MAMMOTH

Dione Carlos

Maybe I am not very human. What I wanted to do was paint the sun next to the house.
Edward Hopper painter of others in 'Hotel Room'.
Reporter - A woman dead for forty-two years. Forty-two years of decomposition.
about the fabric of an armchair. Forty-two years without anyone entering the
mummy universe. Modern pyramid, vertical. Hanging garden surrounded by greenery. A
apartment within the city. four hundred thousand kilos of concrete, horizontally. Six
blocks, 1160 apartments. Forty-five thousand meters of façade. The elevators being
loaded, the building slowly being emptied. Unrequited loves
hidden in the two basements. Each window a different life. Only the ...
expropriation of that ownerless apartment and this made the building become world-renowned
known. I am someone directly from somewhere keeping an eye on the news.

(BREAKING DOOR)

Expropriator - Building, continent with different countries. I met a country whose

the door was not opened for me. I was in Siberia without being received. With my pen in hand
blue I wrote on the door that I had been there and that no one would be allowed to cross
the border inaugurated by me from that day. Every fraction of a second is the moment
Sure. I quantify people and separate them by age, gender, nationality, ethnicity, level of
education, profession, marital status, and religion. A kaleidoscope of distorted images
predictable when viewed from the same questionnaire. Water, stammering, coffee,
halitosis, stacked dishes, cigarette butts, cat fur, sticky hands, wakes
of parrot, empty aquarium, child's cry, small clothes on large bodies and candles
face up on an altar without a saint. Two hours, one month, forty-two years like a single day.

Baby - I don't know when she was last seen.

Dispossessor–I thrashed Siberia...

Baby - My mother knows. Because I was a baby. What I remember doesn't count as a record.

Expropriator - But there was an animal inside...

Baby - It's the estrangement of a discontinued phase, in my case.

Deappropriator - There is always an animal hidden...

Baby – I count my little fingers to make sure they are all in the right place.

Expropriator - The Mold Company presents: Mammoth.

(CHORUS. WALTZ MISSING)

Mother - At the maternity ward, I got a trinket. Ten hours in labor and I receive that.
"Symbol of resistance," they said. This expression accompanies my days. When I returned
someone was entering their apartment. They glanced out of the corner of their eye, grabbed
he inserted the key into the lock. First, he entered and exited three times, putting his feet in and taking them out.

at the threshold of the door. He shook his large body, the yellow cloak full of remnants of rain. The

the cloak covered the body that seemed to hide another that no one had truly observed.
There is always one body inside another. This is the one that should be touched. Even the previous one.

remains cold, without any warmth from other hands.

Man—Yes, I was. Lungs in order, heart the same. Everything was going well and not
because nothing is really fine even when everything seems to work. They shouldn't have
mixed monkey with parrot. I remember What did you ask again?

Cleaner and Doorman - We could have rung the bell.

Maid - A pathetic, apathetic figure.

Doorman - A mystery.

Expropriator - France complains about the pile driver in the construction of a project
neighbor. I don't hear anything.

Man—The whole building shakes.

Expropriator – The curtains on the window prevent the outside landscape from participating in the

França is immersed in books. He accumulates papers, drafts, magazines, newspapers,

propaganda, photographs.

Man - Did you hear?

Appropriator–France describes the tremors of the building absorbed by his body.

Far beyond the view from the window, there is a neighborhood where people born here do not set foot.
dirty, populous, multilingual and full of shades. France was between Africa and the Americas.
He accumulated wealth.

Man - Life is for those who wake up early, work all day, and sleep little.

Expropriator - France values freedom with equality and fraternity. Cuts its
papers with a guillotine in an attempt to organize them. Chaos makes its own
trajectory, He decides to open the curtains.

Man - I think they will build a mosque. The people from that neighborhood will come to pray.

here.

Expropriator - He rests his head on the window and turns to face me. Down there,
gentlemen with hats and long beards talk about construction. I comment to him about
what I saw.

Man–I always confuse the two.

Reporter - Who do you pray to?

Man–It depends. I prefer to read.

Dispossessor - France is on the ground with his hands on his head, surrendered. He asks me

With my hands, I will leave and close the door. Then, I can feel.

Man - The whole building trembles.

Expropriator - It's late afternoon. The construction site is empty. From the door, I hear the whistle.
from the kettle. It sounds like a scream. I think about going back, having some tea. The door locks are

shut one by one. The guillotine starts cutting papers again.

Man – It sharpened my primal instincts. The baby was with its mother at that place.
small property of vast 13 m2. The fragility of someone makes you want to reaffirm your
place at the top of the chain. The cradle was under the black and white TV. The parrot did not
stop being so clingy. It was flapping its wings, scattering feathers all over the apartment.

