THE SILENT REVOLUTION

I felt superhuman pain. If I knew how the pain of childbirth is, I would say that this was the pain. But then what came next was even worse. As if it were really giving birth, through natural channels from which only something like a fetus could come out of me, the anus; and it came out, a monster, a worm.

I was already clinging to whatever structure I could lean on and withstand those contractions and the violent living mass that swelled up and seemed to grow inside me and push everything forward to get out at once.

When it fell it was a package full of blood. It looked like a huge liver. The misshapen and flaccid being became inanimate as I looked at him and that's when I passed out.

I woke up lying in my own blood, in the same place. But the parasite, the reddish mass, was not there. That bizarre life that seemed to have gone out of me was gone. I say looked, yes. Because although the Herculean pain and all the agony and suffering didn't make me forget, still nothing felt real. The impossibility of the fact made it a mere dream for me. Though reflexes of pain still radiated from all over my body.

I went on with my life after that without ever telling the episode to anyone. It would be insane just to think about it. I don't know how I didn't go crazy.

That restless night when I couldn't sleep and the strong contractions came back and my bowels seemed to churn inside me and things churned like worms in my belly, I finally understood. Dozens of them moved like earthworms, but they were reddish brown balls that moved over their own belly, with suckers clenched with teeth and screamed irritating sounds and although unintelligible they sounded strangely like: "Mommy", to my ears and came over me and were starting to devour me, all of them. They ate me alive, saying: Mommy, Mommy. I couldn't look, but I felt my teeth eating pieces of my body like they were lathes in wood, furious, insatiable. I was dying, but curiously, I don't know how, I was still alive, in a vegetative state. By this time he didn't even feel pain, he was dead.

I died a human, yes, of course. And now my situation was quite different. I was one of them. A giant and beautiful gastropod. Stiff pairs of antennae and a plump, glossy belly with extra mucus. I joined my friends for the long-awaited rebellion.

Finally the big day had arrived. We mottos and snails, like all gastropods in general, have claimed freedom for centuries and centuries until now.

Patients that we are, we knew the day would come. The day of revenge. Trampled, set on fire, killed for fun in droves. Their puppies kill us by throwing salt at us just to play, because they just don't find a place for us in their world. Don't they know we're superior?

We were here before them, we will continue later. They asked for it and now they're going to get what they deserve. They move here and there. As if all the land belonged to them. Without limits they invade our homes and treat us like the intruders.

After we deposit our larvae in their intestines and make them incubators for our young, they will all be devoured and those who survive will beg for death, until the end. It will be the end for them all.

My friends argue now. Those most engaged in the struggle, the revolutionaries, are in a meeting. It will be decisive. Weapons are ready, our gastric juices will dissolve them while we eat them alive, and it will be just the beginning. And now, here in the living room thinking, looking at that picture on the wall. There is my aunt Mafalda, in the portrait, smiling, in a blue dress and a flushed face. I was reminded of this curious similarity of hers to gastropods. She always salivated a lot and spit all the time. Her eyes watered and she was always covered, from head to toe, with many pieces of clothing, no matter how hot it was. My aunt just wanted to protect herself, now I know. It's family. It was a gastropod by inheritance before becoming one by force.

I know that I also had an uncle who was a dog, but this one on his father's side. It was Uncle Lucius. Always sniffing things out. I caught him hanging out in embarrassing situations. I tried to hide it, but I made it clear to him that I had seen everything. And once I caught him holding back as they threw a ball to Thor, the neighbor's dog? But I heard him growling at the dog, defying him. My uncle was a dog, I am sure. What if the dogs are infiltrated too and if they have a plan to destroy the human race as well? No. Goofs as they are will still side with them. We're not afraid of dogs. They do not.

When I woke up the rain was falling heavily outside and from the window, still, huge and disturbing, a slug stared at me, indifferent to the weather, to be there, to everything. She just stared at me, like she was my friend, like she was laughing at me. As if you were going to tell me your story.