El very sad fracaso of Ascencio
Thousands of sweat glands on the soles of the feet produce perspiration
composed of water, sodium chloride, fat, minerals, and various acids that are
the end products of your body's metabolism.
ASCENCIO ASCENDS
So he ran away, just with some bad clothes and out-fashioned T-shirts and with his one “special traveling” pair of shoes only. She was a blond that really wanted to have a dark skinned Mexican from Tulum as his new “conquista” to present to her friends and the fastest way possible to learn the beautiful Spanish language, that sincerely intrigued her so much, all without really going out from this protective Socialist womb that is the Swedish government.
They met in Slussen Metro, the very topical-typical central meeting place, and moved fast in the streets to a near bar, escaping from one cold month of March that seemed that wanted to refuse the coming of Spring to all. “That’s Sweden, now you know”, she said and gave a really nice first sensual long kiss. Together finally, escaping from two simultaneous broken-heart experiences and desiring to bring back the really vivid memories of their fluent sex with the lights open back in that beautiful Tulum bungalow they shared a couple for more that two weeks, enough to swear eternal love, enough to start this quest, and for me be able to tell a story. Both were thinking all this time, but never confessed this to each other, the really attractive deal for them was mixing their different skins and making out in a world that was not oppressing anymore, they liked so much back then when they collided in frantic fucking back in the Riviera Maya, in the longing, and in the first week of his arrival to her arms and flat in Söddermalm.
In the meanwhile, the antagonist of this story, a flora of bacteria in his sweaty feet, was creating a new country in his only pair of shoes, and the strong stench was the flag. A very new way of setting a flag and claiming the place. Due to several months of walking without ventilation, and very few coins in his pockets, bacteria was thriving unattended and ignored in the whole sole of the shoe. Invading, fighting, even eating his live flesh. The conquer of the space with an odor that he, and so many other Swedes, could not ever forget or forgive. You will now the reason anytime soon.
One of his first encounters with a Swede was to see if he could help him or arrange other meeting to find a good job.
-“I came here to meet you, I’m Ascencio, Anne’s man ”, -he said in the speakerphone outside.
-“Something is wrong Ascencio”, -the host said pronouncing Ascencio all wrong.
-“Of course, no problema. But could I use your bathroom first”, -he said without even noticing that his name was all wrong.
-“Yes, please, go”, -replied his host showing some sort of surprise and deceit in his face as he walk to the bathroom without taking off the shoes.
A thick smell started to came out from the bathroom and the sound of running water started. In the meanwhile, he frenetically sought for some product to mitigate the odor and act as quickly as he could, covered by the sounds of the water and the two well thought flushing-toilet attempts. A vinegar and ammonishy smell was invading the house from beneath the door. He knew that this was a good idea, the one that could make him step again this house victoriously. He washed his feet with soap and realized that the aroma was still terrible, so he took all the cleaning products he found and applied them without thinking, while scratching hard, and having his skin falling dead in the sink.
Brevibacteria was ginning this conquer of Europe so far. That and the fact that this very good friend of her girlfriend was the core of a really thight group of cool Sweds. This was his social dead, his newly given stigma, a reason for his new unhappiness. Probably only in France his smell was something to be proud of, as it was the trademark of quality and that pestilence resembled Limburger cheese, or Port du Salut, Pálpusztai, Munster ... Cheese and wine, that Mexican stupid excuse for visiting Europe.
Acid wasn’t the only thing breaking from his smell, his humor and future social life in Sweden broke too. Acid, the product of the breakdown of several Propionibacteria and sebaceous glands and many other micro-organisms implicated in this serious stench. Acid was the cause of Ascencio’s epic fail.
Ascencio grabbed from the
shelf some deodorants to neutralise the rotten flaire that invaded the flat. He
pored serious amounts of powder and some bicarbonate too. Finally, he took that
deodorant acid thing that hangs in the toilets, it was almost floating in the
toilette, but wrapped with blue plastic, little he knew that it was highly
corrosive and made only with acid, which would provoke the end to this meeting
and his preposterous dismay in the central street of Södermalm. He fell to the
floor. All went black. He fell just as a coconut and it was the same sound they
do when they hit the sand of Tulum. He woke up in the hospital, his feet
covered in some cream and a lot of people surrounded him looking disapprovingly.
Thus, what was once a working-class district is now somewhat a district of the privileged and this Hospital in which he was waking-up with the feet covered in creams and completely burned was one of them. What a bad coincidence to have acid in the bathroom disguised in Swedish long beautiful letters forming fancy words with crazy graphic accents. Little he knew, as I said before, too little he knew...
