MPI: Agustina

How ink became the medium of her life was curious.

Agustina had never given much thought to her technically being Australian-Mexican-American. Whether because the nationality was rather clunky and felt awkward in the mouth or because her formative years were understood in the context of the USA, she didn’t really know. If her mind pondered it in high school, it was a response to the tedium of stale books past their relevance as evidenced by a tired student body bored of its own history— was there a similar indifference in the schools her parents attended? When her eyes bore into the green-scape spreading out from beneath her checkered blanket laid out just in front of the university library, her mind settled into a curiosity regarding grass down under and weather groundskeepers there looked the same as her. Lunch breaks at work were a blind search for a latent love for vegemite suffocated by the sulfites storms constantly and necessarily afflicting the stomach; of course, she only ever seemed to wonder this while mowing down sub sandwiches layered with so much Italian meat and cheeses the top and bottom slices of bread could not touch. She never considered her Americanism. It was the words on her passport and birth certificate. It was an indecisive backdrop that seemingly revelled in highlighting the deep brown of her fingers running through a curtain of black hair that gulped the sun. These musings only ever occupied the blank spaces of her life not reserved for the purposely filled colors of a conscious life.

She periodically pestered her parents about this gap in her existence, the things she either never experienced or didn’t remember. If they offered anything more than the party line Casi no saliamos de la base– which even this rung anachronistic since there wasn’t so much as a certificate for service on display anywhere– it was of the vague variety that was bland at best and supplied calories that the parents interpreted as filling only because little Agu was unsure how to articulate their severe emptiness. They couldn’t grasp that their life experience was markedly different because they were able to reconcile memories and physical evidence. The scar on her mother’s shoulder was easily tracked back to home and fence section in Leon where it had happened because she spaced out while a spotted horse was being broken in. Eyeballs had been placed on the spot where the beehive hung that produced the bee that stung her father in the ear, causing him to sprint in spot like a cartoon at the small home on the outskirts of SLP that his parents maintained, even as they grew closer to the century than the beginning. A copy of Pedro Paramo had been buried at the base of a young pine in Iztapalapa where the body of their friend had been found, miles away from the university at which they studied.

While the majority of Agustina’s formative years could be backtracked and visited in the flesh, there were gaps in her toddler years that haunted for lack of corporeal meaning. Flashes of a pigpen hurried into to chase piglets around. The thrill of escaping an aunt’s dog's wrath with no more than divots in her jeans from the small teeth after she’d gotten too close to the newly born litter. But she couldn’t locate them in her mind's map. There was no feeling guiding her feet. Those memories started fading, sneaking to the edge of her vision until they had blurred themselves out completely and left behind only anxious silhouettes. As the years piled on, Agustina was faced with a decision: allow these shadows the skies of her mind to fly beneath the lids of her eyes, vexing her at every opportunity. Or turn to service as converts to decipher the other mysteries. Her mother’s voice, placid tones floating in the room about her, recited the scriptures that had guided her life. She had probably meant for the sigils to be inherited by her daughter, but the only thing to translate fully was the understated doubt filling every gilded word. Dad’s wit, more concerned with technical play and result than deep inculcation, did little to inspire reverence. Nada mas no te olvides de reirte, mija.

How ink became the medium of her life was curious. Once she understood the haunting of meaning might be better served by a downgrade to misunderstood life experience, it became a question of adeptness. She took the ghouls slithering beneath red sand, the terror derived from absence of countenance and turned them into poor souls confused by terrestrial shackles that would not allow black eyes to face the sun. Rather than shrink into the shadow of these frightening figures, she chiseled the ties with the stories she wrote to give them shapes immune to the tedium of predictability. The souls rediscovered themselves, and so provided her with meaningful narratives. Concern over their ostensible nature couldn’t be done away with completely; that would be symptomatic of something much more sinister and difficult to wrangle. The process required patience, not unlike the baking of a good cake or simmering of a hearty stew. Occasionally, the recipe was a disaster, sure: too much salting the beef; not enough time on the sweetness. When balanced correctly, the rich flavors given to a spiritual palate starved for consistency, the soul flourished. She never thought doubt a prohibitively dangerous ingredient. In fact, the presence of doubt, where considered and measured, made the dish more exquisite for the persevering quality.

Not having to sacrifice optimistic belief for the capacity to doubt was something she felt very proud of once she had crossed into what she considered adult years proper. Too many people she’d met had fallen into the trap of cynicism and affected sarcastic tones they thought made them sound worldly and modern. She watched too many of her friends beaten by these cynical soldiers and forced to surrender to the jaded tincture forced upon them. She watched them struggle and tire in the mire of a world valuing pace over mastery until they could struggle no more and joined the ranks of those corrupted not by the ease of cynicism but by the weight of indifference.

Despite this, the attrition was not complete. Those with whom she was willing– if not eager– to share a meal reciprocated the thanks for such a rare commodity. The occasional clash of ideologies or stylistic differences never threatened because they were never dire. It was an envious dance of vulnerability capable of violence, the beauty woven into the hesitancy of either to exercise said capability. It was these few she studied, who helped build her reality in such a way that she could maneuver fantasy as instinct. To be able to deliberate to the end without moving, the self-debate out loud that prompted many to question the need for volume to which she would reply that she had to believe it, and without the theatrics, there could be no conviction.

It was an awed existence for which she never failed to give thanks. The flutter of her soul was never greater than when she heard talk of a view devoid of character and shape. Here was where the souls took to task in plain view of a world forgetting how to witness the sun. There was no lie to the reality; it was the decoration of an indulgent whimsy that had breathed deeply and easily for years. Vice and virtue did not vie for preference in expression, only as tools of the practice. It was not a vanity exercise, much less an smothered hope for what might’ve been. Where her pen went, only the recounting of beauty and death and hurt and joy and unmeasured, unfettered desire or unrequited love followed, each an eager servant as they were viewed fully, as whole entities allowed their own definition of purpose, the true nature of their drive. She loved to watch as the blankness of a page gave way to its own world. She loved that she was allowed the privilege of the vessel. If they coincided with some flesh she had touched or a scent floating by her nose that might’ve prophesied something to pass, that was little more than the serendipitous marvel that story provided.