PodCastle has recorded an audio version of my story “This Strage Way of Dying” which is set during the time of the Decena Tragica, as the Mexican Revolution is going to blow up into a huge conflict.
This is a great excuse to talk about death in Mexico. The easiest way to explain it is visually, with the etchings of Jose Gualdaupe Posada (here’s a piece I wrote about him). As you can see, Death in Mexico is represented as being a very lively creature. It drinks, it parties, it misbehaves. The Day of the Dead features the use of colorful flowers (orange, yellow and a deep red), altars with food and incense.
In Mexica (a.k.a. Aztec) cosmology life is but a brief instant, an almost insignificant occurrence. But, hey, don’t despair, because existence is cyclical and as we move out of one existence we enter another.
The Mexican Revolution can be a symbol for this cycle, as it was a time of deep changes. The classical Porfirian structures gave way to a different mindset and eventually a different country. Women, instead of sitting prim and proper in their homes, were suddenly taking up arms, marching as soldaderas with their rifles.
“This Strage Way of Dying” is a brief slice of this change: a rich, sheltered teenager suddenly faces Death, though this death is more enticing than the Grim Reaper of European stories and she is suddenly taken with the fantastic vitality of him.
“It would be beautiful,” he told her.
Death wove a silver necklace around her neck with vines and birds. The dove fluttered back to life and landing on her hands transformed into a hundred black pearls which spilled onto the floor.
It was all wonderful.
He leaned forward, smelling faintly of incense and copal, of candles burning on the altars. His eyes were so very black, so very deep, and she thought she’d never seen eyes like that; eyes that were dark and quiet as the grave.
She wondered if his lips might taste like sugar skulls.
Georgina, who has until then assumed she will marry a rich man of her father’s choice, suddenly discovers love. How old were you the first time you looked into someone’s eyes and just stared in fascination, drawn by a something you could not explain? That moment, when you smiled a shy smile and misplaced your heart is what this story is about.
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