The Comandante Speaks: A Brief Story

Homo Vitruvius and American Samizdat function houses for my weekly inventive writing and mental exploration. HV persists as my unique and first Substack in these pursuits; AS arose in resistance to Trumpism and is devoted to its defeat. From memoir and poetry to fiction and drama, largely in HV, to historical past and political philosophy, predominantly in AS, you’ll discover it right here, built-in throughout the 2 stacks by way of a inventive and mental sensibility I hope you’ll discover invigorating. The stacks could also be subscribed collectively or singly in Handle Subscription.

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Usually, I’d publish fiction below the Homo Vitruvius banner, but when the subject material appears extra applicable to American Samizdat, as now, then that’s the selection I’ll make. Usually, nevertheless, I haven’t even meant to publish fiction on these two substacks however search as an alternative to publish quick fiction at outdoors publications. I’ve a flash fiction scheduled to seem in a single this summer season. In actual fact, solely as soon as earlier than have I printed a brief story on Substack, at Homo Vitruvius, and that one, “La Revolución,” was an “orphan” story — a narrative beforehand printed at a now defunct journal that I selected to offer a brand new dwelling.

La Revolución

It hasn’t been included in my Substack undertaking to publish or write new fiction for Homo Vitruvius. However one all the time says by no means to at least one’s remorse, so I didn’t say that. That is what’s recognized within the digital publishing world as an “orphan” story. Initially printed in

In keeping with the rumor, the Comandante had spoken with the person for greater than twenty minutes. Some — nobody knew who — stated the dialog lasted so long as an hour, however it will already be extraordinary for the Comandante to converse with a stranger for as a lot as twenty minutes. An hour was unimaginable. Maybe it had been solely two minutes. Who knew? They stated (extra rumor) that the person had not risen to applaud after the Comandante sang. He had applauded — about that, the accounts bore no discrepancy. However the man didn’t rise when everybody else did, swaying or cheering or flashing indicators of approval. He remained seated, whereas all stood round him. Nobody knew why. Nobody knew who the person was. None had ever seen him earlier than, although some positively noticed him on the ball. That a lot was recognized, based on the rumor. Nobody trusted rumors, although everybody believed them.

The Comandante was extra typically recognized to talk to folks, not with them. He spoke to giant and small teams of individuals. He spoke with the beam of their consideration mirrored on his face. He spoke with command, neither loud, nor strident, nor imperious, however with a certainty, a chest-forward, shoulder-relaxed assurance — sitting atop all that comprised the large solidity of his physique — that he ought to be attended and obeyed. As a result of what the Comandante spoke was the reality. It was the reality as a result of he spoke it, and reality reigned over all.

When, however, the Comandante was queried, in obedient solicitation — everybody was obedient, and all would solicit him if they might — then he listened with sober attentiveness, as if committing to his questioner his honest and considerate engagement. However when he responded, he quickly regarded off and all the way down to the aspect, his eyelids like a nocturnal hood, in order to withdraw to a different world. In that world he sought and located the truths that confirmed him, formed the sphere of his greatness, which he spoke into being and that might reign over the nation by way of him, in him. Conceiving on this approach the reality he sought, because the immanence of that which the Comandante wished to be, he then spoke it. As soon as spoken, solely he might alter or undo it. This he typically did. The Comandante’s doings and undoings, as they have been referred to as, presided within the nationwide consciousness because the perpetual information of the day, every undoing introduced as if a perpetual eighth day of re-creation, so to talk, the Lord Over All revising, time and again, his plan, as was his proper.

On this night, the Comandante spoke within the Nice Corridor of Nationwide Reformation, so named as a result of he had, in his ascent to the presidency and energy, led this reformation, which fewer and fewer folks bothered now to recall — as if their chief, their gentle, had, just like the Solar, all the time been current. In fact, the Solar got here into being out of the cosmic mud and can sometime burn out, however on such a scale of time, who will hassle to differentiate between lengthy period and perpetually?

When the Comandante ascended to energy, he didn’t take the title of President. President was a place. Comandante was his being. The Comandante would be — stand, stride, converse — earlier than the folks in all of the grandeur he assumed and to which they assented. His was no place. His was to command.

