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Y Los Sueños, Sueños Son...
Y Los Sueños, Sueños Son...
It didn’t take me long to figure out the place was infinite. Endless corridors with endless
shelves full of books stretched for hours on end. Thankfully, a lonely door interrupted
As it is often the case in dreams, I didn’t question the bizarre spectacle in front of me:
the Master, sitting in the armchair I’ve only seen in photographs, holding the cane I
picture as brown, wearing the gray suit his acquaintances always talk about.
“Come here.”
For whatever reason, I figured it was better to remain quiet. I sat in another armchair, in
front of him.
“Yes.”
1
“More often than not, dreams don’t care about such petty things.”
I took a look at the room. It was as numbingly eternal as the corridors I was lost in.
The Master let the words get lost in the vastness of the room.
“It’s time we follow that old oneiric custom: let me show you something.”
We went into the corridor, and, as I instinctively tried to grab him by the arm to guide
“Of course. But don’t call me that. Fortunately, I’m no one’s master.”
“Like Heine, I wrote because I was miserable. Like Kafka, I didn’t dare to burn my
work.”
I repeated the phrase in my head, vainly hoping to memorize it to steal it. The Master
seemed distracted, lost in the infinite space of pages and words we were in.
2
“Why so?”
“Right.”
“Or too nice. I’m sure my admirers just pity me… I hoped that, with my passing, my
“It took me years to realize that, like every author, I just wrote the same story over and
over.”
“At least you could write. I can’t even dare to start typing.”
3
“I think you should be more stoic and less romantic. The virtues of suffering have been
highly exaggerated.”
“It’s just that… I can’t think of anything more pleasing than reading, and I can’t
“Is it?”
“Writing is so useless and random, but it’s the only thing I can think of. I feel guilty
when I’m doing anything else; I feel like I’m wasting my time.”
“Sometimes, one can only aspire to write some good pages, maybe a memorable phrase
or a decent poem.”
“You overestimate the importance of writers; I’d rather be a good reader. Besides, you
should not scorn the pleasure of teaching: being a professor is just another way of
“It’s not something you can deserve. You just need to write, that’s all.”
4
I wondered how I could tell the Master, my Master, that it’s not that simple, but I
desisted.
“And how do you know when you’ve done a good job, written a good story?”
“When you feel a slight amount of fulfillment. Of course, it seldom lasts more than a
day or two.”
“I don’t know if it should. Felipe, you should do as one of my characters and allow
yourself to live.”
5
“I never told this to anyone, but I keep comparing myself with all the great writers, and
I can’t stop. I keep punishing myself for being twenty-three and only having written
despicable trash.”
“Everyone is different; I only started to feel truly proud of my writing when I was in my
“As you already know, most of my bibliography dwells on that matter. There’s nothing
“Who doesn’t?”
“I can’t stop worrying about things that didn’t even happen, and that probably won’t
ever happen.”
“I can’t help but thinking that all my sorrows are false and shallow.”
“I just need a reason to feel happy. If I could only satisfy at least one reader…”
“But you don’t trust people when they tell you that they like your stories.”
The Master smirked as we kept walking through the vacuous multiplication of novels,
6
“The center of every man’s existence is a dream, and this is yours.”
“But I can’t. I really can’t. I feel ashamed every time I feel the need to write. I’m afraid
of doing my best and not being good enough. I’m so terrified of failing at it that some
days, after giving it some thought, I conclude that it’s best not to try at all. I hate myself
“Besides, almost anything is more useful than writing. Isn’t it nobler to be a carpenter or
a builder?”
The Master seemed surprised; I think he liked the idea, at least as a concept.
“I guess…”
metaphysics? Why become a writer? Why deign to concoct stories, which are no more
than bagatelles?”
“We’re not as altruistic as we like to think. We only want to satisfy our needs. And your
“Don’t force yourself. Writing is something too beautiful to become a mere obligation.”
7
“Maybe you think too much.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. I can’t trust my own judgment. Sometimes, things
“I think you idealize literature way too much. Stories are just exercises of the
imagination.”
“I know, but…”
“Remember, it’s just our way of fighting tedium; it could’ve been anything.”
After saying this, the Master walked down a new corridor I hadn’t seen until then.
“You won’t wake up anytime soon. We might as well do something until I disappear.”
The Master had carried a book all this time, but I hadn’t noticed.
“What book is that? No, wait, let me guess: The World as Will and Representation!”
“Nope.”
I hesitated.
The Master shook his head; the bastard was smiling like a child.
“I give up.”
8
“It’s yours.”
“Mine?!”
It was then that I realized that dreams don’t make any sense. I considered that, if this
was what my unconscious wanted me to experience, I might as well give up and try to
enjoy it.
“Of course.”
“I never got to read them. I was too old when the first superheroes appeared.”
“They’re not unlike the epic tales you loved. Let me tell you all about it.”
And we went on walking and talking until the night became day.