The beautiful soul of Don Damian.

• Author: Bosch, Julian
• Position: Short story

DON DAMIAN, with a temperature of almost 104, passed into a coma. His soul felt extremely uncomfortable, almost as if it were being roasted alive; therefore it began to withdraw, gathering itself into his heart. The soul had an infinite number of tentacles, like an octopus with innumerable feet, some of them in the veins and others, very thin, in the smaller blood vessels. Little by little it pulled out those feet, with the result that Don Damian turned cold and pallid. His hands grew cold first, then his arms and legs, while his face became so deathly white that the change was observed by the people who stood around his bed. The nurse, alarmed, said it was time to send for the doctor. The soul heard her, and thought: "I'll have to hurry, or the doctor will make me stay in here till I burn to a crisp."

It was dawn. A faint trickle of light came in through the window to announce the birth of a new day. The soul, peering out of Don Damian's mouth, which was partly open to let in a little air, noticed the light and told itself that if it hoped to escaped it would have to act promptly, because in a few minutes somebody would see it and prevent it from leaving its master's body. The soul of Don Damian was quite ignorant about certain matters: for instance, it had no idea that once free it would be completely invisible.

There was a rustling of skirts around the patient's luxurious bed, and a murmur of voices which the soul had to ignore, occupied as it was in escaping from its prison. The nurse came back into the room with a hypodermic syringe in her hand.

"Dear God, dear God," the old housemaid cried, "don't let it be too late."

It was too late. At the precise moment that the needle punctured Don Damian's forearm, the soul drew its last tentacles out of is mouth, reflecting as it did so that the injection would be a waste of money. An instant later there were cries and running footsteps, and as somebody - no doubt the housemaid, since it could hardly have been Don Damian's wife or mother-in-law - began to wail at the bedside, the soul leaped into the air, straight up to the Bohemian glass lamp that hung in the middle of the ceiling. There it collected its wits and looked down: Don Damian's corpse was now a spoiled yellow, with features almost as hard and transparent as the Bohemian glass; the bones of his face seemed to have grown, and his skin had taken on a ghastly sheen. His wife, his mother-in-law, and the nurse fluttered around him, while the housemaid sobbed with her gray head buried in the covers. The soul knew exactly what each one of them was thinking and feeling, but it did not want to waste time observing them. The light was growing brighter every moment, and it was afraid it would be noticed up there on its perch. Suddenly the mother-in-law took her daughter b the arm and led her out into the hall, to talk to her in a low voice. The soul heard her say, "Don't behave so shamelessly. You've got to to show some grief."

"When people start coming, Mama," the daughter whispered.

"No. Right now. Don't forget the nurse - she'll tell everybody everything that happens."

The new widow ran to the bed as if mad with grief. "Oh Damian, Damian!" she cried. "Damian, my dearest, how can I live without you?"

A different, less worldly soul would have been astounded, but Don Damian's merely admired the way she was playing the part. Don Damian himself had done some skillful acting on occasion, especially when it was necessary to...