Selections from Vultureffect

NIGHTMARE

I get up early but I can't free myself from sleep. I turn on the lights. I walk around the house. From bedroom to bathroom and from bathroom to kitchen. I eat breakfast. From kitchen to patio and from patio to living room. I turn on the TV. I read a bit. I walk through the house again. But I can't manage to wake up. I decide to go out into the street. I run into a friend and confide in him that I can't wake up. I ask for advice. He suggests I do a bit of exercise to loosen up—then I should drink a cup of very strong coffee and listen to very loud music. I do all these things but I don't manage to wake up. I go out once more. This time I go to the doctor. As is often the case, the doctor talks a good deal, but I do not wake up. At six in the evening I load a revolver and blow out my brains. I jump up in bed and open my eyes, but I still haven't managed to wake up. Sleep, dreams: a very persistent thing.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE

Live. It's always been live. Virgilio Piñera looks at the camera, smiles, and says, "This is my last show. Yesterday they operated on me for the twelfth time, before your very eyes. A case of hypertrophy of the irony. But don't think your suffering will end here. It's very possible the operations will continue."

OVERDOSE

He's just met her in a strange city. They drink, dance, kiss, and afterward he invites her to his hotel. When he takes her clothes off he realizes she is not a woman, but a man. Surprise. He's about to tell the man to leave right now when suddenly he's no longer a man, but a vulture sitting in front of the TV. Shock. To calm himself, he turns to a bottle that says barbiturates but actually contains vitamins or something like that. While he dissolves in a room that now resembles a cell in a State prison, he hears the vulture say, like it's reading something on the screen, "You were never promised anything, you signed no contract."

CHARLIE KAUFMAN

I make friends with a screenwriter. We talk on the phone for hours, him in Los Angeles and me in La Habana. I'd like to think he prefers talking with me because I give him ideas instead of asking him for his. In exchange, he sends me collections of magazines. Art, shows, fashion, glamour. Pages to peck at.

The screenwriter says: "Sometimes all it takes to find it is one look at a cover. There's something there that's meant for you, that only you can read. It's like a jolt. I don't know if you understand me. I'm not sure I can fully explain. Look, why don't we leave it for another day, it's already six in the morning and I just finished my mineral water."

RAY LORIGA

Laura calls again from Manhattan. She tells me she's been photographed for a magazine with my name on the cover. The coincidence might've excited other writers, but I know that New York is a genre and she, calling from wherever, is an extended cut of the worst neurosis. (During the conversation, I drink an entire bottle of mineral water, banging on the keys to refresh the screen.)

OASIS

We went to the desert to watch movies with other people's eyes. We arrived on old motorcycles, trailing eddies of sand, and, beneath a screen vast as a mirage, we put on the eyes. They had to be handled very carefully, kept clean and moist, stored in plastic baggies to prevent damage. But we were specialists. We could put on and show off even recently extracted eyes. A crowd of blind people pursued us, but none of them were able to follow us into the desert.

BURIED

An empty...