Status Updates From El Señor Presidente (Biblio...

Outside, the celebration continued. The second day was just like the first: the movie screen was erected like a gallows with people walking around the plaza like slaves around a waterwheel.

“Don’t ask whether you’re innocent or guilty, General. What counts is the President’s support. An innocent man, without the President’s support, is worse off than a guilty person.”

…. Around eleven, when the sun was already high, the important gentlemen came to walk off their breakfast and build an appetite for lunch or rushed to join an influential friend in buying the debt of starving teachers at half price.

The beet-red dawn stained the tips of the mountains cupping the city, like dandruff atop a valley. Common laborers were the first to walk down streets shrouded in darkness, ghosts in a soulless world. Office workers, clerks, and students followed a few hours later. Around eleven,…..

"Y pensar que en la ciudad todo debe de estar como si tal cosa, como si nada estuviera pasando, como si nosotros no estuviéramos encerrados."