Mom - I put it under the bed.

Reporter - The cradle?

Cleaner – The little animal.

Doorman - He convinced me to put him in the garden.

Reporter - Did he force you to hide?

Mother - An ancient animal. My garden so small, filled with flowers with no space for
to grow. That smell lingered for decades. It might have been economic growth. He
there is a typical smell. There are so many different aromas. They all suffocate in the same way. So

I put it in my small garden without blooms. Perhaps it was the air. The habit.
it is still an achievement that seems like yours. My arms were so empty. The
present in the bag filled with diapers, blankets, socks, onesies. My human toy
big. The only one. Looking through the apartment, I realized that there really wouldn't be space for

three. But I had it there in my right hand and I even wrapped it. When he arrived I
I told him to throw that away. He couldn't stand to look at the gift he had given me.

(BOLERO)

Doorman - We could have knocked on the door.

Baby – I never knew and will never know. I don't want to. I don't ask anything. I don't know. To be.

It's better than knowing. Each floor accommodates crowds disguised in unique faces. They speak.
between each other. There are those who merely whisper. But there is always chatter and a voice underneath.

of all, which generates others. I don’t ask anything. There’s always someone wanting to offer.
answers to what doesn't need them. I don't worry about that. Being with someone, having
someone who is. Let's blow together. What do I know about that?! I LAUGH
FRENZIEDLY NOW. I am not here! I SCREAM HYSTERICALLY
AT THIS POINT. They replaced me with a parrot and a, a, a, a, a, a
small garden.

Dispossessor–I cracked down on Siberia. I know more about the residents than the walls.
what separates you. It's not always that you create a boundary. Although they already exist to separate

through a decree is something indescribable. Once I rang the bell of the Himalayas.
Each question, a statement. Who still cares about marital status? Himalaya, yes.
Himalaya doesn't know. No one can truly conquer it, inhabit it. If you can
reach the summit, register your passage and descend quickly because there is no oxygen up there
up! The Himalayas are not mine. They are not yours. They will not belong to anyone. My country with no owner.

And on that sheet it was written: Divorced. Can I mark it with my tongue? I wanted to lick it.
divorced... It entered my ear like a giant wave and went through
each beach of mine. Himalayas, a frozen ocean over mountains. Melt! Me
avalanche! But no... You prefer to light candles with no saint on the altar. And I am not
sacrifice.

Doorman – We could have joined hands and clapped until the noise indicated
that someone wanted to talk to you.

Armchair - She sat on me like a queen of nothing to be done. Basin settled, cup
tea between the fingers, aroma of herb, not of tea. Coming from the apartment next door.
They could ask me, but they won't. The tactile witness who will never be interrogated.
worn velvet, the rotten foam, the deposit of the remains of that silent animal. In front of
we had the black and white TV. Days on. The worst part: On the same channel! So, breeze,
aroma of herb, perfumes, disinfectants and one day the liquid that reveals blood. There wasn't
nothing. If only I could at least have remnants of a crime within me. Many times I asked myself the

animal: Why not a crime of passion? I could lie. It was for love. No. Boredom. The
greater cause. Congenital boredom. Shameful. No splash, trace, mark. Why not
a finding of one's own existence? So many ways. At least a well-written note, pills.
scattered, rope tied to the clothesline, utility knife, razor, knife, poison, firearm... Everything
meticulously crafted. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Not even for recycling me
they will accept. It is certain. Disqualified. Just like that. Created to welcome, trained to
accommodated and disqualified by you and your Holy Nothing every day!

Reporter - Were you sure there was no one there?

Doorman - I didn't think about that. It seemed empty. It should be empty. If it looks empty, it is empty.

Where there is empty space, someone will try to occupy it. Someone becomes no one.
when it occupies (He just doesn't know that). This need to act this way exists to prove
what it means to be, not to be. Being nobody is also part of the process of wrongful appropriation
because x does not belong to y nor x to x, nor y to y and much less y to x. They always want

take possession of a place even when it should be left empty.

Reporter - Thank you for the statement. We will get in touch when
the news is ready.

Doorman - Is the news not ready yet?

Reporter - We are collecting some testimonies that may help clarify.

the occurrence.

Man—This belongs to the dark, gentlemen. I can't complain. Nothing works and everything
it seems good because there is no longer hope for what it will be. You become a monkey again and if

book of the parrot. Although nowadays it is easier to reach this stage because... I
I remember. What did you ask again?

Reporter–Nothing. Nothing.

Mother - That yellow cape over the body. Remains of someone. She didn't take the key.
immediately, did not steal her privacy from within her own bag. It was fear. She
did not know me. I was with my own bag very open, unprotected
some, the legs arched from the effort of walking carrying the remains of someone.
We were lost and had found each other. When someone seems so distant as
an island. Only that you are a castaway. How can you not want to get there?

