THE MAN IN LOVETriunfo Arciniegas

Triunfo Arciniegas

Ilustrations by Gabriel PachecoGraphic Design by Alejandra Arciniegas

2011

THE MAN IN LOVE

Translated by Verónica Arciniegaswith the collaboration of Anabel Torres

I heard the story the other night at a party and we all laughed.

Unrequited love turns out ridiculous and laughable,like the drafts of passionate letters we read when the woman they are addressed to and the feeling for her has gone forever.

The narrator, short and funny, in the middle of the room, gestured even with his hair while he described details, looks, changes in voices, tears and chases.

According to a condensed version of the story, a tormented man stalks a woman with unbridled insistence, impositions and treachery, springing up even in her soup and in her mirror. He manifests his love to her in all possible ways, the same ways leading up to happy endings in the movies.

But in the life she leads each day, the woman upon seeing himjust wants to scream.

The man, blinded, obsessed, cannot contain the intensity

of his flowery declarations.

After thousands of tragic and comic adventures, that is, pathetic ones, squeezing tears and unbridled reactions from us, the man spots her from a bus,

rushes out of the bus like a madman and dies run over by a bicycle.

The woman does not even notice it. The traffic light changes, she turns her head to get her hair out of her face and crosses the street.

Years later, she wonders what could have become of that man who was such a pest and nearly drove her crazy.