Fulmen / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Fulmen

     Through the old stained windows the light enters the office. It comes from the dark and clouded sky into this place of severe order and melancholy retreat. It remains suspended, without grazing the earth, like a beatific apparition.
     The luminous ray crossed in its journey the humid and cloudy air. It seems to reach the objects it illuminates with the fatigue of a patient. One might say the impotent arrow of Apollo’s Homeric bow. Or maybe it predicts the future light of the aged sun.
     While the diluted splendor shines, the forced and industrious work hums. The souls communicate with each other through the heavy silence, attention hardens the countenance, the task compels the strong arms and agile hands. The undaunted chests barely recover.
     There’s no respite for diversion or thought. The boss wants the greatest benefit for his machines. He imposes on his men the serf’s doubled back as the only attitude. He holds for them the mistrust of a boatswain for his galley slaves.
     He urges the sullen flock without respecting their tedium for the uniform and narrow life. He irritates their oppressed desires, that reach the tension of the thick cloud. He challenges danger until he sees death in the sinister idea that exalts the livid foreheads. He feels the traveler’s consternation before the grave sign of the ray, scourge of the arid peaks.




La torre de Timón (1925)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }