Act 1. Night, on the late end, people turn off their TVs and get into bed, but not them: they read books and listen to a concert in their living room. Just as they’re sighing, Ahhh, and shifting pleasantly on the couch, a loud noise on the roof sets off the dogs in the backyard. Uh-oh, they say, hearing noises directly on top of the house is never a good sign—that’s where the airs that unsettle everything usually slip in. Noises, constant movement on the roof. What is that, they exclaim. They switch on the lights and rush to the back yard.
The dogs in the back yard bark upward, agitated. On the roof is a strong, muscular stray: a young black dog at the peak of its strength. Who knows how it got up there. The dog paces around, whimpering in distress, unable to find a way out of the trap he fell into. Fuck, they groan. What do we do now? We can’t have the animal like that, wild with despair. How did he get there anyway? It must’ve taken a monstrous leap from the neighbor’s terrace, which is too far back, all the way to their roof. We could shoot the thing, and to hell with it. No, no.
They brace themselves, grab the ladder, and climb up to the roof. The dog sees them and panics; its fear of being there eclipses any aggressive tendencies. They advance quickly toward the animal, which now awaits them, expectant, a little contrite, gripped by a sudden blind faith. The dog must be ferocious under normal circumstances, they think as they lift him tentatively and feel the gravity of his weight, then carry him to the other end of the roof and throw him at the house next door, which is relatively close from that side. The dog falls on its feet, unscathed, and immediately begins to bark and howl menacingly; it lunges at the wall, claws at it furiously. The animal is angrier and more frantic than ever, as if they had played a terrible trick on it. The dogs on their side of the wall make a huge racket. Shut the hell up! they shout. Gingerly, they walk back to the ladder and slowly climb down; then they go into the house, switch off the outside lights, and put on a video to drown out the barking.
Act 2. They’re visiting the town of Amecameca, which that day happens to have a stunning view of the volcano Iztaccihuatl, the White Woman—a view so clear they can’t help feeling like they are up there, on top of her. But those who know say it’s not advisable: Izta is much more dangerous than Popocatepetl.
Down there, in Amecameca, they’re relishing the fresh, invigorating air. After strolling past the stalls outside the market and the church, they take one of the side streets. They have a heated discussion about the meanings of events so dense you have to tease apart their various layers, which aren’t obvious at first glance. If I lose money once it’s just an accident, but if it happens five times, then it means something, and I have to get to the bottom of what isn’t obvious: why I lose money so frequently. But this thinking can be pushed to extremes, like seeing everything symbolically, which is about as foolish as only seeing the obvious, and is also dangerously close to superstition. The territory of magic, for sure—but how many wizards do you know in the real world? The fact that there are so few raises the possibility that the others are nothing but tearaways or impostors.
Out of nowhere, a massive black dog drops in front of them with unexpected violence: a stocky Doberman, kind of old, tough and muscular, with impressive jaws. The crash makes the bench shake and gives them a rush of adrenaline. They look up: the high roof of a one-story house, similar in height and façade—gated door and windows—to almost every other house on that street. The dog must have fallen from the roof, they say. It can’t have happened like in Eyeless in Gaza, where an animal plummets from an airplane onto the terrace where the characters are conveniently sunbathing—oh, artifice. It’s possible the dog fell because it was running around the roof and mistakenly jumped over the wall and wound up down here. They can’t shake the sinister, uneasy feeling they get seeing the dead dog. There are no dramatic wounds, just blood trickling down its snout; its eyes are white, the first stain of nothing on its voluminous body, which still seethes with life. The sun sets heavily. How dreadful afternoons can be in a town like this, they say to each other.
Act 3. They’re deep asleep, navigating slumber on their own, when a loud noise wakes them. What was that, they grumble, bothered. They hear a few sounds, which get quieter and quieter. Footsteps? Then, the disturbing silence of late night. Hearing nothing else, they try to fall back asleep, but something advances, grows, and intensifies. They practically jump, sitting up in bed. My God, it stinks.
The stench thins, liquefies, and delves into the deepest recesses, causing them to tremble and feel nauseated. It’s unbearable. What the hell is that, they half shout. Then they storm out of bed, switch on the lights, and go to the back yard. The stench seeps into the trees and plants, saturating them.
In the very back of the yard, they see an enormous dog. Some of its skin and muscle groups are still intact, but other parts—face, belly, chest—have been eaten away by thousands of small white worms that swarm the corpse and give it a disgusting sheen. Fuck, it reeks! they exclaim and hurry off to cover their noses with handkerchiefs and scarves before returning to the yard to take in the horror from as far they can. We’ll move it tomorrow, they say, we’ll figure out where to take it. But no, they can’t do that—no one could stand the stench. We need to bury it right now. Bury it? At four in the morning? They decide to take it out of the house, at least, far enough that the smell won’t reach them. Jesus Christ, they grumble, what gigantic asshole would throw a rotten corpse in our backyard.
They pull on work clothes, boots, and gloves; they hold improvised coverings over their mouths to dampen the stench, find some thick, strong rope, and go back to the yard. It’s agonizing work—having to endure the dizzying reek and the sight of a corpse riddled with worms that crawl, gluttonous and drunk, along the animal’s eye sockets, its curved ribcage, lower belly, and genitals. With another monumental effort, they choke back an intense urge to vomit, pick up the husk and whatever else is left of the body, run the rope underneath it, and tie it around the corpse, eyes half shut so they have to see as little as possible, gritting their teeth throughout it all. It’s too heavy, difficult to drag into a large cardboard box. They leave pieces of worm clusters behind in the yard, the trails like whitish embers.
They need to push through the constant, piercing stench that rolls their eyes, covers them in goosebumps, and exhausts them. With every step and every tug, they get the urge to drop everything and run off somewhere else, far away, for a breath of air. They know now that they need to get the corpse out of that yard once and for all, or else they’ll never find the strength again. They drag the body onto the street, convinced that smells can kill.
They haul the worm-eaten dog as far from the house as they can and leave it there, on a public road.
What is the name of this work? 
José Agustín (1944–2024) was considered one of the most important Mexican writers of the second half of the twentieth century. He was a leader of Onda, a literary movement heavily influenced by rock music and drug culture. His works include Se está haciendo tarde (final en laguna) (1973), El rock de la cárcel (1986), Armablanca (2006), and many others.
Julia Sanches translates literature from Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish into English. Recent translations include Living Things by Munir Hachemi and Mammoth by Eva Baltasar, both longlisted for the Cercador Prize. Born in Brazil, she currently lives in New England.
Illustration: Nathaniel Russell.
