Life is a Work of Fiction...

Hi folks! My name is Moses. I am a human whisperer and the Spiritual Director of the Little Chapel of All Nations at the University of Arizona in Tucson. You can find me meditating in the common's room, napping in the library, next to Franz Kafka, the Austrian novelist, and short story writer, chasing lizards in the courtyard, staring at sun particles floating in sunbeams, or musing with creative types.

Once a month, Mariel joins other Latina writers for their monthly Mujeres Que Escriben Latina writer's workshop at the chapel's library. Mariel thinks the stories she writes during her visits stream from her imagination. Ha! I can assure you they flow straight from my witty whiskers into her thoughts.

The Measuring Book

In Las Flores, the small town known for its white calla flower fields, the night Zelda died, the murderer put on his burnt honey top hat and left the crime scene. After death, Zelda’s essence floated to the old brick building on Loma Linda Street to say goodbye to Matilda, her adored niece.

In Matilda’s apartment, the wall phone rang. Matilda rose from the waterbed with skeleton-printed sheets and headed eyelids heavy to the dark hallway. Warmed by the knee-height green winter socks Tia Zelda had knitted for her on the Day of the Death, Matilda's feet barely touched the wood floor.

When Matilda tried to grab the receiver, her black cat, Demetrio, hissed, paced back and forth, and released a meow that evolved into an emergency vehicle siren. Then, Demetrio charged off sideways, his back arched, and his thin black tail fluffed into a thick bush.

After three attempts to grab the receiver, Matilda realized that her ghostly hand would go through the handset. Surprised, she faced the bedroom. And she was, sound asleep, body curled, with a pillow tucked between her knees.

Suddenly, the noises streaming from the kitchen and the delicious scent of olive oil, garlic, and saffron sparked Matilda’s curiosity. Effortlessly, her astral body floated towards the stove. And there, in splendorous youth, the ghost of her Tia Zelda sauteed transparent shrimp, clams, chicken drumsticks, and crab claws.

“I am cooking paella, your favorite dish, dear Matilda,” the ghost of Tia Zelda said, aware that she had officially left the denser plane.

“I asked the head nurse to hand you my measuring book, mi amor. Study it carefully. It will reveal the awful truth.”

The phone rang again. Matilda woke up and rushed to the telephone.

“Is this Matilda Perez del Camino?”

“Yes. Who speaks?” Matilda said and stretched the cord to reach the kitchen. Everything seemed in order, but she knew from when she was knee-high to a grasshopper that everything is never as it appears in the Perez del Camino family.

“Amalia Diaz, the Head Nurse at San Juaquin Hospital. Your Tia Zelda passed away a few minutes ago. My sincerest condolences. She left a package for you.”

As the morning sun rose and the fog dissolved, Matilda put on the lavender helmet and drove her pink scooter on the two-lane rural road that meandered across flower fields emitting the less-than-pleasant Cala lily fragrance that reminded her of Demetrio’s urine. What mystery could a dressmaker measurement book hold? Matilda thought and shrugged her bony shoulders.

Later that afternoon, as Matilda waited for her mother at the busy train station sitting on a bench under the flickering sun, she passed the pages of the secret-holding notebook. Timotea, Matilda’s red hair tarantula, crawled up her arm, sat on her left shoulder, and watched Matilda pass the pages. Spiders know all secrets. Matilda thought.

Rosario’s Wedding Dress—bust: forty-eight inches; waist: forty-six inches; shoulders: forty-eight inches—evoked the pleasant image of a Latina Sumo wrestler. Aliria’s measurements revealed that she needed to eat more caldo. Matilda chuckled. Tia Zelda had dressed all the brides in the Town of Las Flores.

As the train from Monte Alto whistled its arrival, Timotea spitted a thread of silk that held onto page sixty-six. Matilda noticed the tiny scribbles along the edge, her legs uncrossed, and her skinny arms brought the notebook closer to her pointy nose. Timotea released a loud spider screech.

As the message in Tia Zelda’s secret code revealed the horrible truth, the train stopped, and an avalanche of passengers hit the station. Bodies of all shapes, colors, and sizes made lines to buy the local news, Cala flowers, and Don Ramiro’s churros.

“Matilda, hija,” Matilda’s mother hollered from the crowd.

Matilda remained frozen. Tia Zelda’s note described how her husband doped her, undressed her, and turned the air conditioning to 50 degrees every night until Tia Zelda’s weak body turned purple, and her lungs developed pneumonia. Zelda was too drugged to explain these when the nurse would come to check her vitals, but she managed to describe her murder during a few lucid moments.

“Mama, Mama. The Mayor murdered Tia Zelda. Should we call the police, Mama?” Matilda panted and paced back and forth as Demetrio would do.

“Hija, in the Perez del Camino family, Nature takes care of things. I told my sister not to marry the greasy older man, but she never listened. Let us take care of my sister’s funeral. After the graveyard keeper shovels the last pile of dirt on Zelda’s grave, we plot the revenge.” The fifty-two-year young widow stood, both hands holding the snakehead handle of her black cane, bifocals hanging from a silver chain below the grey pearl necklace and over the sleek black dress.

“Mama, you are worse than Caligula.”

“Ay hija, my mother was a tough lady,” Virginia waved her hand like Demetrio waved his left paw when showing disinterest.

God separated the light from darkness and created day and night in one worldview. In another, Virginia Perez del Camino would stomp three times with one foot on the ground in angry bull fashion and release a ghastly, “Nonsense. The entire universe is made of dark matter!”

On the day of the funeral, after the graveyard keeper threw the last pile of dirt on Zelda’s grave, Virginia firmly held her cane and spoke to the wind.

Later that evening, an army of spiders followed Timotea to the Mayor’s home and surrounded his bed. As the murderer drooled and snored, they spitted silk until the man died from asphyxia inside the giant web.

Note from the Author:

The Measuring Book is a work of flash fiction marinated in surrealism. This type of hybrid for a YA (Young Adult) audience, inspired by Moses, the Spiritual Director at the Little Chapel of All Nations, emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic as the Mujeres Que Escriben meeting took place, once the four of us had been fully vaccinated. A global pandemic will not stop us from having our monthly writing workshop!