IT CAN'T BE TOO SOON FOR ME
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When my friend Julio lost his wife, I used it as an excuse to begin going round to his house again. He was in utter despair.
'I can't live without her,' he kept saying. 'I've lost everything and I can't go on.'
He had to come to terms with it, I told him, waiting for a chanche to suggest that we go off on a trip together or perhaps that I move in with him to keep him company.
In the meantime, I had to put up with his weepingand wailing. He tried spiritualism. During seances, he'd throw himself down on his knees and cry out to the devil, offering to make a pact with him if he'd put Julio in contact with his Dorita.
I swallowed a remark that I now wish I'd said there and then. The dead are dead, the living have to make do with the living, and to delve into the unknown could prove dangerous. It's playing with fire.
A day or two later, I found him lighting matches, one after another. 'Hello,' I said. 'What's this? Gone into the tobacco trade, have you?' He made no attempt to reply. Undeterred by this, I sat down and began to study him. After a while, it dawned on me, quite spontaneously, that what Julio was staring at in each tiny flame was his dead wife.
'Dora, my little Dora,' he said wild-eyed, striking match upon match. And Dorita's face would appear, flicker, and go out...
