What happened to him was beyond belief. He ate (God preserve him!) a citizen without knowing he was a talented poet. His character changed, and he became (God preserve him!) an innovative poet in spite of the fact that before he couldn’t tell the difference between a cheek and the bottom of the foot.
What happened to him was beyond belief. Every time he devoured one of us (God preserve him!) he delivered a funeral oration in words as black as charcoal and exuding so much grief they sprinkled salt on water.
What happened to him (God preserve him!) was beyond belief, and what happened to us was beyond belief also. The one stuffed with our flesh and crying over our dead bodies was but one person, and we wouldn’t have needed to fire a gun twice. But we didn’t fire even one shot because the undernourished dogs that are always in flight barked in warning that the enemy was approaching fast, and he (God preserve him!) and his men with the proud mustaches, their bodies weighed down by the weapons they were carrying, ran with terrified steps to hide their heads under their pillows, giving no thought to what was going to happen to the rest of their bodies. They ignored the rough hands that stripped them of their clothes, for the act of being straddled did not diminish their pleasure at having saved their necks from being stained with blood. On the contrary they welcomed it as a foundation for a larger human family, and spread rumors to the effect that the brutal soldiers of the enemy were beautiful women in disguise. A magnificent delight spread over air, sea, and land. At that moment his ears (God preserve him!) grew bigger, and he could hear the people’s voices rising toward the sky, praying it would grace them with a few drops of water. He (God preserve him!) listened to their prayers and released his strange rain over them. The moment a drop of it came in contact with a man’s head it bored a hole in it and sucked up all that was inside, turning it into a skull whose owner had been dead for a thousand years. The people were terrified and raised their voices to the heavens, asking to be saved from what had befallen them, and he (God preserve him!) had a long, merry laugh until his eyes filled with tears and he ordered his minions to remind people that the sky to which they were appealing was nothing more than a wide-open blue space that was deaf and mute and that they had nothing else to turn to but him (God preserve him!), for he alone was the powerful one who could answer prayers and come to the rescue. The big tribes rushed to sing his praises and exalt him (God preserve him!), but not our small tribe, which was out of favor and always subject to ridicule. Its land was taken, its wealth stolen, and its women scattered under those who raped them. Our tribe became the laughing stock of all the others, and we swore revenge, even after a million years, in order to get back our land and wealth and wipe away the shame brought upon our women. But we were unarmed and weak, with fear instead of blood running deep in our veins. We cried for many years and sought help from him who alone was the source of relief, and he sent us invisible armies bringing the most modern weapons. We examined them with admiration and pleasure, and as soon as we touched them our bodies lost their weakness and terror and became strong and muscular, fearing no one. We welcomed what had happened to us and lost no time in opening a market, more like a small village, specializing in the selling of arms. Its reputation spread among the tribes, and the number of customers grew. We joined the famous and wealthy and no longer asked for anything other than long life. Our secret efforts were crowned with success. We obtained a written promise that we wouldn’t die, and we sold our graves and the graves of our forefathers and grandchildren for the most exorbitant prices, and became an envied example among the tribes.