HOLIDAY

When it’s sweltering here, people say,

god has opened the gates of hell.

A swarm of pentagrams had descended

on the city. From palms and broken streetlights

they hung, motionless. Giant specimens

covered dilapidated facades (the railway station,

for instance, and the hospital). The road

to the palace had been swept clean,

the beggars driven out of sight

of the palace windows.

A national holiday.

Celebrating what?

Nobody knew.

I was in a government building in the center of town

for the confirmation of a declaration of annulment of a birth

certificate,

which I had applied for years earlier and which

had arrived today from the adjoining government building,

to confirm the confirmation and destroy it,

along with my birth certificate.

In the waiting room one person after the other

succumbed to the heat: the windows were shut

to serve as clips securing the strips of fabric

in the colors of the national flag that were hanging

motionless from the roof of the building.

The official received me with the customary

mix of boredom and haughtiness,

but I brushed it off, not for a second

did I feel humiliated at being subjected to his whims,

I gladly slipped him a bonus

for the great trouble I was putting him to

by asking him to do his job and

immediately he pulled out the scissors

he hadn’t been able to find anywhere.

Afterward I thanked him with

the customary heartfelt humility

while backing out of his office.

I turned

and ran down the stairs.

Unborn.

Outside, despite not existing, I was obliged

to slow down: the streets were lined

with barriers behind which four generations

of subjects thronged together,

whispering excitedly.

Although it was most doubtful

He would appear at all

and wasn’t celebrating the holiday

in one of the other royal cities

(where the same preparations had been carried out),

large numbers of officers were out to ensure

that should He come, the crowd

would be delirious with joy and

welcome Him the way people would

their god.