Beat the «chuño»

I have been accompanying a group of European tourists to some faraway places from what we normally call civilization, and I was behind on the knowledge of the events taking place in the world.

This prompted me to make my first mistake, that is, I was just alone in my room and waiting for the start of the next assignation, so I turned on the television.

Five minutes later, wrapped in a deep bitterness, turned off the horrifying images, closing the terrible reviews that accompanied them at the same time.

So great was the grief that caused me the gloomy reality that almost could not stop making my second mistake: to put into words, almost aloud, the feelings that seized me:

-Poor People!

In my conscious I encompassed both, the people who suffer, and the journalists covering the events described.

I had barely finished saying the last exclamation point when I started to pay for my carelessness:

-Fear not, -Elf 's voice said from the door of my mind, which made me think he was hiding behind the door to intervene as soon as possible. The dwarf knows me so well that he can predict my actions well in advance. I do not know whether to thank him or hate his guts for his support!

-Evil is so degenerate that takes self-destruction in its nature, -he added with a conviction that upset me at once, as if I had been insulted.

-Maybe you're right! -I said fiercely, -but meanwhile it destroys everything, and innocents pay for the...  for the ... -I found not the right word.

-extravagances of evil ... -Elf helped .

-Those were not the words I was looking for, but you can use them, -I said still angry.

-You're right, - he replied with a tinge of sadness. It is part of the distortion imposed by evil in the real world. Some humans like the euphemism "Collateral damage." to identify this terrible outcome. 

-Unfortunately, went on the sprite, when humanity agreed to be governed by those laws, also accepted all the collateral damages that accompany them.


Governed by those laws? What was this little scarecrow talking about?

-I did not agree to abide any evil! -I went into a rage again, sensing an accusation I judged was unfair.

-All right,  -Elf answered me softly. -It is not worth to discuss a reality you can see every day. But again, except for the injustices that evil brings, which will be handle presently, it will fall under its own evil, it is for sure. Like cancer, while killing its victim (which is unfair ), kills itself.

-Where did you get all this nonsense. -My question originated more in my bewilderment at the security Elf showed than to qualify his words, I was trying to unbalance his autonomy.

-Look, I will tell you an example , -Elf continued imperturbably, - few years ago a talented writer named Will Cuppy wrote a book entitled «Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950)». In this little work, hard to humanity, he took the subject with a grain of salt to moderate the impact of reality, he re-writes the biography of famous people in history and posits his thesis: "To be remembered as a hero, it is needed to be responsible for 100,000 deaths or more.

-This makes winners of that dubious honor, among other people, such individuals as William the Conqueror, Alexander the Great, and Richard the Lionheart. I can not quote you the work, even if it is not very long, but I can mention as an example, what he wrote about Henry VIII Tudor:

-«We are unfair to the monarch, we call him a murderer, and in truth he is solely responsible for the death of 33% of his wives, and  we forget that he is the father of the peerless Elizabeth I, who can be in these biographies by her own right.»

-You see, evil is untouchable important in all history.

As usual, I had no words to argue, the dwarf had won his postulation.

For the first time in our discussions I was able to take the lead, and I chose to ignore him by opening a book, and pretending to read.


A few seconds later I felt his steps going back to the entrance hallway to my mind and I could see him returning to the Archive, shaking his head from side to side muttering something like:

-It's going to be difficult to complete this mission.

I did not know what to think .



Out of context epilogue I recently learned a very common expression, so I was told by the local people, used by the inhabitants of Santa Fe in the Argentine Northeast: «Beat the chuño.»

When I asked what it meant, they explained that there is a special potato flour, named "chuño" [tʃuɲo], that can be whipped into a very thick and nourishing cream. Beating it with extreme care because if done wrong the pasta tends to clump, lose consistency and taste.

By using the similarity the «Beat the chuño» expression is like "thinking" because if a person loses the habit of reasoning the brain develops lumps and loses the ability to create .

Hence the title of this story .


The music is "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint Saënz, and flows along with the dance humanity share with Evil.

© 2014 Od Liam.