the old man like a tsunami wave, and he could barely breathe. He lowered his gaze, wishing it would all disappear. The spawn spoke:

“Good evening, neighbor. We were worried about you; we see you less and less.” Its anti-eyes blinked, emitting a metallic sound. “Would you like to invite us into your home? You must feel very lonely in all that darkness.”

The infernal race erupted in laughter and surged against the fence, violently battering it. The giant creature howled in rage at being interrupted, and tore their bodies to pieces with his fists. It took him a while to restore order, and when the atmosphere had finally calmed, an eyeball rolled at the old man’s feet.

“It’s just a courtesy visit, Don Antonio. Antonio, right? Or perhaps Sergio? Carlos? Your family must miss you.” A murmur of pleasure and isolated chuckles. “There’s nothing like family, Ernesto. We could be your family; perhaps we are, Luchito.”

The old man looked up; a new word of the day on the tip of his tongue: «Adobe.» He remembered a visitor, someone who hadn’t come for one, two, or three days – who knows -. The whole trick lay in how much of this figure, claiming to be his relative, was a hallucination. The reference to his family opened a space in his memory. Were those his people? Was the creature part of that group? He didn’t know, and once again uncertainty clouded his mind like a sandstorm. He clenched his fists and hurled them at his face, as if pain could bring him back to his senses. The infernal race, including the spawn, laughed and muttered insults: “You old bastard, you’re all alone. You’ve got nothing left to live for. You miserable old man, you’ve got nothing left to fight with.” The blows to his face stopped when he heard an insistent pounding on the living room window. There was the faceless girl, who fled the moment she saw him.

“Whore, whore, slut!” the monstrosity exploded, enraged. “You’re not going to be of any use! You are nobody! The King will not forgive you! You will end up in our jaws!”

The old man took the opportunity and reenter the house. Desperate, he walked through the labyrinthine hallways until he found his bed and buried himself in the covers. The night passed between his own screams and cries, and the chaos of the orgy. They called him Hugo, Martín, Mateo, Daniel, Alejandro, Pablo. Adrián, Mario, Enzo, Diego. Marcos, Javier, Bruno, Juan. Gael. Adam. The noise became a white sheet and he mercifully lost consciousness.

The word of the day didn’t come to him when he woke up. The cold air brought something different, sharp and precise. The sandstorm hanging over him was gone. An event that hadn’t occurred for a week or two or three – who knows -. He felt exhausted and demolished, but purified. The spatial dimensions were now much smaller, and it took him only half an hour to get up and walk through his home. Every corner smelled of mold and filth. In the bathroom, he recognized himself in the mirror with a long, melancholic gaze. In the kitchen, he found several unopened cans and arranged them in a prominent place in the cabinet. There were only enough for a little over a month. The home of so many generations had been reduced to black corners and piles of printed paper, that threatened to collapse at the mere touch of a hand. He peered fearfully out the window, and the reddish, underwater light revealed a shattered world. Scorched buildings and vehicular corpses that had stopped mid-journey. Gaunt trees stretched toward the sky, dead. Black earth and cracked cement. In the distance, two or three or four kilometers – who knows -, like a monstrous lighthouse of anti-life, the King reigned omnipresent, his head swarming with eyes and tentacles, his body crowded with incubi and succubi, sitting comfortably in the middle of the world that had once been human, and that now belonged to him. The old man couldn’t hold his gaze for long without feeling a profound, painful desolation. The colossus’s bestial depth was an impossible concept to digest. He moved away from the window with his heart turned to ashes, yet his senses restored. He rummaged over the papers until he reached the medical file. He opened it and looked at the blur of a face that gradually cleared up. Segismundo Humberto Masferrer González was him, without facial hair, without fear, without a sunken gaze. The medical record was simple, as was the prognosis. The faceless girl appeared beside him and, like his image on the folder, slowly acquired details until she was fully in focus.

“Little Bean,” the old man said to his granddaughter, hopeful “you stayed. And your parents?”

She smiled slowly, as if she hadn’t done so three or four or a thousand days ago – who knows -.

“Yes, Grandpa, I stayed with you. It’s just the two of us now.”

The old man was confused. He reached out to touch the girl’s face, but his hand only passed through the space.

“Are you real, or am I just sicker?”

“Grandpa, I was real, but I’m still here with you.”

“I just don’t understand, I don’t understand anything these days. Like that thing out there.” He pointed with his index finger at the King. The girl didn’t even look.

“That doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re here again. I’m taking care of you.”

“And your mom? And Marcos? and…?” What was the word on the tip of his lips? The word of the day perhaps. He hadn’t had a word of the day for one, two or three years – who knows -. Who was that pretty girl? It reminded him of someone, those merciful eyes blurring, the entire face fading into a vortex of stars. «Abyss» was the word of the day, and all his attention was devoted to muttering it. The outside world was left in the background.

“I’m going to take care of you, grandpa. Until the end.”

The girl vanished into the sandstorm of his mind. References to a past life swirled in the vast cauldron of his broken and impossible to mend conscience, staining the walls with memories devoid of context. His heart raced and his hands trembled once more. He was plunged into the pit of an unnerved terror that had no equal. Not even the orgy of the infernal race had any power over his self-destruction. The old man had already lost his name, shrouded in the pall of oblivion.