The leper

Abstract

He was quite a character; trips to the capital, rubbing elbows with the wealthy and with ministers. Oh, no politics involved! He sided with whichever party held power. The local boss and the judge were in his pocket. By the way: I forgot to mention that Don Onofre suffered from leprosy. Leprosy. Leprosy. Don Onofre would chew over that terrifying word. You could see it in the slow trembling of his protruding jaws. You could see—in his feline irises, murky and suddenly clouded by a fleeting haze—the horror of the ulcers he uncovered in solitude, with the doors bolted shut. His clothing, buttoned up to the throat, was a sack of filth, closed and sealed like a miser’s chest. And the beast would creep upward, coiling around the nape of his neck. Don Onofre longed for something akin to beheading himself. In the end, the leprosy thrust its claw out from his collar and seized his face.