Colombia

Senator Onésimo Sánchez, a 42-year-old man with a seemingly whole family life and a successful political career, knows he has only six months and eleven days left to live. During an electoral visit to the desert town of Rosal del Virrey, he delivers a speech surrounded by false props that simulate prosperity. In that town lives Nelson Fariña, a fugitive who has spent years vainly asking the senator for a fake ID to escape justice. Resentful, he sends his daughter, Laura, of extraordinary beauty, to pressure the senator. Onésimo is captivated by the young woman but discovers that she wears a locked iron belt whose key is kept by her father, who demands a political favor in exchange. Although the senator agrees to help him, he does not ask for the key; instead, he asks Laura to stay with him to alleviate his loneliness. The story foreshadows that he will die in her arms, marked by scandal and by the unfulfilled desire to remain with her.

The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow (1976), by Gabriel García Márquez, tells the tragic story of the honeymoon of Nena Daconte and Billy Sánchez, a young Colombian couple traveling through France by car on their way to Paris. It all begins with a simple prick on Nena’s finger when she receives a bouquet of roses at the Madrid airport, a wound that soon turns into persistent bleeding. Although they don’t think much of it at first, the blood continues to flow as they cross the border and drive through the winter snow. Finally, they arrive at a hospital in Paris, where Nena is rushed into emergency care. Billy, confused by the language and bureaucracy, is separated from his wife and left in a disconcerting limbo with no news of her condition. Unable to understand the system around him, he spends his days alone while the authorities search for him unsuccessfully. When he finally manages to return to the hospital, he is informed that Nena died several days earlier.

In Someone Has Been Disarranging These Roses, a short story by Gabriel García Márquez, a dead boy recounts how, every Sunday, he tries to take roses from the altar tended by a woman to take them to his own grave. The story takes place in the house where they both lived decades ago. Having died in an accident, the boy remains as a spirit tied to the place, while the woman, who was close to him in life, devoutly maintains the altar erected in his memory. Although she cannot see him, the woman seems to sense his presence and watches over the roses with growing unease. Through the boy’s memories, the relationship between the two and the accident that led to his death are reconstructed. The house, abandoned for years, retains traces of that past life: forgotten shoes, accumulated dust, and the restored altar. The story foreshadows a future outcome: the day will come when the woman dies, and then the boy must find the men who took her to the hill, as they did with him. Only then will she understand that it was his presence—and not the wind—that disarranged the roses on the altar every Sunday.