Each three months, a choose variety of residents from all sectors of society obtained an invite to hitch the Comandante in attendance on the Reformed Residents’ Ball. The invites have been issued by the Comandante’s folks, below that identify. That’s what they have been referred to as. The Comandante’s Individuals. Nobody in authorities now had titles. There was no Minister of Protection however reasonably my folks in Protection. No secretarial workplace. My folks will ship it over. The Comandante knew nobody who labored in authorities — that’s, for him — designated by any title of presidency or by any official energy of their very own of any variety. He knew them by identify, in relation to him. He knew the place within the workplaces and bureaus of presidency they have been and what it was they did in these locations for him.

Everybody understood an invite to the Reformed Residents’ Ball to be a really nice honor. Nobody ever despatched regrets, or in the event that they did, nobody then ever heard of it. There have been rumors, in fact, however the rumors quickly stopped and none ever discovered how. (Except there have been rumors.) Nothing was spoken additional. However (all that having been confidentially acknowledged) nobody ever disobeyed the Comandante. Why would they? He commanded.

Actually, nobody refused an invite to the Reformed Residents’ Ball. That might represent an unimaginable insult from anybody cautious and clever. These very phrases, actually, had been made the official, nationwide Reformed Citizen’s Motto: Watch out, clever, and effectively. There existed a Nationwide Bureau of Wellness. In time, “Be effectively” emerged as the great, reformed citizen’s parting phrase in goodbye to buddy and stranger alike. I’ll see you subsequent week, then, one may say. Be effectively. Typically, with shut buddies one trusted, the extra hushed entreaty, in reply, would comply with, “Watch out.”

Be effectively. Watch out. A clever individual sought to be each.

Over time, because the magnitude of the occasion’s significance had grown, attendance on the Reformed Residents’ Ball rotated out and in, with some small variety of newcomers – honorees – freshly arriving to every ball and different faces unaccountably failing to return, with a majority seeming to persist from ball to ball till it, too, in time, slowly altered in constituency. Attendance to the ball, like life, was ever, nearly imperceptibly, altering. Like human society whole, the ball maintained an phantasm of fidelity, of a form of ever-enduring and changeless current – whereas all the time, for sure, continuing insistently right into a future that nobody publicly conceded, from a previous formally forgotten. Within the early years, the previous had been given more and more imprecise kind, by way of speech and in official pronouncements, because the situation from which the Comandante had saved the nation. Now, nobody spoke anymore of a time earlier than the Comandante. Nobody acknowledged there even having been one.

The Nice Corridor of Nationwide Reformation might safely entertain a thousand folks, however Reformed Residents’ Balls have been contained at 300. The Comandante’s folks left house for a number of giant dance flooring, for the numerous grand bars, replete with the most costly world liquors and wines, and the a number of elaborate shows of nationwide achievement, together with the Comandante’s array of prizes, awards, trophies, and images, with world leaders and customary residents, too. The latter images awaited just a few lucky attendees who may that night be favored with the Comandante’s consideration. In that occasion, on the applicable second, they might be directed by the Comandante’s folks to imagine their positions on both aspect of the nice chief, who was famed for being very tall. Nobody who stood beside him was ever taller. Then, because the residents froze their smiles in preparation, the Comandante would place his palms on every shoulder beside him, nearly, it would seem, as if to embrace his companions, to take his photograph mates convivially into his care. The Comandante would, too, droop down somewhat and ahead, one may assume, once more, to compensate for his nice top. In reality (if that phrase could also be used), the impact was to take management of the house and the our bodies inside it, to condescend to and command them. The Comandante surrounded and coated them along with his presence, like a cover. When the nice chief subsequent directed residents to or away from the photograph op, as he did every time he walked with folks not anticipated to comply with (one other world chief, as an example), he positioned a hand at their again in a gesture pretending to convey courteous deferral however which, reasonably, maintained course of the individual’s actions and choices. The Comandante selected the place they headed and when. They went earlier than him as a result of he directed them to, below his management.