He saw that the only thing that was attractive for him was his smell and the hours spent in cleaning and tearing his skin apart. He needed bacteria as some sort of Catholic penitence or some very new New Age meditation form. He only knew how much it hurted and itched. He just had bad luck and he fail to act before. He always had bad attitude with his bad luck. He felt now as if only Anopheles mosquitoes were attracted to him or his feet, as it happens with stinky French cheese, according to a scientific known as Bart Knols many years ago.
Ascencio, blind by the happiness of finally traveling for real, was so happy of finally purchasing and trying stinky things with many bottles of good cheap wine, alone only with his feet in cheap rooms. The bohemian idea of meeting her princess in the end of his stupid and personal uninteresting Mexican crusade or rite. Feeling proud with pictures of statues, cheese and wine, and alone, just as the hidden rule-book of the elite’s rites demanded.
Secretly proud of being able to reproduce the smell of such delicatessens and being finally alone, moving, not disturbing the others for the first time. Those others that he was escaping from. Ascencio made the others as important as little he felt among them ... The others really were just a small boring group of daughters and sons of the powerful and the privilegedly cool people.
The day he woke up in the Hospital he swear to change his luck from that day on, but he was sad, broken, failing to conquer his dream, so he could only fight by swabbing gently his feet and going more often to drugstores to buy things to kill bacteria, fungus. Start his days with a completely new and obsessive pathological care of his hygiene, for the very first time (this should be the very real passing rite to succeed as a young adult, probably) was the best thing he got from his trip in Europe, Ascencio started to take care of himself, and this is the really important message of the story of Ascencio.
No one will know this but the daily baking soda orally and manually applied to his feet he was changing his life. Eating better, drinking less too... He changed his life and stopped his bohemian and lonely way of always decaying... No one could tell the truth about this, but this narrator knows that he was safe now. The proper drugs, the Mexican lemon and the baking soda for all, this was the closest thing to a healthy diet for him ...
THIS IS THE END
At the same time this fool and anodyne love-and-hate-feet story developed, in the very center of the White Houses’s oval office, some old Swedish sailor was celebrating the recognition of some record. He was wearing his famous jeans and snickers. The act was a homage to his 400 days trip around the world in a little boat not longer than three meters. The President was with the Swedish ambassador for celebrating this 72 years old crazy sailor.
This Swedish old man smiled and took his shoes off in signal of respect to the premises. And as soon he approach to shake the hand of Obama, this public massive figure, he said: “is customary to take off the shoes” in bad English and went in, his feet walking trough a beautiful rug with an eagle on it. The bodyguards, outraged, as the media could see by their body language, approached offended and hold the old man. They probably thought that he wanted to step in with his dirty socks and disrespect the flag (one that is printed in any kind of offensive products), for some reason this eagle and colors of the land of the proud was important to protect from socks. So, proudly and in an American fashion, they asked “kindly” to put back the shoes. We know that shoes are such a mental conondrum and turn on to all the people conspiring and full of ideas of seeing the other shoes as possible weapons. And this country go killing everyone, everywhere in the world if such a treat was even risen as a crazy dream of a demented conspirator. So the guards stopped the man and asked to put his shoes back on again. And he refused kinfly too. “Is customary to take off the shoes in my country, and you are honoring me, so you take your shoes off”, -he said, amidst the tense laughter of the Swedish ambassador. So, one more time, the odd thing of not accepting our feet was making a great story through the world’s patronizing and generalizing empty information machinery that succeeded, one more time, in making viral this "problem" of taking or not taking the shoes off.
The media and bacteria, two protagonists, two sick entities, responsible for all this too.
The
epic failure of a Mexican, the story of a pair of stinky feet in Sweden
He finally knew what it was to step on Europe, and what a superficial
blonde he had, much of her love to the Latino trends existed for real, but not
that much their love; that was a sort of construction in progress. It was
always good to escape from a borderline situation, whatever this may be. Is
better to escape from pain and loneliness and seek fulfillment. And so they were,
escaping, staring at each other at the Urban Deli fancy place, and watching
everything for the first time with shamanic big eyes. At least he was in Stockholm for the first time,
and he never got tired of the new life he was meant to conquer. He could not even realize that she was lonely,
very close to that borderline situation he was running away. She was too busy with her learning of Spanish attempt, doing aerobics and Pilate (with Latino beats) daily sessions. They talked
about the movies and the music, just because many award ceremonies were
close and the good public medias of Sweden were really prone to deliver this
kind of information to all. Actually, the public television was something that
made Ascencio wanted to stay there and roam forever, learning by watching television. This is why both seemed happy, the weren't together. Even when they ran together and purchased compulsively great amount of many
other trendy things and thongs. Soon he started working in a cool bar, possessing a
“sambo” status: a kind of a marriage without all the fucking serious deals and
legal compromises. But he never forgot the day Sweden said, “no” to his feet.
