The Betrayal at the Battle of Hilarión

On a bitter winter night, our protagonist, the brave and innocent hero Pedro Zarquillo, couldn’t sleep. Between cold sweats and old nightmares, he woke. Somber, he reached over and switched on the desk lamp.

As he sifted through the stacks of papers he kept for his studies and research, he suddenly found an old manuscript he didn’t recognize. Startled, he moved to the living room and lit the fireplace to examine this mysterious document he’d stumbled upon so unexpectedly among the rest. It was a letter from the twelfth century:

La falsa ilusión de intentar eludir el dolor

Para introducir este texto, voy a describir brevemente esta situación en la que numerosas personas podemos encontrarnos a lo largo de nuestra vida.

La situación a la que me refiero es la siguiente. Nos alcanza un momento en la vida en el que al menos uno de nuestros familiares ya no se vale por sí mismo y, a partir de cierto instante, se desenvuelve como una persona dependiente. Ya no se vale por sí misma. Quizá sea exclusivamente que no puede caminar, o que la memoria empieza a fallarle y no recuerda con la agilidad de otras épocas los trayectos para salir y regresar a su hogar por su propia cuenta.

Why am I not expected to express my sadness?

COVID-19 Pandemic
(2020-2023)

As usual, I will start by the beginning of the story, though I will try to go straightforward to what I really want to say. This is a true conversation I had some weeks ago with a good person that I would like to share with you.

Some days ago, I was infected by the COVID-19 virus. My wife was infected, too. Therefore, both of us were infected. We suppose we were infected by this COVID-19 infection at some visit to the hospital due to some medical check some days before. We kept staying home those days, although this is not mandatory by the medical authorities anymore ... or at least from around 2023, at the end of the Pandemic, until today.