BECAUSE WE ARE SO POOR

Juan Rulfo(1918)

Juan Rulfo (20 May 1917 – 7 January 1986) was a Mexican novelist, short story writer, and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo (1955), and El llano en llamas (1953, The Burning Plain), a collection of short stories that includes his admired tale "¡Diles que no me maten!" ("Tell Them Not to Kill Me!"). He was named alongside Jorge Luis Borges as the best Spanish-language writer of the 20th century in a poll conducted by Editorial Alfaguara in 1999. He is the father of director Juan Carlos Rulfo.

I
Everything was going from bad to worse around here. Last week my Aunt Jacinta died, and on Saturday, after we’d buried her and weren’t feeling so quite so bad, it started to rain. That made my father angry, because the whole barley crop was drying in the sun, and the storm came up so fast we didn’t have a chance to get nay of it under cover. All we could was huddle under the lean to, watching the rain destroy the whole crop.
II
And just yesterday, when my sister Tacha was twelve years old, we found out that the river carried away the cow my father gave her for her birthday. The river started to rise three nights ago before dawn. I was sound asleep, but it made so much noise dragging at its bank that I woke up and jumped out of bed, with the covers on my head, as if I’d dreamed that the roof were caving in. Afterward, I went back to bed because I knew it was just the sound of the river, and pretty soon it put me to asleep again.
III
When I got, the sky was full of black clouds, and the noise of the river was even louder. It sounded close, and it had the rotten smell floodwater has, like the stink of a trash fire.
IV
By the time I went to take a look, the river was already up over its banks. It was rising little by little all along the street and running into the house of that woman they call The Drum. You could hear the splash of the water going into the corral and out the gate. The Drum was hurrying back and forth, throwing her chickens into the street so they could find someplace to hide, where the current wouldn’t reach them.
V
Over on the other side near the bend, the river must have carried off the tamarind tree at the edge of my aunt Jacinta’s corral, because you couldn’t see it any more. It was the only tamarind in the village, so everybody knows it is the biggest flood that’s come down the river in years....