Encased in Gé¹

Arjuna, on the battlefield, before entering combat, seeing between enemies to the next
ones behind, felt afraid and wanted to abandon the intended battlefield, to retire to the
trees with the chaste men and live the life of an ascetic. Some time later, Krishna
declared and revealed the unique mission worthy of him: Arjuna, still seeing between
enemies to the next ones behind, was to return joyfully to the battlefield. Very few
Cubans, in the all these years, have had the courage to try what Arjuna tried. Here most
people avoid anything that would turn them into a colander.

¹A street in Havana

Juan Carlos Flores, translated by Marta Hernández Salván and Jeffrey Thomson and read by Jeffrey Thomson.
Encased in Gé is from Thomsan's forthcoming collection Many Ways to Dig a Tunnel, translated from the Spanish of Juan Carlos Flores.