Status Updates From Pedro Páramo

For me, Juan Preciado, Heaven is right here where I am now.
—And what about your soul? Where do you think it’s disappeared to?
—I suspect it’s wandering the earth like so many others, searching for anyone still alive who’ll pray for it. It’s possible it despises me for the way I treated it, but I no longer care. I’ve broken free of its obsessive need for remorse.

Nights around here are filled with shadows. If only you could see the horde of souls that roam the streets. They come out as soon as it gets dark, and we’re all afraid of seeing them. With so many of them and so few of us we no longer plead for them to be freed from their torment. There just aren’t enough prayers to go around. Maybe we could say a few lines of the Lord’s Prayer for each one,

—She’s been asked, and she’s more than willing. The priest wants sixty pesos to overlook the marriage banns. I told him he’d be paid in due time. Says he needs to fix the altar and that his dining table is falling apart. I promised we’d send a new one. He says you never attend mass. I promised him you would. He also says you haven’t paid any tithes since your grandmother passed. I told him not to worry.

Drops fall, one after another, through the stone filter. As fresh water emerges from the rock one hears the sound it makes as it drips into a clay pitcher. One listens. Hearing whispers. Hearing feet that scrape against the floor, that walk back and forth. The dripping continues nonstop. The pitcher overflows, sending water across the floor.
<> someone calls.