The ballroom’s giant unused house served a safety objective, to protect broad, open sight strains and allow maneuverability for the scores of safety personnel who both labored to mix with the company or who stood positions as apparent armed brokers of the state. The Nice Corridor of Nationwide Reformation thus struck a visible notice, for all of the effortful grandeur, of emptying dispersal. With its cavernous ceilings and garish sky of crystal chandeliers, arrayed amongst cornices and panels of chrome and gold, amid a distracting conflict of faceted glassware, gentle hung all over the place in a harsh, boring glare, inside which the entire scene appeared drearily afloat, an everlasting limbo of enervated luxurious.

The band performed. Incessantly. The Latin American tunes the Comandante favored, in recognition of his progenitors. He notably honored Eva Peron. She was an incredible one. Constructed on what her husband did, Juan. However the folks beloved her. They beloved her. Private magnetism. She had it in spades. Evita. You noticed it? Don’t cry for me, Argentina. It’s necessary that the folks love a frontrunner. Essential.

The band turned to tango music. Basic songs. Some up to date.

The lady had checked out her husband when the music started, each their eyes lighting up.

Within the full flush of their love, after marriage, that they had studied ballroom dancing. Quickly, they got here to favor tango. The theatricality. The contained warmth, with bursts of passionate, stylized association of the physique. To maneuver on the planet, inside an area, with such depth and self-possession. They traveled to Buenos Aires, danced all evening within the milongas. The fun of it passing between them. The reminiscence of it had lingered at the same time as their ardour pale.

The person prolonged his hand. His spouse took it. Like outdated occasions. They walked with elan to the ground.

That they had began a printing enterprise — the circumstances of life had come collectively, as they are going to. They made life till the social disruption came across all of them, “the time of change,” because it was referred to as. That they had serviced many small presses, amongst their different purchasers, and made connections, tenuous as they have been to their very own lives and talents, with some gifted, notable writers. However with the rise of the Comandante, and the commerce wars that adopted, the restrictions on publication and on unapproved concepts and values – UIA – the couple had struggled. They tried to evolve, thereby alienating the identical lustrous connections, who misplaced entry to their publics after which scorned the printers for his or her lodging to tyranny, generally with somewhat compassion, others with none in any respect. It availed not. The enterprise failed. The couple filed for chapter, private in addition to enterprise. They have been fortunate, then, within the depths of their desperation, when a buddy on the Division of UStice alerted them to some alternatives there. All they needed to do was affirm their loyalty to the Program for Nationwide Reformation, which they did: they claimed to have terminated their contracts with the Undesirables (the non-approved writers). Nobody checked. The affirmation, the submission, was all, and now that they had jobs within the authorities paperwork.

The lady’s husband superior extra shortly and additional within the paperwork than she did. He had all the time been pushed to carry out, to excel. If one does a job, one does it to the most effective of 1’s potential. That was the worth. Carry out effectively, please others, pleasure in your self. Delight within the pleasure of others. Whereas she, as she noticed it, labored inside the program, he bought with this system. Typically he inspired extra from her. Throughout the dinner desk, he urged his spouse to use herself with extra ambition. She would smile softly in acknowledgement. Typically she forgot to smile. Different occasions, she smiled extra broadly, nodded her head in assent.

Unpracticed and rusty as they felt, the couple remembered their steps, their ochos and cortes. Only some others had joined them on the ground, so, of their ability, they have been seen. They grew to become conscious of being seen and felt happy. However on a closing back-dip pose, after holding his spouse of their second of stillness, the person raised her up within the method she had forgotten from their youth, bringing their faces shut with a fast, hurried kiss, inserting so barely his tongue into her mouth, which now felt, to the spouse’s disturbance, disgustingly serpentine.

The Comandante was standing along with his folks, the couple now noticed at their end, on their periphery, applauding. Throughout them have been applauding. The couple felt abashed from the discover, fixing themselves, trying round with nervous if appreciative smiles. And the kiss.

“You have been superb,” spoke the Comandante, approaching. “Weren’t they superb,” he stated to his folks, turning this fashion, then that, and so they all applauded extra and assented.

