JOSEDONOSO
35
fingers of the poplars, he said: ''I'd better hurry. The hay has to be
mown and stored fast, because there's going to be a storm tonight. "
He worked all afternoon. The clouds lowered darkly . Sebastian
mowed like a man driven to save himself in a sea of vegetation.
When all the hay was mown , he knew he was defeated . He looked
up at the sky. The rain was already falling. In a moment sleep
would overcome him . And he fell asleep on the newly mown hay,
the rain falling on his body and on the crop, the harvested hay that
would rot. When he woke up, his bosses, furious that he had let the
hay spoil, refused to pay him. Sebastian left, walking for days on
end, because the news that he wasn 't reliable was spreading from
farm to farm .
It became difficult to get work. Everywhere he was given a
job, however easy, the same thing happened. He would fall asleep
uncontrollably . They would leave him to watch a pot, and the stew
would scorch . They would ask him to babysit, and the child would
fall out of its cradle. They would send him over for a cartload of hay ,
and at first he would goad the oxen in the right direction, but soon
he would doze off and the cart would go astray . The mark of failure
engraved itself on his manner and his voice and his ragged clothes .
'Tm getting old, " he thought.
It would have been easy enough to let himself die , throw
himself in front of a truck on the highway, or jump off a bridge .
But Sebastian didn't want to die , because he could only go on
dreaming ifhe were alive . He felt he was very near the end, but he
was tired . The worst thing was that to keep alive he had to work
and nobody wanted to give him a job. People would avoid him as if
they were afraid of him or thought he brought bad luck . Desperate,
one afternoon he went to a psychiatric clinic to beg them to show
him how to control his sleep . He was taken care of by two serious,
kind young doctors, dressed like angels in white. They patiently
listened to Sebastian's story .
"Yes, " said one of them, "But this isn't an illness. "
"We can't treat you here, " the other added, a bit sadly.
"But I'm afraid I'll die, doctors, " pleaded Sebastian .
"If you spend the whole day asleep , isn't it the same as being
dead? "
"No , no, I'm so near , doctor. The door is just about to open. "