Armchair - Photos. At least I will be in the newspapers. Since they can't show it. There is no
what to display. There never was. Photos. Not from the front. There are remains. Elegantly from the back

positioned in the center of the room next to the side table and the delicate empty teacup.
The wood does not shine. In any case, this gives me, as some journalists said.
a retro air. Eternal old. Posthumous modern. Photos. Colorful, digital, manipulable.
Maybe they will polish my wood. I adapt. I do not complain. Tapestry chameleon.

Cleaner - I would not reveal my observations over such a long time to two.
microphones, a light reflector, power cables, a camera, and three faces taken
perhaps the most evident. I clean and observe. The perhaps slowly destroys until it murders.
at once.

Reporter–Sure. But the news is a fraction not of the second that is perfect in incapacity.
to be captured, quantified, but the lower part of something that belongs to the mystery.

Cleaner - I speak of what arrives and settles. Not what was or will be. I do not deliver a gap of

news. I take care of the building, I clean the floors. I have to remove the armchair. Can I
to do this for them. Helping them in exchange for a coffee. Because I have already felt the aroma.

Dispossessor - United States lives alone. I only know its fur.

Your answers to my questionnaire are immutable. Where does it go from the seventh floor?
Maybe for the sixth, I don't know. The United States is going paranoid. Someone tried to invade its

space. One terabyte of memory, with Premium antivirus and there was not the Trojan Horse
Troy, but a Centaur. I don't understand the rest of the indignation that springs from him. He hates.

to explain what you consider basic then I always agree. One does not argue with a power
mainly if his world dominates yours. In light of this, I write on my pages
blurred and I include it in the same classification as those who do not know how to type with more than

two fingers. Urban guerrilla.

Doorman - How about a pan protest, on the scaffolding under your window.
FADO

Armchair – (SINGING) We have had good times, today I can remember. Your hands
me traversing sewing without ceasing. My exhausted craftsman among the upholstery to me
finish. In that warehouse, the production line cannot stop anymore. Together in the truck.
Downloaded in the store, without any buyers. The pain is solely mine. It's over. Offer or
Liquidation whether there is money or not, now it is mobile in hand. Everything can change. Someone will

to carry me. Thank you, gentlemen.

Reporter - A bizarre auction. They took the object, examined every part and nothing.
found. It became a collector's item. It broke the bidding record following the cap of a
a high school student whose hobby was hunting. I am someone directly from some
place to keep an eye on the news.

Expropriator - Brazil no longer knows whether it carries an S or a Z in its name. Entangled in

Green and yellow hide the red skin. The door of your house is beautiful. Noble wood of
centenary tree. Brazil seems like China or India, but it reveals itself through its coastlines
long and wide hips. It is in all the posters and brochures, almost manuals for
foreigners. Brazil measures the thickness of little arms, of chubby legs. Grinders
polite compulsives at the table excited by lunch. They are often confused
with a sugarcane stalk won at the fair.

Mom - I exchanged the meat for soy.

Unappropriator - Your dress is beautiful, good quality cotton, Bolivian made.

Haiti is here. Brazil chews. First, it separates skin, muscle, fat, and bone. Class A, B,
C, D. A stamp for each type of birth. Burnt tires on the sidewalk. Little label.
no pulse, no ankle, expiration date on the shoulder. Is there anyone living with you?

Reporter - Why are you shaking? Your hands, what happened to them?

Cleaner – It seems like an excess of bleach.

Reporter - What cleans also hurts, you know?

Expropriator - Even before entering, I felt this smell.

Doorman - Mixture of tire, coffee, and cleaning.

Reporter - The doorman showed me your new car.

Expropriator - I had the trunk open.

Reporter - A woman dead for forty-two years. Forty-two years of decomposition.

about the fabric of an armchair. Forty-two years without anyone entering the
mummy universe.

Doorman - We could have sung. For an entire day in front of her door.

(FRANCE THEME)

Baby - There was a list of missing persons. There always is. Every day someone goes missing.

moments when the snails walk on the ground, alone. Horses of themselves. And
there is always a missing person inside. Being dragged, leaving a trace of what seems to be
a cure. When he passes, we are there. Hidden and forgotten parasites and knights.
I gently stroke my hair while I watch them walk over me.

Mother – The dishes are piling up, there's no more soap, and there's no space left to...
the drying, there is no more will at that moment. The man arrived, the mattress is on
floor. We turned our backs, slept on our sides, dreamed of others. Decades supported on
our pillowcases. I slept on top of me, inside, close. Until leaving part of itself with me. And I failed,

I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed and everything was fine, calm, placid, asleep, forgotten.
Reporter – If the name was on a list of the missing, why did no one ever come to the
apartment? Who reported her disappearance?

