Here is a short story by Julio Cortazar, translated for me one gray and rainy December evening by my friend Joaquin Rosales Gomez. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Flattening of Drops I don't know, look, it's terrible how it rains. It rains all the time, outside dense and gray, here against the balcony with huge water leaks all clotted and hard, that make plaf and are flattened like slaps in the face one after the other... such a bore. Now there appears a small drop in the top of the window frame; it stays there shaking against the sky that breaks it into a thousand extinct glows, it's growing and it dangles, it's going to fall and it doesn't fall, it still doesn't fall. It's hanging by all it's nails, it doesn't want to fall and you can see how she holds on with her teeth while her tummy grows; now she is a royal drop that hangs majestically, and suddenly zup, there it goes, plaf, undone, nothing, a viscosity in the marble. But there's also drops that commit suicide and that give themselves immediately, they appear on the frame and throw themselves right there; I think you can see the vibration from the jump, their little legs leaving the frame and the cry that makes them drunk in that nothingness of fall and annihilation. Sad drops, round innocent drops. Goodbye drops. Goodbye. Aplastamiento de Gotas Yo no sé, mira, es terrible cómo llueve. Llueve todo el tiempo, afuera tupido y gris, aquí contra el balcón con goterones cuajados y duros, que hacen plaf y se aplastan como bofetadas uno detrás de otro qué hastío. Ahora aparece una gotita en lo alto del marco de la ventana; se queda temblequeando contra el cielo que la triza en mil brillos apagados, va creciendo y tambalea, ya va a caer y no se cae, todavía no se cae. Está prendida con todas las uñas, no quiere caerse y se la ve que se agarra con los dientes mientras le crece la barriga; ya es una gotaza que cuelga majestuosa, y de pronto zup, ahí va, plaf, deshecha, nada, una viscosidad en el mármol. Pero las hay que se suicidan y se entregan en seguida, brotan en el marco y ahí mismo se tiran; me parece ver la vibración del salto, sus piernitas desprendiéndose y el grito que las emborracha en esa nada del caer y aniquilarse. Tristes gotas, redondas inocentes gotas. Adiós gotas. Adiós.