
El cuaderno de las pesadillas
This is not a book even if it looks like one and, even if it does look like one, what it contains are not stories. What resembles a book and resembles a bunch of stories are a sad and scary collection of nightmares. They’re the nights that little boys and girls have suffered ever since the day their parents told them: “we must separate”. If the little kids have not shared it with any one it is because they have discovered that there are stories that cannot be told with any of the words they know. This is why they remain silent staring with their round dreary eyes.
The grown ups—the adults and older siblings—have called “nightmares” those uncomfortable moments while one is sleeping, which seem like stories, and which therefore for them don’t take place in the “real” world.
“They’re bad dreams”, adults tell their young sons and daughters or their younger siblings, “open your eyes, you only need to open your eyes.”
The bad thing is that they now know that under their eyelids, their eyes are always open; they also know that they can have a nightmare even if it is not nighttime and they are not lying in bed.
“Nightmares are like shadows. Once they’ve decided to adopt you, they crawl behind you.” This is what they all believe.