The below trio are among my favorites from this collection of Cuentos Completos (Complete Tales)
by the great Cuban writer Vigilio Piñera. Take a look at my write-up of
the first popper and then the second and third in their entirety -
Vigilio Piñera on what it can mean to be taken for a lunatic -
THE FACE
Virgilio
received a phone call from a man who says he's in great danger.
Virgilio asks who's calling and then thinks better of it and hangs up.
The caller calls again. Virgilio tells him to he didn't call the right
number but the caller, his voice filled with anguish, implores Virgilio
not to hang up, tells Virgilio he picked his phone number at random,
that all of his agony and misery is a consequence of his face, a face
possessing the power of seduction so strong people shun him fearing his
face will cause them irreparable harm. Virgilio tells him not to lose
heart as everything in the world has a cure. Not true, pleads the
caller, even his parents shun him. The telephone is his only consolation
a everyone, without exception, takes him for a lunatic.
Virgilio
is moved, but then again, perhaps he is, in fact, speaking with a
lunatic. Virgilio feels like bursting out in laughter, however, the
caller's voice contains so much sincerity and pain, maybe the caller
isn't a prankster after all.
More exchanges until Virgilio
reaches the point where he nearly screams, "I absolutely have to see
you! I'm literally dying to contemplate your face." Virgilio goes on to
explain that as a writer he also suffers - his own face plays tricks on
people.
The caller didn't expect such a statement from a stranger
on the phone. Following further impassioned back and forth, the caller
agrees to meet and speak directly with Virgilio - in the dark.
What
happens next and next amounts to a literary stroke of genius, events
culminating in a soul to soul communication. How exactly does this
happen? You'll have to read for yourself but I'll provide a hint:
something resembling the ultimate human sacrifice.
--------------------
Vigilio Piñera on a special solution for lovers -
INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION
Our
love is going from bad to worse. It's slipping from our hands, our
mouths, our eyes, our hearts. Her breast no longer takes refuge in mine
and my legs no longer run to her. We have come to the most terrible
thing that could happen to two lovers: we turn away from each other. She
has taken off my face and throws it on the bed: I have taken off hers
and violently thrust it into the space left by mine. We won't watch over
our love any longer. How sad for us to go our separate ways.
Still,
I haven't given up. I see a simple solution. I've bought a drum of tar.
Having guessed my intention, she undresses in the blink of an eye.
Immediately, she submerges herself in the viscous fluid. Her body
undulates in the black thickness of the tar. When I figure it has
impregnated the deepest recesses of her body, I order her to get out and
lie down on the marble tiles of the garden. I, in turn, submerge myself
in the saving tar. A burning sun blazes over our heads. I lie down at
her side; we join in tight embrace. It is noon. Making a conservative
estimate, I expect that by this afternoon, we will have consummated our
indestructible union.
------------------
Vigilio Piñera on writers of fiction -
GRAPHOMANIA
All
writers - the great ones and the hacks - have been summoned to trial in
the Sahara desert. For hundreds of miles this powerful army treads the
burning sands, straining its ear, its sharpened ear, to hear the
accusation. Suddenly, a parrot flies out of a tent. Planted firmly on
its feet, it fluffs its neck feathers an in a cracked voice - it's a
very old parrot - says:
"You are accused of the crime of graphomania."
It immediately goes back into the tent.
An
icy breeze blows among the writers. All heads come together: there is a
brief deliberation. The most outstanding one of them leaves the ranks.
"Please . . . " he says at the door of the tent.
At once the parrot appears.
"Your
Excellency," the delegate says. "Your Excellency, in the name of my
colleagues I ask you: Will we be able to continue writing?"
"Why,
of course," the parrot responds, nearly shrieking. "It is understood
that you will continue writing as much as you please."
Indescribable jubilation. Parched lips kiss the sand, fraternal embraces, some even take out pencil and paper.
"May this be recorded in letters of gold," they say.
But the parrot, coming out of the tent once more, pronounces the sentence:
"Write
as much as you like," and it coughs lightly, "but this won't release
you from standing accused of the crime of graphomania."
------------------------
Here's
G. Cabrera-Infante's words of fire when speaking of the short fiction
of Vigilio Piñera: “When I tell you that by reading these stories you’ll
get a kick out of them I don’t mean champagne or cocaine. I’m talking
of a true kick. A kick in the groin or in the stomach but most of the
time a kick in the soul, where it hurts metaphysically and you bleed
eternally.”
For readers of English wishing to read the short stories of Vigilio Piñera, Cold Tales published by The Eridanos Library is your book. 
Cuban author Vigilio Piñera, 1912-1979
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