As is better to escape from borderline situations, Mexico and Spain were living terrible moments, different crisis and both with their own type of corruption. In Spain,
living was more expensive, impossible to pay, the imposed end-of-game shitty
conditions. And, in Mexico, you could find a good job, but you were among crazy elite-conscious driven people. Even more powerful and crooked that people really conceive. Too much corruption, and being in the side of the class-working heroes, made his soul quite happy in Sweden. There
he felt that it was easy to conquer things by working. He was escaping from
corruption, right-wing politicians in power, the old PRI’s comeback, and his hometown ready to surrender to
the new Pope Franciscum. All paid by us, them, the narco, the gringos. Who knew anymore what
was going on with actual cash and really sound money.
Ascencio knew that we has not meant to
stay in Sweden, it was very cold, everywhere he went he stepped in a mix of sand and salt in all the
streets. This made him always dirty, always humid, stinky and unhappy deep in
the soles of his shoes. He thought he was sensible enough to get the Nordic
depression, but his always sweaty and humid feet was his only social handicap, his
only reason for not feeling good about the day, so Ascencio's grumpiness was exposed, and this was the worst
thing of living in Sweden for him. What a stupid thing this was.
At the end the sand, the salt, the snow, the water, they were really responsible for all this mess that didn’t broke the heart of her lover when the dramatic end of Ascencio's experience arrived. She learned Spanish and travel back with an amazing scholarship to a tropical country. He went back to be miserable in Spain, thinking he could be better in Mexico, even when he saw himself swallowing dirt to ascend and follow the family steps that were his real problem. After all, he was called Ascencio for a reason. Or not. Who cared anyway?
At the end the sand, the salt, the snow, the water, they were really responsible for all this mess that didn’t broke the heart of her lover when the dramatic end of Ascencio's experience arrived. She learned Spanish and travel back with an amazing scholarship to a tropical country. He went back to be miserable in Spain, thinking he could be better in Mexico, even when he saw himself swallowing dirt to ascend and follow the family steps that were his real problem. After all, he was called Ascencio for a reason. Or not. Who cared anyway?
"Mierda y arena y sal y más mierda en
la calle". Ascencio's diary.
ASCENCIO ASCENDS
Ascencio arrived to Stockholm a couple of weeks ago. He had with him
a big backpack with all the necessary to meet his love and settle down and just
feel good to hate something new for the first time in a very long time. Long
time of hard working all day and night, that and his extreme way of saving. He
only survived due to those letter he sent to her Swede. Her “flika”, as he
wrote so many time in those letters, never minding enough to learn more about
her culture, he thought it was really easy to to pretend this particular svenska flicka.
So he ran away, just with some bad clothes and out-fashioned T-shirts and with his one “special traveling” pair of shoes only. She was a blond that really wanted to have a dark skinned Mexican from Tulum as his new “conquista” to present to her friends and the fastest way possible to learn the beautiful Spanish language, that sincerely intrigued her so much, all without really going out from this protective Socialist womb that is the Swedish government.
They met in Slussen Metro, the very topical-typical central meeting place, and moved fast in the streets to a near bar, escaping from one cold month of March that seemed that wanted to refuse the coming of Spring to all. “That’s Sweden, now you know”, she said and gave a really nice first sensual long kiss. Together finally, escaping from two simultaneous broken-heart experiences and desiring to bring back the really vivid memories of their fluent sex with the lights open back in that beautiful Tulum bungalow they shared a couple for more that two weeks, enough to swear eternal love, enough to start this quest, and for me be able to tell a story. Both were thinking all this time, but never confessed this to each other, the really attractive deal for them was mixing their different skins and making out in a world that was not oppressing anymore, they liked so much back then when they collided in frantic fucking back in the Riviera Maya, in the longing, and in the first week of his arrival to her arms and flat in Söddermalm.
Ascencio wanted to get the sambo status as soon as possible, he was
advised strongly to do so by everyone back in Mexico, and he wanted to learn
some Swedish and probably work in some bar making more money than just some
Mexican, as the sums there of the Swedish payrolls were really somethin’ for
him. He decided nothing could get in the middle and that he would be able to
conquer a new place with his smile and over educated Latino manners and
flamboyant way to behave in society, as he was a telenovela educated kind of
guy. So ... Little he really knew ...