“You’re a good-looking couple,” stated the Comandante. “Your spouse is a really stunning lady,” he stated to the husband. “Very stunning,” he stated to the spouse.

“Thanks, Comandante,” they each stated, smiling and nodding nervously, nonetheless. “Thanks,” the husband stated once more, alone.

“You’re employed for me within the authorities?” the Comandante requested, and earlier than the couple might start to reply, one of many Comandante’s males was at this ear, and the Comandante continued, “UStice — the Division of UStice? Great. Great. You need a photograph? Right here, stand with me.”

The Comandante turned towards the photographer, who all the time adopted in his wake, his folks positioned the couple, then the palms on the shoulders, the cover ahead simply for the time being of the BIG SMILE, and it was completed.

“Thanks a lot for inviting us,” stated the husband. “It’s such an honor.”

“Thanks. Thanks,” spoke the Comandante and turned away towards the entrance of the room, his folks speaking in his ear as he proceeded. He reached the entrance, nodding, and ascended the stage.

“They need me to sing?”

Cheers of approval and encouragement.

“Ought to I sing?”

Extra cheers. “Opera,” somebody referred to as out.

“Opera!” the Comandante repeated with delight. “Who stated that? I’m a baritone, you realize. Not so many arias. Some say I’m a bass. I don’t know. I might be a bass if I wished. Profundo. Basso profundo, they name it. Possibly subsequent time. I’ve a special concept.”

The nice chief then regarded to his small orchestra, which had been ready for the impromptu track. They struck the primary notes because the Comandante raised the mic to his mouth along with his proper hand, started to snap the rhythm along with his left.

I discovered my thrill . . . on Blueberry Hill.

The viewers – the attendees on the tables – responded with enthused delight. They clapped the rhythm. The actor and actress clapped, the pop singer, the pale starlet, the tech titans and the influencers, coders and creatives alike, all up entrance, clapping, singing up, in idolatrous admiration, to the nice face and determine of the nation. They started to face and sway, pumping their fists, flashing V indicators, smiling and laughing with pleasure. Pleasure to be as one in celebration of the middle. The Comandante accepted all of it as his to obtain, and in crooner style he introduced the efficiency to an in depth with a sweeping left fist pulled to his chest. Hoots and hollers. The enjoyable of it.

It took some time amid the flurry of exercise and the excited company’ divided consideration earlier than some variety of them started quietly to notice that the Comandante had sat at one of many tables farther towards the center of the corridor. He was surrounded by his folks, aides and brokers and adjutants of various roles and demeanor, a few of whom sat on the desk together with him. One male attendee had risen, to begin, with a view to provide the Comandante his chair, and in time — why, one couldn’t say for certain — one thing within the nature of the dialog, maybe, a way that one ought to depart, a want to take away oneself – everybody had departed the desk however the Comandante, his folks, and the person. The person who had remained seated when throughout him had risen.

“I used to be curious,” the Comandante spoke. “You didn’t rise to applaud whereas I carried out. Everybody else within the corridor did.”

The person thought a second earlier than he replied. “Was it a requirement that I stand? I’d have if I’d recognized.”

The person, about forty and nice trying didn’t seem nervous to the Comandante’s folks observing him, however he additionally didn’t act or converse with any effrontery. He was, certainly one of them thought-about in observing him, cautious and considerate in his method. He was poised, which only a few folks have been within the presence of the nice chief.

“Nothing was required,” stated the Comandante, noting nonetheless that he felt one thing somewhat nervy within the query alone. “It’s that everybody else did, and also you’re not standing with them stood out.”

“I perceive.” The person paused. “I suppose I’m not a follower.”

“Oh, are you a frontrunner?” the Comandante stated with some amusement, trying round at this folks.

“No. I’m not. I feel simply not a follower both.”

“Didn’t you assume my efficiency was value standing for?”

“I suppose — I can’t say I gave it loads of thought — I suppose I believed applause was ample. Applause is the same old and applicable reward. I’m not fast to offer standing ovations.”

