Betel

My father named me Betelgeuse, just like the dying star. His may have been melancholic reasons; maybe it was just resignation. So my name is Betel, and like the star giving form to Orion, I’m about to undergo extinction. It’s difficult to explain what a father is, at least to
those who never had one, which, to my disgrace, means most of the population. I don’t even try anymore. The only thing I could say is that it’s even more than having a creator or provider. People can’t understand. My father wanted me to bear this name as a reminder that we were once all like this. Purists, they call us now, whereas before, they simply called us humans. Nevertheless, I think he named me thus just so I could never forget the risks we run just by being different. As if it were possible to ignore them. Now I’m here, right in front of my feeding chamber. I was classified as a “Perversion”. I go through the BDSM, She-male and Zoofiliac sections and finally find mine: Natural. I type in my password, accept the connection and start working.

By Alex Sánchez.
Translated, from the Spanish, by Pepe Rojo.

Alex Sánchez  was born in the city of Tijuana in 1989. He was raised crossing borders, physical or otherwise, and continues to do so until this day. He studied Communication in the UABC, and is very fond of stumbling on the fields of psychoanalysis and literature.
Pepe Rojo has published five books and more than 200 texts (short stories, essays and articles dealing with fiction, media and contemporary culture). He cofounded Pellejo/Molleja (with Deyanira Torres and Bernardo Fernández), an indie publishing firm, and edited SUB (sub-genre literature), NUMERO X (media culture) and PULPO COMICS (mex-sf comics anthology) for them. He has produced several interactive stories for Alteraction, and published two collections of Minibúks (Mexican SF and Counter-versions) at UABC, as well as the graphic intervention “Philosophical Dictionary of Tijuana”.