Before arriving to Sweden he sold all his
belongings and his car and work industriously as exploitation can be, and saved
as a greedy person that only needed greed to keep on in doing this. He was
obsessed in succeeding, “going to Sweden”, “get out of Mexico”, mantras to
avoid that crooked and really weird-y rich crazy people power-driven messy
bloody terrible country that was in the news he followed, and probably believed
in an excessive manner, granting everything the right (wrong for almost all the
people) importance to facts, and even feeling stupid empathy all the time. He
could not live there anymore, that was a firm decision. With this big money he
made (in Mexican pesos and some dollars, that’s the beauty of Tulum) he
purchased a big backpack and went online to travel agencies for "cheap"
train tickets to see all Europe (the five countries they give him in the pack)
for the first time. A wicked kind of passing ritual that Mexicans unfairly
still transmit to their heirs. And so he “lift up”, as the word repeated in
some space mission, “lift-up, lift-up, we have a lift-up”, what an incessant
audible hallucination in his head this was. His notions of turistic English
were enough for him to “eat the world” and be “finally happy”, as he said
constantly. Little he remembered that it was a happiness and a world that he
decided to deprive himself from, just to achieve this elite’s passing ritual of
traveling abroad Europe and broadcast as much as possible in the boring, patronizing
social media. Ascencio traveled to Spain, France, Italy and Germany. He moved
in trains for two months before meeting his new Swedish love affair and live in
her apartment in Södermalm and settle there to “eat the world and be finally
happy”.
THE FIRST WEEK
The first days he devoted and spent them entirely walking up and
down Stockholm... Crossing from bridge to bridge, island to island. Surviving
perfectly using his good English and the “tack
så mycket” magic words. He thought we has just
ready to conquer the place and becoming other success-story of victorious “svart kalla”, as they define –and insult–
all the people with black hair in this blond and white lands.
In the meanwhile, the antagonist of this story, a flora of bacteria in his sweaty feet, was creating a new country in his only pair of shoes, and the strong stench was the flag. A very new way of setting a flag and claiming the place. Due to several months of walking without ventilation, and very few coins in his pockets, bacteria was thriving unattended and ignored in the whole sole of the shoe. Invading, fighting, even eating his live flesh. The conquer of the space with an odor that he, and so many other Swedes, could not ever forget or forgive. You will now the reason anytime soon.
One of his first encounters with a Swede was to see if he could help him or arrange other meeting to find a good job.
-“I came here to meet you, I’m Ascencio, Anne’s man ”, -he said in the speakerphone outside.
-“8976 is the key, come on in bud”, -replied a friendly voice.
He entered, shook his hand, and gave three steps into the beautiful
carpeted house. A silent scream stopped to do so:
-“Wait, first you have to take off your shoes” -Said his still
smiling host. “Is customary in Sweden”
When he heard this, Ascencio only smelled that cheesy-farty-deadly stench
that he was enjoying (in a sick manner) in all the hostels he was checking in
alone. He hated to share rooms with young “hostel weirdos”, as he called them.
Now, he could only feel the
moisturised and hairy feet contributing to bacteria’s cause to settle there forever.
He damned himself and the bad quality of polyester and nylon socks that he
always wore. He cursed (in an interior almost religious manner) all the
perspiration of his wandering in Europe, all the bacterial activity.-“Something is wrong Ascencio”, -the host said pronouncing Ascencio all wrong.
-“Of course, no problema. But could I use your bathroom first”, -he said without even noticing that his name was all wrong.
-“Yes, please, go”, -replied his host showing some sort of surprise and deceit in his face as he walk to the bathroom without taking off the shoes.
A thick smell started to came out from the bathroom and the sound of running water started. In the meanwhile, he frenetically sought for some product to mitigate the odor and act as quickly as he could, covered by the sounds of the water and the two well thought flushing-toilet attempts. A vinegar and ammonishy smell was invading the house from beneath the door. He knew that this was a good idea, the one that could make him step again this house victoriously. He washed his feet with soap and realized that the aroma was still terrible, so he took all the cleaning products he found and applied them without thinking, while scratching hard, and having his skin falling dead in the sink.
