Author: Erasmo Calzadilla

I’m already back to hustling, earning a few pesos, trying to survive this eternal shipwreck. I have a little job I can’t declare, so it’s better I not say a whole lot about it so the bloodhounds don’t lay into me.

Thinking of the operating room that I was taken to recently, what came to mind was that film by Bruce Lee: Operation Dragon. In any case, since the operating room seemed like a monster spewing fire from its mouth, even though I knew my condition wasn’t serious, I couldn’t avoid panicking.

I don’t know if that will be the last master’s degree attempt or if there will be yet other one. But the next time I’m tempted, I’m going to think it through a whole lot better.

I don’t believe that seconding the blockade and referring constantly to God are going to earn many votes in Cuba for this doctor-turned-politician, although they will earn favor among anti-Castro radicals far removed from the human consequences of the Blockade.

Once again I’ve pulled out my beat-up backpack to hit the guerrilla trail, this time in the company of a Venezuelan woman; as well as with Irina and Yordanka, two collaborators with Havana Times.

Cuban society is changing and very quickly. But in what direction? There are plenty of symptoms. I can mention a few that seem trivial when looked at independently, yet I don’t think they are if viewed as a whole.

The sensation of rebirth is similar to that of waking up in the sense that when you achieve it you are fully certain that it’s reality, and that which occurred previously was perhaps imagery or a confused perception of what truly exists.

In the mid-20th century, the young Cornelios Castoriadis wrote the article “Phenomenology of Proletarian Consciousness,” in which he described the convoluted yet logical path that the collective mind of the working class had to journey to reach its final emancipation.

A few months ago I quit my job and have been wandering around since. I was down spirited and dejected, watching my savings vanish one peso at a time and suffering for having lent money to friends who still haven’t paid me back.

Stuck against the back of a seat and leaning against a tube, I found a relatively comfortable spot. It was far from the activity in the passageway and had a certain advantage in the struggle for a seat, if someone in front were to get off.