The Twilight Zone

and forth inside its cage. After a while, the stewardess brings him something to eat. He uncovers the meal on the tray, helping himself with his metal utensils to rice, salad, noodles, meat, or whatever he’s been served, feeling the disturbing presence and thinking again that he mustn’t take the document out of the lining of his coat, mustn’t read it. And he eats. And he drinks wine from his glass. And then it’s time for coffee and the stewardess takes the tray, but he decides to keep the little metal knife. Before anyone notices, he tucks it into the same coat that he knows he shouldn’t unstitch. Don’t remove the papers from the lining, that’s what he was told. Don’t read them. And feeling that stifling warmth against his back, he drinks his coffee and thinks about the creature he’s harboring. It’s a dangerous beast, no doubt, something like a rat or a raven, he feels it there against his kidneys, and now it’s between his shoulder blades. And then he orders a whiskey. And another and another. Or maybe he doesn’t order anything. Maybe alcohol is no distraction and all at once he rebels. He simply can’t stand the presence of whatever it is against his back anymore and he stops listening to the annoying little voice telling him what he can and can’t do. Like in a children’s story, the protagonist is tempted to disobey his mother’s orders, or his father’s, or his older brother’s, whoever has forbidden him to do something, and with the little metal knife from his meal he unstitches the coat’s lining and removes the document, just as he’s been told not to do, and rats and ravens are coming out of the papers, and he’s horrified and afraid and he doesn’t want the ink of this cursed text to taint him, but it’s too late now, now he’s stained, now he can’t help it and he reads, just as he was told not to do, and as he does, the words of the man who tortured people come sticky and dense out of Pandora’s box, all the threads tangled up with Parada, Guerrero, and Nattino’s names.

The reporter’s friend can’t believe what he’s reading.

The reporter’s friend weeps silently, steadily, there in the airplane seat.

So many familiar names, so many deaths, such horror.

The reporter’s friend clings to the seat belt, because he knows that once he’s done reading he’ll tumble into space and never be the same again.

I remember another episode of The Twilight Zone. In it, a lonely man of few means finds a book with an inscription forbidding anyone to read it on fear of death. Of course the man is tempted to open it and read what’s inside, but first he wants to test whether the warning is true. The man wordlessly passes the book to an old acquaintance, and right away the man starts to read it. What he finds there is riveting, and he reads and reads for hours until at last he falls down dead with a big smile on his face.

The man who found the book is shaken. Not satisfied by what he’s seen, he tempts fate again and gives the book to another acquaintance. The very same thing happens again. The second acquaintance can’t stop reading and he reads and reads in delight until he falls dead with the same smile on his face as the first reader.

The man who found the cursed book begins to use it as a weapon against his enemies. If anyone tries to collect money from him, if anyone opposes his ideas, the book comes to the rescue. Everyone reads and falls down dead, and his life is gradually transformed and ruled by this seductive, deadly book.

The man who found the cursed book becomes a millionaire, owner of a chain of stores and a palatial house where he lives with his four children and his platinum blond wife. One day, always careful and paranoid about where the book is hidden, he decides to take it out of its safe and bury it in a secret spot in his big yard. What the man fails to predict is that one of his four children is watching from the bedroom window.

One day the man comes home and no one is there to greet him. The children don’t come running with hugs and kisses, and his platinum blond wife is nowhere to be seen. The servants take his coat and hat. When he goes up to his room he finds his whole family lying on the big bed. His wife has the book open in her hands and the children, gathered around her, seem to be listening intently to a long story. But no one is listening anymore. No one is reading. The man’s family are resting in peace, with smiles on their faces. Whatever they’ve read has transported them once and for all to the dark realms of the twilight zone.

The reporter’s friend disembarks for a layover in Caracas, Venezuela, with the document hidden in the lining of his coat. He walks out of the airport and there he is welcomed by a group of friends who realize at once that something is wrong. The reporter’s friend can’t keep the document secret, and he talks. And out of his mouth come the heavy words of the man who tortured people. And out of his mouth come rats and ravens. And the tale captivates and consumes all who hear it. A Chilean reporter who is part of the group decides to publish the interview in Caracas. No permission is requested, no notice given; the testimony is simply published immediately in a Venezuelan newspaper.

What comes next is like that episode from The Twilight Zone.

Words written in dangerous ink turn against their owner.

Words written in poisonous ink turn against whoever reads them.

When word of its publication gets out, the group of the man who tortured people tires of searching for him