MEXICO UNDER FIRE AND TEARS! CHRONICLE OF AN APOCALYPTIC WEEKEND: BETWEEN ROAD HELL, THE VANITY OF “LIKE” AND THE MONSTERS THAT LURK IN THE NIGHT

SUBTITLE: The bony girl had no mercy and let go of her bun this weekend. A brutal bus crash that burned dozens of dreams, innocent children swallowed by the earth and violence, and inexplicable phenomena mark 72 hours of pure terror. While the country dresses in mourning and the “National Sadness” bends our knees, others prefer the circus of social networks, oblivious to the pain that bleeds the country dry. Come in, come in and find out the horror that shakes the race.

BY: “EL CHALE” RODRÍGUEZ /LA VOZ DEL BARRIO /RED ALERT MEXICO

MEXICO CITY, TRAGIC HANGOVER MONDAY.— If you, gentle reader, thought that you had already seen everything in this valley of tears, hold on tight and sit where you can, because this weekend the Devil decided to change his zip code and come to live in Mexico. We wake up this Monday with our souls in a thread, our hearts crushed and a raw morality that cannot be cured with spicy chilaquiles and a cold beer.

The image that best summarizes this feeling, the one that sticks in one’s chest just after seeing it and that is already circulating in all WhatsApp groups, is that of a couple of grandparents, our parents, with their faces furrowed by pain. and eyes swollen from crying so much under a newspaper headline that leaves no room for doubt and that penetrates to the bones: “NATIONAL SADNESS”. And it is no wonder, my people, because what we have just experienced seems taken from the twisted mind of a gore film scriptwriter, but unfortunately, it is the pure and clear reality that hits us in the face without warning.

HELL HAS A POSTAL CODE: THE ROAD OF DEATH

It all started with the roar of the beast on the asphalt. What promised to be a weekend of work or rest for many families ended up becoming a branch of hell itself. On the federal highways, those open veins that so many of us cross chasing the daily chop, hell broke loose. Recklessness, eternal comadre of death, took the wheel and there was no human power to stop it.

The images that come to us from the scene are Dantesque, the kind that keeps you up at night for weeks. On a stretch of road, speed and lack of skill caused major tragedies. A passenger bus, one of those that carries dreams and fatigue, ended up becoming a human torch after a brutal impact. The relentless fire devoured everything in its path, leaving the charred skeleton of the vehicle as a mute witness to the horror in the middle of nowhere.

There was no chance of anything for many. The twisted iron remained like tombs of smoking metal. And there, on the hot pavement, under the inclement sun that does not forgive, the scene that no one, absolutely no one, wants to see: dozens of bodies covered with those cold white sheets, lined up like dominoes thrown by the grim reaper in a macabre game. The road became an open-air morgue, and the smell of burning rubber mixed with that of death, while the rescue teams, overwhelmed and with tears in their eyes, could not cope with the emergency. A real carnage on wheels!

NATURE ROARS AND MONSTERS APPEAR

But as if fire and twisted iron were not enough punishment, Mother Nature also claimed her own, showing us how small we are in the face of her fury. In an image that seems taken from the very end of the world, the earth literally opened in two in a forgotten community. A gigantic crack, a deep wound in the ground, split the town, leaving humble houses on the edge of the abyss and people running in terror, watching helplessly as their years-old heritage was swallowed up by the earth in seconds.

And to finish grinding it, satellite maps do not bode well: monstrous hurricanes, with perfect and destructive eyes, lurk on the coasts, threatening to erase from the map what little remains standing. The floods have already done their thing, leaving towns underwater, with people climbing on the roofs crying out for help while the muddy water takes everything away.

And in the midst of chaos, human madness and medical enigmas that defy sanity. Hospitals reported cases that one cannot explain and that give you goosebumps. What has to go through a man’s head to swallow an entire metal chain? Just as you hear it, race. The emergency doctors couldn’t believe the x-ray: a chain of thick links lodged in the stomach. They had to open it to remove it, a medical feat in the midst of human absurdity.