“Oh? Do you go to the theater a lot?”

“Some, a bit, sure.”

Left unsaid and unpursued by the Comandante, as a result of it will finish the dialog too shortly and he was intrigued, was the apparent level that each one of this speak apart, as soon as everybody else stood, the selection to not served as an apparent sign.

“How did you get your invitation? The place do you’re employed?”

“On the Bureau of Wellness.”

“Actually? And also you’ve clearly carried out at a superior stage to be dropped at my folks’s consideration. How lengthy have you ever labored there?”

“Fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years! And also you’ve solely simply now obtained recognition?” The Comandante regarded up at an older aide standing on the edge. “Peter, did we all know this?” Peter’s nonplussed nonresponse stated no. He hurriedly withdrew a pocket pad and jotted a notice to himself.

“What took so lengthy? Aren’t you formidable?”

“I simply did my work,” the person stated, eyeing throughout him. “I didn’t search recognition.”

This irritated his questioner.

“You have been late,” got here the blunt comment then. This took everybody without warning. Nobody else had been conscious of it. “You have been the one individual right here who arrived late. I noticed you enter late.”

“I apologize, Comandante. I didn’t assume anybody however the workers and guards had seen.”

“Why have been you late?”

Now the person paused somewhat longer. He thought reasonably than merely be interrogated, he may strive thoughtfully to interact the Comandante.

“I walked alongside the shore and misplaced observe of the time.”

“You walked? Why didn’t you rent a automobile?” This man was peculiar.

“I personal a automobile. I’m not from out of city. I dwell not far. However the shoreline right here is so stunning. I’m by no means down this far. I believed I’d take the chance” — he paused, hoping for impact — “on so uncommon and big day as this, so as to add to my day, improve the expertise.”

“You thought the Comandante’s honor to you required enhancement,” Letterman lectured sternly. “Your disrespect is boundless. You ought to be grateful — “

The Comandante lower Letterman off. He didn’t contradict him, however he wasn’t prepared, nonetheless, to pursue that finish. He wished to know extra. An uncowed individual each enraged and intrigued him.

“And did you?” the Comandante inquired. “Did you ‘improve’ your expertise?”

“I did. It was marvelous. However then you will need to know that, residing right here.”

The Comandante’s folks eyed one another shortly and variously. The nice chief by no means visited the shore.

The person continued. “One of the best half — what delayed me, please forgive me — not removed from the tip of my stroll, was an extended flight of birds I noticed. I’m actually not educated about birds. I don’t know what variety they have been. I noticed gulls and vultures and crows, however they have been none of these.”

“We’re listening to about birds now?” Letterman stated.

“Go on,” directed the Comandante.

The person felt inspired however he didn’t idiot himself.

“They have been flying south, simply above the water. It wasn’t a type of nice formations you generally examine of or get to see – huge within the sky, shifting in unison. It was an extended, skinny line, just some abreast, with from time to time a form of armed extension of, I don’t know, ten or fifteen birds farther out to sea.”

The person was seeing the imaginative and prescient once more in his thoughts.

“It appeared as if it was occurring with out finish. I used to be strolling within the different course, in order that accelerated my passage. But it surely didn’t finish. It simply appeared prefer it wouldn’t finish. I felt pressed by curiosity to search out out simply how lengthy this lengthy flight of birds might probably be.”

The person spoke sincerely. “I’m afraid that’s what made me late. I apologize once more. I simply stored strolling, hoping to achieve the tip – to see the final chicken, I suppose you possibly can say.”

Nobody across the desk knew what to make of the person. They felt sure he was partaking in some ridiculous satire.

“And did you?” requested the Comandante.

“No. I imply, the road did steadily skinny out, increasingly. The house between the birds elevated, with small teams of birds themselves spaced farther and farther other than different small teams. What I noticed should have been a mile lengthy, perhaps two. Earlier than I noticed that I’d higher break off, to honor your invitation, I might see the pattern. I started to surprise about a few of the final birds I used to be seeing – whether or not they even knew what they have been part of. So removed from the leaders – and what made these birds the leaders? – did the birds on the distant rear even know in regards to the birds on the entrance? I perceive that one way or the other the birds talk with one another, signaling. That’s all I do know. Fairly meager. However did these birds on the finish — and I by no means noticed the very finish — really consider themselves as that — on the finish of one thing?”

