Tomás Rivera

Evangelina Vigil-Piñón

Examines in English and Spanish the lives of migrant workers moving from south Texas up through the Plains, and the experiences of all ages and sexes

--and the Earth did not devour him

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When he got home he went straight to the tree that was in the yard. He climbed it. He saw a palm tree on the horizon. He imagined someone perched on top, gazing across at him. He even raised one arm and waved it back and forth so that the other could see that he knew he was there.

I would like to see all of the people together. And then, if I had great big arms, I could embrace them all. (...) I like it right here because I can think about anything I please. Only by being alone can you bring everybody together. That’s what I needed to do, hide, so that I could come to understand a lot of things. From now on, all I have to do is to come here, in the dark, and think about them. And I have so much to think about and I’m missing so many years. I think today what I wanted to do was recall this past year. And that’s just one year. I’ll have to come here to recall all of the other years.

He thought of telling his mother, but he decided to keep it secret. All he told her was that the earth did not devour anyone, nor did the sun. 

He left for work and encountered a very cool morning. There were clouds in the sky and for the first time he felt capable of doing and undoing anything that he pleased. He looked down at the earth and kicked it hard and said: 

“Not yet, you can’t swallow me up yet. Someday, yes. But I’ll never know it.”

Each step that he took towards the house resounded with the question, why? About halfway to the house he began to get furious. Then he started crying out of rage. (...) Then he started cursing. And without even realizing it, he said what he had been wanting to say for a long time. He cursed God. Upon doing this he felt that fear instilled in him by the years and by his parents. For a second he saw the earth opening up to devour him. Then he felt his footsteps against the earth, compact, more solid than ever. Then his anger swelled up again and he vented it by cursing God.

--and the Earth did not devour him

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