The Enemy Is Always Within Us

When we found out about Miles having lung cancer nobody freaked out: malignant tumors had created a series of sinister deaths among the family. The news didn't cause but a handshake or two and the remembrance of Aunt G's gastric cancer, Rodolfo's prostate adenocarcinoma, the twins' dermatofibrosarcoma and so many others. We also remembered our dad, dead of leukemia on the summer of 93.

It had been a while since my brother started spitting blood everytime he went to the bathroom. You could hear his convulsive coughing mixed with laughter all over the house. The smell of cigarettes, coffee and pine cologne always came before him as he used to pass through the door. Smoking two packs a day didn't quite help us avoid our family fate. From time to time we'd find each other in the bathroom throwing up and coughing, speculating about each other's illness, which tumor would be more hideous, who'd pay for who's tomb. “I don't wanna know”, we always concluded. The diagnose which gave my brother his birthright in our family tree was crafted through the use of sheer force after an afternoon filled with my mother's cries.

The next morning, Miles asked me to travel during Easter. He wanted to go to the house we had in Las Cruces before going into hospital. On the way there, as if it was a joke, he told me he had met a Parque del Recuerdo Cemetery sales girl. When she told him what she did for a living, he just shrugged his shoulders and startedlaughing and coughing.

Then we went down to the beach.

“As soon as I have my mechanical ventilator I'm going to be as close as I can to being a machine”, he said, laughing. I saw him throw the mouthpiece of his last cigarette to the sea and smile relieved. A sketchy horizon, the memory of my dad on the edge of that beach, with his feet on the water, telling us how the enemy is always within us.

(Traducción de Claudio Rodríguez H.)