Something encloses us and corrodes the air within spaces of long-delayed isolation, woven by the fibrous shadows of imminent extinction. We try to escape, yet we cannot overcome these forces that, like magnets, irresistibly draw us toward invisible walls. How can we free ourselves from this unknown force that seizes us in such a way that, merely by attempting flight or escape, we feel once again the encirclement, the limit, the vanishing, before any gesture that suggests any form or means of flight or retreat? We are trapped in webs of tentacles of every kind, of every caliber, and of unsuspected lineages. How can we feel free on a map traced and drawn by emissaries from distant captivities who assiduously return to our surroundings to jealously guard the course of our steps? This suddenly seems to present itself as a mania or an illness; I mean, this feeling of being enclosed between imaginary walls and sentenced to remain submerged in immobility. Sometimes, this perpetuation occurs without any hint of movement, whether invented, imagined, or merely apparent. We are eyewitnesses to our own captivity, feeling watched, calculated, manipulated, and harassed at all times and in every place, wherever that which animates the blood flows, toward the lifeblood that animates our existence.
I write these words to attend a celebration, not very common in our literary world; I mean, the reading of a book written in a language adhering to brevity and precision, which characterizes all writing born in the epicenter of profound wonder. It is about The Monster's Birthday, a book of short stories written by the Venezuelan narrator Wilfredo Machado and published by Nila Ediciones, 2025. It was illustrated by Pablo García Sanoja, who draws shapes, bodies and structures, revealing images that coexist with the narratives in this book.
The author of these stories states that they come from: A playful and ruthless exploration of monstrosities that nest in the human heart, in the forgotten corners of the city, and in the cracked rituals of normality.
The stories in this book by Wilfredo highlight the alarming decline that plagues large cities; the overwhelming loneliness of those who swarm the streets of refuse, sewers, and waste. Beings like shadows, given over to begging, helplessness, and apathy. Beings who barely manage to find temporary and vulnerable refuge on sidewalks, streets, paths, and alleyways, or under a bridge.
At nightfall, as I was preparing to close the heavy doors of the Cathedral, I saw the group of beggars gathered in the gardens. Some of them looked at me with pity, as if they pitied my prominent hunchback.The gargoyles of Notre Dame). And at times the narration of these stories is taken by the helm of poetry, and we read: That light looked like the flickering lantern of a fishing boat sailing in the darkness (The Abacus)
Characters without any possible roots, those in these stories, in their unstoppable journey toward tragic ends of insatiable uncertainty. Characters as if passed through the gears of amorphous machines that bite, segment, and crush; and become invincible mythological titans reincarnated in the power that governs the destiny of the new times. Sleepwalking characters relegated and reflected on gigantic screens, where they are transformed into volatile, formless, and violently evanescent images. Thus, we read on other pages: when I look In the mirror he felt like an animal emerging from the shadows into the morning light (The lonely smoke)And the author of these stories expresses his astonishment at a style of writing that points towards unstoppable disenchantments, and says: As I write this story with trembling hands, the dog of the night bares its teeth at me.
Everything is possible in these stories, in which the fusion of fiction, realism, invention, science fiction, humor, fantasy, and dreams is felt almost imperceptibly. Even a mannequin, seemingly from a film sequence, appears with a surprisingly human appearance; and is immediately integrated into a community of beggars, as we read in the following excerpt:
He glanced sideways at the garbage container bathed in the highway lights, and it was there, in one of the worst places in the world, that his eyes found the thin, inconspicuous legs sticking out of the garbage bags, near the square where beggars gathered to smoke crack at night… When he arrived at the place, he saw the two beggars stoking the bonfire where the remains of the mannequin were burning.The mannequin)
Gradually, the thousand-headed monster advances through medieval courtyards, breathing infernal flames; later, it appears in portals of enraged gargoyles baring feline fangs; it also reappears in the fields of the broken, fragmented, and subjugated, subjected to the inquisitorial bonfires. Later, it halts on those continental plains, shakes itself, and treads heavily, shaking the planet beneath the smoke of monstrous world wars. The monster does not rest, it offers no pause or truce; and suddenly, it makes its presence felt even in films. When Destiny Catches Up With Us; The Wall; Wings of Freedom; The Book of ElisThe monster becomes elusive when it erupts in some town, leaving debris from its mischief in its wake; the aftermath of collateral and irreversible damage. And it continues advancing until it consolidates an image of immeasurable dimensions; an image very well defined in robotics, cybernetics, computer science; and on the big screen, where the multitudes of this century move, a century marked by irremediable fragmentation, dispersion; and also by isolation in corners, alleys, and suburbs of suffocating, depersonalized metropolises. And this arrival of the monster in our time was announced with concern in pages of profound and incisive reflections, which we have read in books such as: Future Shock; The Future of Human Inheritance; Memories of the Future; Brave New World; Fahrenheit 451; The Glass-Faced Magician; The Secret Oil War among others.
But speaking of monsters, who is the monster in this book by Wilfredo Machado? Well, I don't know, and I think few people do. However, the author says the following about it:
It was as if a huge, antediluvian beast, armed with noises and powerful roars from the very depths of hell, had begun to scream at the top of its lungs in the middle of the night… Hundreds of people lay connected to terminals in leather seats, receiving instructions from a huge screen from which the infernal hum emanated… The man, sobbing, tried hard to perform a classic version of "Happy Birthday" that would move them, but at that moment the monsters, without any kind of etiquette or consideration, pounced on him, devouring him..
The invitation to participate is timely. The monster's birthday by the Venezuelan writer Wilfredo Machado. Undoubtedly, reading this book can take us on a journey through urban spaces inhabited by identities, faces, and profiles; those who walk through the chiaroscuro of the unprecedented, the diffuse, or the unknown.
