The second part

The short and gloomy life of Julia Parra Tapi

(and, ‘Living and not having lived’)

Chapter one of two

The short and gloomy life of Julia Parra Tapi

“Stay here,” Julia Parra Tapi told her son Avelino. Her mother was transfixed, her face streaked with tears.

“Why?” she asked herself, rather muttered.

“Because I said so,” Julia said. She looked angrily at Avelino, as if he did not do his duty to take care of his younger brother properly and now this problem, she had been fishing and suddenly appeared, and Avelino was frozen in fear.

“Are you going to look for the anaconda?” Avelino yelled.

“Gotta do it now, just stay where you are, stay back. You can see what I’m doing even better from here.”

“Okay, Mom”. And she said, in a whisper, “I just looked away for a moment, and it was gone.”

Julia grabbed and pulled out a machete she had in a large bag of fishing gear, then saw the anaconda in the tall wet grass, took a step towards it, nodded, and said, “Yes, you must die,” looking at an eighteen-year-old. A five-hundred-pound anaconda, in the tall, wet grass, along the banks of the Amazon, with a bulge the size of a six-year-old. The snake opened its wide mouth, its fangs as long as her index finger, her six-year-old son was missing, and Avelino, eight, was supposed to watch over him.

Then he entered the wet and swampy ground, the anaconda was resting, digesting, fifty little snakes were running around him, his litter Julia presumed.

He crawled around the snake, examining it, he crawled like the snake. The bulge inside the snake, which was sticking out as if it had a long watermelon inside it, had just swallowed its food; she could digest it for a week or months. She swung her machete, taking a hit on her arm, the snake following her movements. Raising his right hand in the air, above his head, to get as much thrust as he could with his strength, he seized the weapon with both hands, and like a hammer he brought it down, sliced ​​through the back of the snake like hard butter, where the lump was, the part that was shaped like a head. The giant snake tried to circle, to the right, it rose three feet and was spilling blackish blood.

“You leave me no choice,” he yelled at the creature. She looked inside the snake, saw something familiar, then in anger, she raised the machete again, and the litter of snakes began to surround her, she panicked. He dropped his weapon on top of the snake’s head, severed it almost completely, the head still attached, held by a thread. She saw a foot.

Then, at the last moment, Julia looked back, spellbound, there were eyes of a cat, a puma (a jaguar) and she began to tremble: she couldn’t run, the puma had her focused, or maybe she could hear a voice. In her head he said, her second thought, complete thought, was, Avelino, she looked at him. The new problem called for a new plan. And she was thinking, all in a minute that seemed like an hour. She felt that she had opened the wrong door.

Just go, her mind told her, her second self told her.

“No,” she whispered to him.

“Why not?”

“Maybe he’s alive?”

“I see, but in a second, it will be too late! You can’t win.”

“Maybe?”

“Too late.”

The big brownish wildcat jumped, jumped out from under the canopy of tall grass, jumped on Julia, knocked her to the ground next to the big snake, had looked at Avelino as he fell, and as he fell hit the ground, he saw the bloody face inside the snake

“Don’t worry,” his second self said, “he’ll be left behind, he knows how to get out of here.”

And then he yelled: “Come on, come on, come on…oo Ave lin o…!”

Twenty-five meters into the grass lay the great cat, its mouth red and its fangs full of wet meat; flies circling around their yellow eyes, as they blinked, trying to focus on something moving in the distance.

Chapter two of two

Live and not have lived

In the instant, Julia realized, like a rush, a harsh-tasting void of a rush, that she was going to die, like the anaconda next to her.

“What’s wrong?” he said to his mind, his second self.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” he remarked, “you better make up!”

“Avelino ran?”

“I don’t know if I felt like he did, or was about to. You’ll be out in a minute,” her mind told her, finally beginning to slowly close her eyes. She was only twenty-seven years old, she had loved very little in her life, apart from her two children, perhaps because her Amazon demanded too much of her, too much and she almost let her go…

Now in her mind (her second self) she saw in the blink of an eye, her two children, the death of her husband, how when he got drunk he hit her hard, almost breaking her jaw once. She hit him back behind the ear, then smashed him with meat. She didn’t even make love with joy; but he bore her two sons nonetheless. He would go out into the cool night and go back to bed fainting, and one day she got up and left him before he woke up, and returned to her town with her two children.

That same day he got drunk and was attacked by those damn wildcats the pumas (or jaguars). She knew as everyone knew that the cougar didn’t care to be seen by humans, or anyone, usually brown, some black, big and fast, and they need a lot of space to hunt and roam. But when they were hungry, they hid and were good at not being seen: like today.

He remembered the good times with his children: always choosing the best places for a picnic. She always thought that they never had enough time together. The world hadn’t changed much for her, just events.

And then she let go…