Marcela > Recent Status Updates

16. Reading. 'There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.'
'I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.'
'Learning to read was the most fun she’d ever had.'
'she couldn’t figure why Tate had offered to teach po’ white trash like he...'
'He didn’t want to shame her, so didn’t show surprise. She was awfully good at reading eyes.'

16. Reading. 'There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.'
'I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.'
'she couldn’t figure why Tate had offered to teach po’ white trash like her, why he’d come in the first place, bringing exquisite feathers.'
'He didn’t want to shame her, so didn’t show surprise. She was awfully good at reading eyes.'

15. The Game. 'It didn’t fit that anyone who liked birds would be mean.'
'That’s what sisters and girlfriends are all about. Sticking together even in the mud, ’specially in mud.”'
'She had watched male birds wooing females by bringing them gifts. But she was pretty young for nesting.'
'...there was another sensation. A fullness she hadn’t felt for years. As if something warm had been poured inside her heart.'

14. Red Fibers.

13. Feathers. ' Perhaps when you have to paw your supper from mud, imagination flattens to that of adulthood.'
'Crows can’t keep secrets any better than mud; once they see something curious in the forest they have to tell everybody. Those who listen are rewarded: either warned of predators or alerted to food.'
'Every smack a stab in the turkey hen’s heart.'

12. Pennies and Grits. 'Ma had said women need one another more than they need men'

11. Croker Sacks Full. 'It wasn’t like the pain when Ma left—in fact, she struggled to mourn him at all.'
'The marsh is all the family I got.'
'It took all her might not to buy a Sugar Daddy instead of the candle.'
'Not too grown-up for a Sugar Daddy Jumpin’ had dropped inside.'
'They didn’t have eyes to look at her like the fish did.'

10. Just Grass in the Wind. 'Shells the best secret-keepers of all.'

9. Jumpin'.'Tiny as it was, the village supported four churches, and those were just for the whites; the blacks had three more.'
'Details of some of the bouts were sharp in her mind.'
'Those warm days were just a thrown-in season. Low clouds parting, the sun splashing her world briefly, then closing up dark and tight-fisted again'

8. Negative Data. La gente del pueblo especulando sobre la muerte de Chase.

7. The Fishing Season. 'She closed her eyes, and then opened them wide. He had called her “hon.”

6. A Boat and a Boy. 'For the first time since Ma and Jodie left, she breathed without pain; felt something other than the hurt. She needed this boat and that boy.'
'His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.'
'His dad was right—poems made you feel something'

5. Investigation. 'I seen randy dogs at a bitch fest better behaved.'

4. School. 'She had no notion how to talk to kids, certainly not to a teacher, but she wanted to learn to read and what came after twenty-nine.'
'Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.'

3. Chase. 'Jackson mostly ignored crimes committed in the swamp. Why interrupt rats killing rats?'
'Death’s crude pluck, as always, stealing the show.'

2. Jodie. 'Ma spoke about adult things Kya didn’t understand, but she figured Ma’s words needed somewhere to go, so she absorbed them through her skin, as she poked more wood in the cookstove. Nodding like she knew.'
'He had two settings: silence and shouting. So it was just fine when he slept through, or didn’t come home at all.'

1. Ma. 'When cornered, desperate, or isolated, man reverts to those instincts that aim straight at survival. Quick and just. They will always be the trump cards because they are passed on more frequently from one generation to the next than the gentler genes. It is not a morality, but simple math. Among themselves, doves fight as often as hawks.'

10.'Y acuérdense de una vaina para toda la vida... este muchacho no ha muerto.'
'en este pueblo no se pueden guardar secretos... todo el mundo sabe que a ese muchacho le hicieron lo mismo que hacía don Sabas con los burros que vendía.'
'levantaron el entablado de la peluquería y encontraron armas. La cárcel está llena, pero dicen que los hombres se están echando al monte para meterse en las guerrillas.'

9.'Si los hombres parieran serían menos desconsiderados.'
'éramos gente de Dios antes de que hubiera curas a muchas leguas a la redonda.'
'cada día se hunde más, porque ha descubierto un placer del cual no se regresa: poco a poco, sin hacer mucho ruido, se está volviendo rico»'
'«Dos años de discursos —citó de memoria—. Y todavía el mismo estado de sitio, la misma censura de Prensa, los mismos funcionarios.»'

8.'Aquella madrugada había encontrado un papel pegado a la puerta de su dormitorio: «No gaste pólvora en gallinazos, teniente»'
'Aquí estamos, otra vez con el toque de queda, y esos tres criminales en la calle.'

7. 'En cada detalle se observaba un lujo pobre.'
'...el temor no era el sentimiento predominante. Había más bien una sensación de victoria colectiva por la confirmación de lo que estaba en la conciencia de todos'
'...marchaba con paso resuelto, como si anduviera en diligencias urgentes, y después de mucho andar se daba cuenta de que no iba para ninguna parte.'
'...¿Quién es? —Es todo el pueblo y no es nadie.'

6.'Aquí el único que tiene derecho a prohibir algo es el Gobierno —dijo—. Estamos en una democracia.'
'La diferencia entre antes y ahora —dijo— es que antes mandaban los políticos y ahora manda el Gobierno.'
'la vida no es más que una continua sucesión de oportunidades para sobrevivir.'
'La vergüenza tiene mala memoria.'

5.'La plata es el cagajón del diablo'
'Lo que pasa es que en este país no hay una sola fortuna que no tenga a la espalda un burro muerto.'

37. '¿Cómo me voy a andar poniendo en pedo si no tengo a nadie que me pague las copas y me lleve en taxi a casa? —¿Es una promesa? Sandoval sonrió, sin despegar los ojos del asfalto. —¡Eh! No exageres. Tampoco me pidas tanto. —Chau, Sandoval. —Chau, Chaparro.'
'A veces los varones nos sentimos más seguros detrás de cierta frialdad para tratar a quienes queremos.'
¡Qué escena!

36. 'Una cosa es planear las cosas en la cama, en las noches de desvelo, con los ojos clavados en el techo. Ejecutar el plan con el que soñamos es otra cosa bien distinta.'

35.'Capaz que en un país serio esas organizaciones son herméticas. Bah, supongo. Pero acá tienen más agujeros que un colador de té, fíjese. Porque aparte les gusta mostrarse'
'Me acordé de Morales y su máxima de que todo lo que puede salir mal va a salir mal, y de que todo lo que puede empeorar empeorará.'

34. Chaparro esperando en un parque a Báez para que lo ayude :(

33.'A Sandoval lo quería como a un hermano, pero su adicción me generaba más impaciencia que compasión.'

32. 'Nunca fui bueno para el regateo. Paso de sentirme un sádico aprovechador a sentirme un pánfilo incurable, y viceversa.'

31.'Todos los días veíamos detener gente, por ahí. O nos llegaba el dato. Sin embargo esos detenidos jamás llegaban a la alcaidía, jamás subían a declarar a los juzgados, jamás eran trasladados después a Devoto o a Caseros.'
'¿Yo era el egoísta o todos lo éramos? Me consolé pensando que por Sandoval podía hacer algo, y por su primo Nacho, no.'