Altolaguirre - horror story

Prologue.

In any given café, at the bus stop, looking at the magazines in the newsstand, wandering on an October afternoon, walking down the street; or perhaps crossing in opposite directions a psychophysical bridge between Marise’s parallel world and the world of reality, two completely different people exchange glances and, by the end of the day, unknowingly discover that their destinies walk inseparably side by side.

Day to Day with Wigfredo.

by Marise

When Wigfredo sits down in front of a blank page and ends up writing stories he hadn’t intended to write, I am the one responsible — I was going to say “this blank screen,” but our readers are not yet ready to face the consequences of abandoning paper —.
I am the one who gives a little length to the stories we tell here, and the feminine touch.

Wigfredo comes home, tosses his jacket on top of… and he’s already forgotten about it until one day he remembers he has a jacket and asks:
—Did you see my grey jacket?
—Why? Did you buy a jacket?
—No, no. The usual one.
—Wouldn’t it be the one you left lying around in the bedroom and then forgot about? Because one day I got tired of looking at it and hung it in the wardrobe. You do know where the wardrobe is, don’t you? Where people keep their clothes when they’ve put them away…

I don’t want to take all the credit, but let’s just say I’m the one who sweats it out and does the laundry in this blog.

I want to make it clear that what I really enjoy is reading magazines with colour photographs and drawing Prussian mustaches on women. If I make up these stories, it’s to help Wigfredo, who is shy and a bit of an idiot, and to stop him from being the one causing all the trouble he gets into.

Even as a little boy, Wigfredo stood out for the way he spoke:

—Right then, children, bring me your notebooks with your homework!
—Teacher, I have a cousin who forgot her notebook at home the day they asked for the homework.
—Tell your cousin to bring twenty copies of the homework you were supposed to do today to class tomorrow.

**Friday the thirteenth.**

—Teacher, the other day, at sunset, my cousin was passing by the school with her parents, on their way home from a walk, and she thought she saw the shadow of a child in one of the windows.

—Don’t worry. What looked like a child to you was probably Altolaguirre, turning off the classroom lights.

—Altolaguirre?

—Altolaguirre was a schoolteacher who was very fond of the children, but sometimes things happen that shouldn’t. Look, Altolaguirre: a child going missing can still be managed. You draw a line through the name on the list of those who came to class and that’s it.

—Altolaguirre: a child going missing can still be managed. You draw a line through the name on the list of those who came to class and that’s it. The father calls in the afternoon asking if his son came, and we say no, that his name isn’t on the list, and that’s that.

But a child missing an arm… Altolaguirre, everyone notices when a child is missing an arm. And how are we going to explain it if the arm doesn’t turn up?

—Come on, Altolaguirre, take a pencil and draw a child there, on a sheet of paper! The first thing anyone does when drawing a child is to give them four limbs. Draw a child missing an arm! There, look at the drawing you’ve just made. The first thing anyone thinks if they see a child missing an arm is that something is wrong.

—Altolaguirre, do you have any childhood trauma?

—My mum says I’m introverted!

—Look, Altolaguirre, since you’re the boss’s son, here’s what we’re going to do: you keep coming to work every day, but you stay hidden in the room under the stairs at the entrance, where no one can see you.

And so, Altolaguirre hides in the room under the entrance staircase. Through a crack in the small, sloping door, he counts the children who arrive first thing in the morning and those who leave when classes end in the afternoon. That way, he makes sure no one is left behind inside, and that no child ever disappears again with no more explanation than a line through a name.

Well, after reading this story, you’ll have realised that it’s better for me to do the writing instead of Wigfredo, and besides, if the reader hasn’t understood it by now, this story is meant to be read so that you can see who’s holding the pen and discover whether we might not be Wigfredo’s cousin.

Sometimes you have to look beyond the events that occur to discover how predictable chaos is.

mvf.

This story was originally published as: Wigfredo’s Metacognition.