Cleaner - She didn't disappear. She became ingrained. Nothing too much. I don't understand all this fuss.

turn of such a commonplace fact. Here in this place where I find myself, people
they disintegrate daily. It looks like a science fiction movie. Every day there are sheets.
white, babbling, murmuring, memory. Memory kills! It's what happened in the building,
inside the apartment and she gradually disintegrated with people preserved around.
It has birth, marriage, beginning and end of soap operas, movies, series, news
technologies, new political systems.

Man - My lady, the woman, my companion. She took good care of the seeds.
Specialist in not letting them sprout. It didn't matter the amount of soil. Even
always changing. The flowers stayed inside. They did not bloom. They also did not die.

Seeds for many years. A unique skill. Reforestation. I had never heard of it.
talk until I marry her. I was talking about something. Which channel will this be on?
If I watch it, maybe I can. It had to do with flowers, right? I was never a landscaper nor
botanist.

Reporter - Why were you talking about this with me?

Expropriator - Japan believes in ghosts. Claims to be a neighbor of one. I don't put this.
in my form. Japan is not sick. Does not believe in illness. So the building
will be deactivated and demolished. Everything will return to normal. He fears that the lonely ghost will

chase. Perhaps it's him after all. I don't know. It certainly gives me chills. There are butts of
cigarette next to you. Doesn't smoke. Says he lights them to eliminate a certain persistent odor. Already

I don't feel anything. There are maximum variations of smell in my curious nose. Look at the wall.
before I ask how many people live in the house (Even knowing that it is only
one) and stutters for ten minutes. Cannot say: "I". Finally says:

Baby–Us.

Doorman - Us.

Expropriator - And he winks for me to mark 'One' on the paper. It's time to go.
although. We both said goodbye without being able to say goodbye. According to him, that's how it

a ghost manifests. Preventing the other from completing a word.

Doorman - Go down by ...

Dispossessor – Preventing the other from completing a word.

Doorman - Go down by ...

Dispossessor - Preventing the other from finishing a word.

Baby – They fragmented me. You might think: 'Each person is a fragment.' No.
They fragmented the fragment of what would become my person. I am not invisible. It's just that
they cannot see me.

Mother - I shouldn't be on this floor. It's so high up here. There's a sigh between the windows.
that invades the living rooms/kitchens/bathrooms/bedrooms. It's so quiet. But if I go down there won't be

but suspension between us. Stretch the rope and come slowly, carefully, dancer. No,
Let me throw myself at you. Because I'm not afraid. I lost my bag. I put it away.
bibble between the breasts.

Baby – She doesn't forget me, nor can she. She hasn't gotten rid of the trinket. She ruined the garden,

moved house and took her animals. The small ornament rests on her pillow.
She sees it walk through the serum until it is inside her. Then, we are together. An 'animal'
old" as she likes to say and I, her little parrot without speech. So, I raise my
little arms and I wrap the air as if she were floating in it.

Armchair - New foam, imported fabric, refurbished, reappraised and bought by whom
knows how to give value. I am a kind of macabre treasure among young worshipers. They pay to
Look at me. Photos, many. How good it is to be adored without having to bear the weight of someone.

The wood used now is a relic. A tomb. An object of archaeology. Studied and
cataloged by followers.

Expropriator - Do you want a cigarette?

Doorman - What?

Expropriator – Want a cigarette?

Cleaner - One just rests, the other haunts, and the rest wanders.
Baby – There is more than one.

Reporter - Did he say that?

Cleaner–Yes.

Reporter - And then?

Maid – Turn off the microphones and I'll tell.

Doorman - You won't need the audio to reproduce what will be heard.

Expropriator – I became a smoker. I only stopped when they opened that door. They crossed.
the border.

Reporter - What was in the room?

Dispossessor–Siberia. Cold. Odor. Four decades frozen in the apartment.

Cleaner - The armchair and its remnants amalgamated. I didn't clean anything. They came here and

They took both of them. Forty-two years, merging into one another.

Doorman - They discovered our secret.

Reporter – Our?! Did you both know?!

Expropriator - I do not live here. I quantify and classify.

Doorman–There is always a garden. They found our animal.

Reporter–In the garden?!

Baby - We could have shouted: I twist for you.

Cleaner - But we left the mammoth in the garden.

Reporter - The property will remain empty just like all the others. Is there a date to take it to...
ground what was raised to shelter lives. Few families. Many settled people
in 13m2 individuals. The unrequited loves hidden in the two basements. Each
window a different life. Only the expropriation of that apartment was missing without
both. And this made the building globally known. I am someone directly from
some place keeping an eye on the news.