There once was a girl who lived in Trujillo Alto named Analita. Analita was a girl of “never caring”, since she was a smart enough person to know that if she thought about every blade of grass she’d touch, she’d sense the countless ants that hopped off from its green slender form right onto her chanclas, the itching she’d complain about to Mama and Papa never again a mystery as she could just point at the green and say, “¡Eso!”. One night, Analita decided to “never care” by not turning off the big desk light she’d keep on when she’d work no matter how badly it hurt her eyes and felt like burning. This kept her up all night though, something she didn’t like because the heat was already an issue, and the itchy sheets were already a problem, and the half torn PJ’s were already making her sweat but, because she never cared, she knew that all she could really do was lie there and wait.
She closed her eyes hard, harder than ever before, and waited.
She thought about getting up and turning off the light, and waited.
She thought about getting new sheets or, better yet, just going to the living room couch (even though it smelt like ham and dust) because it had that nice silky blanket her stinky abuelo would sit on for his shows.
She thought about all these things but, most of all, she thought about tomorrow, and didn’t care. It was hard for Analita to care about tomorrow because she was too busy not caring about today. Why bother with going to the bathroom (even if your gut feels like sludge)? Why even care about the turned off fan (even with all the beads of sweat making your curly hair turn into a dandruff jungle)? Why get up and find something better, when the right now is so awful to be in?
“Do I like the awful?” Analita thought.
And it was the most she never cared.
But late one night, as the night frog’s chirping became a deafening cascade, she saw a cucaracha skitter right into her closet, the light chitter of its clicking limbs climbing up, up, up. She knew she’d be safe from the insect’s intrusive antennae but, just as a precaution, she climbed right out of her musty mattress and creeped towards the closet’s creaking door. Surely this was too much caring! One little roach was ignorable, maybe even invited, but all Analita felt within her was a glub of dishonesty as each step she took along the splintering wooden floor brought her closer to that towering portal.
Maybe if she turned back now, hopped back into bed, and awoke to a festering nest of scuttling larvae scratching at her pores then maybe, just maybe, she’d claim a climactic victory as the most careless of them all. No longer would she need to stress over any form of defense or longevity, now she was a brood! An emperor of the repulsive! Never again would she need to express any sentiment of caution or thought, her carefree life as a host to the abominable granting her an ultimate reprieve of the mind she so deeply hated.
But now, mere inches away from the door, she persisted on to thwart the vermin. Maybe I can get away with it just this once? A singular treat of effort to allow my planned apathy more empirical freedoms? No, Analita knew, this would only be a beginning.
She swung open the wretched door with the force of finality, her days of ignorance soon coming to a close and she spotted the vile interloper and raised up her bare foot against it. Soon her days of laze and worry would be concluded, no more would she stand idly by to let disgust and pestilence infest her livelihood, now she had the determination to defend it! Her days were soon to be hers at long, long, last!
Crashing down with the full weight of her little patita, Analita victoriously stomped the unwanted filth, the slicing tip of a nail the cockroach sat upon now nestled deep inside her sole.
–Jorge Biaggi