Three Messages and a Warning - By Eduardo Jimenez Mayo Page 0,45

with the authorities, who felt that the more practical—and economical—solution was to avoid the public parks and cross the street if you saw yourself coming across a lion.

The media aired the news when it was of interest, but the World Cup and the minor triumphs of the national team sent the lions into media silence.

And they would have been permanently forgotten if it hadn’t been for the time during the tumultuous celebrations over a tie with the Bolivian national team when a horde of lions attacked the fans at the Angel of Independence.

They didn’t wait for the statements of the government and the opposition, nor the television debates and the newspaper editorials.

In the middle of it all, the lions were settling into their new habitat. Soon they began to move into the big boulevards.

Crossing the street became a dangerous feat.

The advisors to the mayor, more preoccupied with placing their boss among the presidential candidates than coming up with a solution for the root of the problem, opted for an immediate treaty of limited scope and declared the entire city an ecological preserve dedicated to the preservation of lions, with the additional intention of controlling the population and adding a tourist attraction to the metropolis.

By then the cats had decided to occupy every green area they encountered; in no time private houses, schools, sports facilities and cemeteries were invaded by the city’s new patrimony.

You could get up in the morning and discover that in the yard, whatever size it was, a family of lions had moved in, looking for breakfast. The occupants of the houses usually ended up being eaten.

Bones bigger than those of dogs and rats began to litter the streets, many with shreds of meat still attached. In little time swarms of flies became part of the urban landscape.

The rumors started to spread: that they attacked in packs, that they were intelligent, that they were taking over the city, that there was no way to control them. The authorities denied it all, calling the media alarmists and asking the public to tolerate their new neighbors.

Until one day the cadaver of a child appeared.

The dawn broke, as if nothing, in the center of the Zócalo, at the base of the flagpole. This time, the city government couldn’t deny anything because the news cameras got there first. It was an official provocation.

We were scared.

The mayor’s aides decided that there could be opportunities to take a stand at the rear of the presidential palace, that they had to declare war with no quarter against the lions. And so that’s what they did.

But it was already too late. There was no resulting program with which they could confront the plague. Firefighters, police and soldiers could accomplish little against the thousands of cats that lived in the streets.

One day a lion came into the center of the Zócalo and scornfully spit out the remains of a head. The skull turned out to belong to the mayor of the city. He had been attacked by a pride during an official ceremony in Alameda Central Park. The lions had been careful to leave it barely recognizable. Just enough.

And then the lion roared, as if proclaiming victory.

He didn’t need to do it, by then they were already the landlords of the streets, of the parks, of the gardens, of everything.

Every day there are more of them and fewer of us. We have to take refuge in the shadows, while they sleep, now that they have gone back to being active during the day. We hide in the shadows, looking to steal some of their scraps to eat.

Sometimes the lions organize hunting parties to eliminate us. Their nose guides them to our refuges. Sometimes we manage to evade them, but not always.

But where they hunt one man, another one turns up. Once they trap one another one appears.

We have decided to retake our city, even though we don’t know how.

Now we are the plague.

A Pile of Bland Desserts

Yussel Dardón

Translated by Osvaldo de la Torre

Two melting tablespoons of butter in a saucepan at mid-flame resembled the process by which Lou had grown accustomed to being alone, respiring a sense of deficiency, sleeping on only half his bed at night. His dissipated condition was spread throughout his home with deliberate sluggishness—just the way that butter gradually turns from solid to liquid on the saucepan, eventually melting to the point of almost complete evaporation, leaving in ascendance thin columns of caramelized smoke.

Lou knew that sweetness replaces sadness. The mere honeyed aroma