Diego Maenza - Structure Of Prayer

I am shaken by a burning discharge whose genesis is the occiput, and it exudes partly through my spine. My tendons wake up and force me to stretch the length of my body in the pleasant pain that consumes itself orgasmically in my underpants. I feel how my penis descends slowly, knocked down by the convulsive pleasure of pollution while in my soul a void is gestated that I cannot stand. The cold slips from the open window and swings in the curtain with a languid and consecutive wail. I watch the velvet shudder against the wall, impacting against the window glass, against the frame made of spruce. I feel the breeze slip and sneak in between my armpits, shaking my skin in a gust that ruffles my whole body. I sigh. I separate myself from the interior, maculated by the semen. I get up and pray for the weakness of my flesh.

The warmth of the coffee encourages me to leave it. I prefer to take light sips of the peach juice. The boy tells me a somewhat profane story, but I don't dare rebuke him. I just look at him and give him a cold smile. Today he did not accompany me to mass either and I missed it so much, especially when Bishop Pio imposed the blessing. I look at him and I am enraptured by his features, by his carefree look, by the boisterous hair of the morning. I get up from the table in a hurry, trying to dodge my eyes that are turned to him again and again.

I've gone down with a chill. Today I will not leave the house or attend to the parishioners who are preparing for Good Friday. I've left certain minor commitments in charge, following the doctor's recommendation. The boy prepares an infusion for me, which I ingest along with the medicine. As he turns around, I can feel the movement of his buttocks in a provocative sway. I surrender to sleep.

When I wake up, I see the boy's face. He has kept me company all this time the fever has lasted. He informs me that he has prepared lunch and comforts my body with a hot soup that he insists on spooning into my mouth. Then comes a hard time. I rebuke him for having examined the painting without consent and he answers that he wanted to know what was in it. It is not a question of forbidding him to know, but I think that he should first consult an authorized voice to confirm whether or not he is qualified to know. He replied that he felt he was qualified and implored me to guide him through the painting. After a struggle of pleas and refusals, I give in to the request and allow him to open it. He expands a face of wonder. It is beautiful, he says, but at the same time horrendous. It's our soul, I tell him, or I just think about it. The residual shock of the fever stuns me. For the moment I only want to get away from the boy, to shout at him to leave my room and disappear forever, that God has revealed to me that he is an emissary of the devil. I am overcome by the desire to excommunicate him from my life. I understand that I will do the opposite, because I stand up to him and place a hand on his shoulder and hold it in an intention-laden embrace. What you are witnessing is a paradise, a hell, and this here, I tell you in a magnanimous voice pointing out the central part, is the world. For now it will be enough to see it, we will have time to study it part by part. My body does not resist the impulse and I kiss him on the cheek while I descend my hand into the cleft of his back. His reaction is not one of rejection. Unexpectedly he asks for my blessing.

I sent the boy to the market for supplies. I feel the absence and try to fight the desire with a prayer, but being on my knees, the words get stuck in the throat. This time I cannot pray. I get up, take a warm shower, and prepare to receive him as best I can.

The boy finally arrives, but unfortunately accompanied by Miss Rachel, a helpful woman at the disposal of the Church, young despite her almost forty years, unmarried despite her beauty. Behind her, an entourage of ladies who have joined forces to pay me a visit and offer me fruits, bought precisely, I imagine, from the beautiful old maid. Tomás greets them with angry barks. I receive them with apparent gratitude, I give them, with the authority they give me, a couple of admonitions, I impose one or two tasks on them in preparation for tomorrow's procession, and I delicately dismiss them on the pretext of my rest. I close the door behind them, with its moldy iron edge and rusty hinges, and I embark on the search for the boy throughout the house.

I invite you once again to my room. We are having a conversation about certain theological aspects that he discusses with some knowledge. I instruct him as I lay my open hand on his fleshy, appetizing thigh. I urge him to begin a prayer together. I stand behind him and we raise the usual shared prayer. I perceive the warmth of his body that soothes the cold of the environment and at the same time refreshes the warmth of my entrails.

The body beats me. I lie down with the taste of fruit still evident on my palate. I rehearse a prayer that melts in the attempt. My head is not here, but in the figure of the boy. I stagger to his door. I half-open it and discover the body asleep in the pleasure of the nap in a fetal posture with the beautiful bottom pointing at me, inciting me to caress it, to give it the final bite. My terrified body boils with fever or something else. In a fit of lucidity, I return to my bed.

I woke up with the slimy sensation of sweat adhering to my skin. I watch the glimmer of the evening sun refracting on the mirror and flooding the room with its radiance, invading every corner. I understand the need to wash myself, a heat wave invades the bedroom and my crotch is doughy. The fever has passed. I beg for some fresh water.

I have sent written instructions to the faithful for the Good Friday procession. The boy was my companion while I wrote the letter which he later delivered, encouraged by the promise to show him a part of the painting. I could not suppress my interest in his movements; my gaze fell on him all the time. He even made me divert my pen to a couple of features.

The disc's case has as its cover the image of a road furrowed by autumn leaves that gets lost in a suggestive horizon. The yellowish passage ditches a forest of absolute tranquility. No bird hurts the tranquility. No animal ventures to desecrate the serenity of the small universe of leaves and earth. All are about to emerge to inaugurate, in a spirited way, an infernal paradise. I insert the disc in the player which forces it to spin quickly. That device transforms into a tiny infinite whirlwind that spins at thousands of revolutions per minute. The music invades the room, very slowly, as if struggling to wake up from a lethargy imposed by restrictive forces, inhaling tranquility, absorbing silence, holding on to the space that it will later occupy with its imperial tonality. But it will be the cold. The bass marks the rhythm, it continues in a continuous way, it flows with a crescendo that shades the shy interventions of the violins: they are the steps of the walker to whom some tribulation urges, they are the cracks of the ice about to crack. Now the lightning flashes, set on fire by the solo violin, the storm of the orchestra roars and shakes the space and vibrates at the feet of the wretch. The race originates with the impulse of the bass that throbs insistently and marks the fast tracks. The masterful imposition of the main violinist invades, strikes with its gusts of icy wind, and the intense cold forces the shivering and imposes the gnashing of teeth.