The person thought he ought to pause once more, to permit the Comandante to talk.

The nice chief noticed the person in silence. Everybody else noticed the Comandante, who all of them knew to endure no fools, or anybody to idiot with him. The Comandante’s elbows have been on the desk – he had leaned in to hear — and his palms have been now teepeed.

“You perceive that birds don’t ‘assume’ like that,” he stated. He stared. “The birds on the finish are the weakest birds — bodily or of their communication abilities. They haven’t bought what it takes, or they don’t get the message.”

The person thought. “I suppose that’s attainable,” he stated. He thought once more. “I suppose what I meant by ‘assume’ is how they expertise themselves. As alone or with different birds, and what number of others. Possibly these birds on the farthest reaches didn’t even know there was a bunch, not that largest one, anyway. No matter stimulus to fly South they felt, they felt as if it was coming from themselves not as some course from birds on the entrance.”

“And would that be factor?” requested the Comandante.

The person appeared to look inside himself, and he smiled somewhat, to himself.

“I’ve been asking myself that.”

His head remaining stationary, the Comandante’s eyes turned upward, above and past the person’s face to Marco, standing a cautious distance behind him. Marco felt the gaze however he didn’t return it. He turned his personal head down as an alternative.

“Please,” stated the Comandante, rising. “Take pleasure in the remainder of your night. You’ve waited a very long time for this honor.”

“Actually,” the person stated, trying up, “I wasn’t ready for it. I used to be simply doing my work.”

However the Comandante didn’t reply and even look again. He was already shifting on along with his folks.

“I understood it was a giant second in my life,” the person stated to nobody paying consideration.

That evening the couple made love, for the primary time in a very long time, with a specific fervor from the lady’s husband she had not felt in a few years. Unreturned, it disturbed her once more. Her husband’s limbs, all his appendages, regarded and felt overseas to her, as that they had, she recalled, the very first time that they had intercourse, after they met, and she or he wasn’t even certain she preferred him all that a lot.

Within the morning, with a day to calm down earlier than flying dwelling, they sat again with espresso and the information on their telephones. They spoke excitedly on them with family and friends about what the nice event had been like. Everybody was wanting to know. The lady tried to achieve their son, who had left the nation a very long time earlier than, however there was no reply, not even, oddly, voicemail. Then, in calls to the house workplace, in dialog with colleagues, they started to listen to the rumors. Concerning the man who had not stood to applaud. Who had spoken with the Comandante.

Neither the husband nor the spouse had seen something, they stated. They have been each so excited by the night, particularly after their dance and the encounter with the nice chief. After some time, after a number of conversations, urgent herself to assume, the spouse started to surprise if perhaps she had seen one thing. She had paid it no thoughts. However she thought perhaps she had seen the desk with the Comandante seated at it, surrounded by his folks, all of them one man.

I didn’t discover a factor, stated her husband, who went then, lastly, after an extended morning, to bathe. His spouse gazed out the resort window on the sea. They have been saying that the person was now not current when the Comandante’s folks introduced the night to an in depth. The nice chief had left a lot sooner than everybody else, as all the time, making his grand goodbye, strolling by way of the group of tables and dancers, stopping momentarily to speak, basking within the love everybody had for him.

However nobody noticed the person depart. He wasn’t current on the finish, however nobody noticed him depart. That was the rumor. The rumor was, too, that he hadn’t reported to work that morning.

There have been all the time rumors, the lady thought. Till they stopped. She wasn’t even certain she had seen the person — probably, she had begun to fabricate a reminiscence of him below the psychological stress to recall one thing.

The lady shook her head with the disturbance of all of it. She reached for the distant to activate the TV. She took one other fast look out the window on the sea and turned within the course of the espresso pot. By the point she reached it, she felt calm once more. On the TV, the Comandante was talking.

AJA