Equally shocking, if sadder, are the x-rays that show human pain at its finest: legs torn to pieces in motorcycle accidents, bones held only by nails, plates and external screws, evidence of the violence of the impacts that sent so many people to the hospital… or straight to the pantheon. And in the countryside, the mystery of the “bodybuilder pig”, an animal with muscles so grotesque and disproportionate that it seems injected with steroids, causing panic and astonishment among ranchers who swear that this is a matter of chamuco or strange experiments.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: VANITY, MISERY AND THE INDIFFERENCE THAT KILLS

This is where one’s blood really boils, relatives. Because while the country is falling apart, while mothers mourn their missing children and mourning envelops thousands of homes, the circus of vanity and frivolity continues its function at full volume on social networks, as if they lived in another planet.

There you have the “influencers” and those who believe they are models, taking advantage of any mirror, even the one in the bathroom, to show off their curves in fitted clothes and look for the easy “like”, oblivious to the pain of others. Or the teacher who, instead of teaching values, prefers “perrear” in a short, low-cut dress in front of the school blackboard to upload it to TikTok, while education goes down the drain and the schoolchildren just look.

Controversy also broke out in schools, where it seems that there is now competition among mothers to see who wears the most provocative “outfit” when it comes to collecting the blessing. From the lady who looks like she’s going on a red carpet at 2 in the afternoon in a great dress and heels, to the one who wears sports clothes that look like they’re painted on her body, showing the entire repertoire. There is no morality, gentlemen! What example do you set for creatures?

And the contrast, the damn contrast that slaps our faces every day in this magical and tragic Mexico. While they worry about filters and followers, in deep Mexico, where many do not even want to see in painting, a —boy, a true hero without a capa—, carries a vegetable huacal larger and heavier than himself in his little back. With his rubber mud boots and his superhero backpack, that kid breaks his back from the moment the sun rises to take a few pesos home. That is the reality that hurts, the one that does not appear on TikTok nor does it have beautiful filters. It is the same reality of the indigenous woman who, sitting on the sidewalk, asks for a coin with a lost look, carrying her two babies in the shawl, invisible to those who pass by in their trucks of the year.

CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND THE PAIN OF THE INNOCENT

The red note does not rest, it never sleeps in this country bathed in blood. The authorities, overwhelmed as always, reported the arrest of several “fichitas” this weekend. We saw the faces of the thugs presented by the strip, some with “faces, I was not”, and others challenging, posing with the long weapons they use to spread terror. And even women stuck in the middle of operations, some in denim shorts being carried away in handcuffs by heavily armed agents, demonstrating that crime does not respect gender.

But justice sometimes does not come, and death does. In lonely places, among the undergrowth and garbage, bodies continue to appear. Men lying face down, executed, victims of the endless war that bleeds our neighborhoods. And our old people, forgotten, dying alone on the sidewalk, covered with a dirty sheet while life continues around them, converted into another statistic of indifference.

But what breaks our souls the most, what makes us lose faith in humanity and want to scream in rage, is the suffering of children, the most innocent. How little mother! A woman was arrested by the police after the horror that a little boy experienced in his own home was discovered: his back was marked, full of injuries that look like cigarette burns or brutal blows, a map of the pain inflicted by whoever should care for him and protect him. Monsters! Those who dare to touch a creature have no other name.

THE END OF THE DAY: BETWEEN PRAYERS AND MOURNING

The weekend closes with the taste of blood, copper and tears. The light poles are filled with new search cards, faces of young people like Emiliano, who went out to work or school and did not return, leaving their families in the cruelest uncertainty, waiting for a call that sometimes never comes.

Mourning is national, it is breathed in the air. Black bows flood Facebook profiles and WhatsApp statuses, accompanying photos of young people full of life who left us before their time: the girl who loved vaping and now lies in a white coffin, the young student who only wanted a better future, the soccer player who will no longer score goals on the dirt field but in the sky. And the little warrior in a wheelchair who lost the battle against the disease, but who now, according to the faith of his people who say goodbye to him with white balloons, now rests in peace and runs free up there.

Mexico is hurt, race. He is bleeding from all sides. Between the accidents that take away entire families from us, organized crime that gives no respite, human monsters that hurt children and the indifference of a society that sometimes prefers a “like” to demanding justice, the outlook is bastard. We only have to cross ourselves, hug our loved ones tightly today that we have them, and pray that the next time we go out to the street to look for the chop, the bony one will not have us on her to-do list. May God catch us all confessed!