Brevibacteria was ginning this conquer of Europe so far. That and the fact that this very good friend of her girlfriend was the core of a really thight group of cool Sweds. This was his social dead, his newly given stigma, a reason for his new unhappiness. Probably only in France his smell was something to be proud of, as it was the trademark of quality and that pestilence resembled Limburger cheese, or Port du Salut, Pálpusztai, Munster ... Cheese and wine, that Mexican stupid excuse for visiting Europe.
Acid wasn’t the only thing breaking from his smell, his humor and future social life in Sweden broke too. Acid, the product of the breakdown of several Propionibacteria and sebaceous glands and many other micro-organisms implicated in this serious stench. Acid was the cause of Ascencio’s epic fail.
NOBODY WANTS TO BE IN YOUR
SHOES MAN
Thus, what was once a working-class district is now somewhat a district of the privileged and this Hospital in which he was waking-up with the feet covered in creams and completely burned was one of them. What a bad coincidence to have acid in the bathroom disguised in Swedish long beautiful letters forming fancy words with crazy graphic accents. Little he knew, as I said before, too little he knew...
He saw that the only thing that was attractive for him was his smell and the hours spent in cleaning and tearing his skin apart. He needed bacteria as some sort of Catholic penitence or some very new New Age meditation form. He only knew how much it hurted and itched. He just had bad luck and he fail to act before. He always had bad attitude with his bad luck. He felt now as if only Anopheles mosquitoes were attracted to him or his feet, as it happens with stinky French cheese, according to a scientific known as Bart Knols many years ago.
Ascencio, blind by the happiness of finally traveling for real, was so happy of finally purchasing and trying stinky things with many bottles of good cheap wine, alone only with his feet in cheap rooms. The bohemian idea of meeting her princess in the end of his stupid and personal uninteresting Mexican crusade or rite. Feeling proud with pictures of statues, cheese and wine, and alone, just as the hidden rule-book of the elite’s rites demanded.
Secretly proud of being able to reproduce the smell of such delicatessens and being finally alone, moving, not disturbing the others for the first time. Those others that he was escaping from. Ascencio made the others as important as little he felt among them ... The others really were just a small boring group of daughters and sons of the powerful and the privilegedly cool people.
The day he woke up in the Hospital he swear to change his luck from that day on, but he was sad, broken, failing to conquer his dream, so he could only fight by swabbing gently his feet and going more often to drugstores to buy things to kill bacteria, fungus. Start his days with a completely new and obsessive pathological care of his hygiene, for the very first time (this should be the very real passing rite to succeed as a young adult, probably) was the best thing he got from his trip in Europe, Ascencio started to take care of himself, and this is the really important message of the story of Ascencio.
No one will know this but the daily baking soda orally and manually applied to his feet he was changing his life. Eating better, drinking less too... He changed his life and stopped his bohemian and lonely way of always decaying... No one could tell the truth about this, but this narrator knows that he was safe now. The proper drugs, the Mexican lemon and the baking soda for all, this was the closest thing to a healthy diet for him ...
THIS IS THE END
At the same time this fool and anodyne love-and-hate-feet story developed, in the very center of the White Houses’s oval office, some old Swedish sailor was celebrating the recognition of some record. He was wearing his famous jeans and snickers. The act was a homage to his 400 days trip around the world in a little boat not longer than three meters. The President was with the Swedish ambassador for celebrating this 72 years old crazy sailor.
This Swedish old man smiled and took his shoes off in signal of respect to the premises. And as soon he approach to shake the hand of Obama, this public massive figure, he said: “is customary to take off the shoes” in bad English and went in, his feet walking trough a beautiful rug with an eagle on it. The bodyguards, outraged, as the media could see by their body language, approached offended and hold the old man. They probably thought that he wanted to step in with his dirty socks and disrespect the flag (one that is printed in any kind of offensive products), for some reason this eagle and colors of the land of the proud was important to protect from socks. So, proudly and in an American fashion, they asked “kindly” to put back the shoes. We know that shoes are such a mental conondrum and turn on to all the people conspiring and full of ideas of seeing the other shoes as possible weapons. And this country go killing everyone, everywhere in the world if such a treat was even risen as a crazy dream of a demented conspirator. So the guards stopped the man and asked to put his shoes back on again. And he refused kinfly too. “Is customary to take off the shoes in my country, and you are honoring me, so you take your shoes off”, -he said, amidst the tense laughter of the Swedish ambassador. So, one more time, the odd thing of not accepting our feet was making a great story through the world’s patronizing and generalizing empty information machinery that succeeded, one more time, in making viral this "problem" of taking or not taking the shoes off.
The media and bacteria, two protagonists, two sick entities, responsible for all this too.
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