Would You Kindly

On the third pages from the front cover, a symmetrical drawing of birds takes up the large portion of the space. Flip over and in the middle of the page is the book title and its author, printed in large bolds and also symmetrically inverted.  The text is also presented bilingually. That’s a lot of mirror images and literal dualism, the kind that don’t clarify the text as much as they further perpetuate the mystery of the house on the street of Donceles, a street mixed with old and new houses, side by side. Before I go any further, perhaps it is appropriate to invoke a line from the hyper-meta comedy series Community

Community Animated GIF

And in the back we have Jeff aka Consuelo

The text is claustrophobic. The read is fast. The wording brings back this nostalgic Bioshock sentiment and so does the ending, or what I think is a pretense of an ending, because frankly with a twist like that Fuentes has no intention of bringing closure to those he traps within the abyss that is Doncoles 815. Or 69. For a second after I finished Aura, I had a moral obligation to myself to trace my steps back to the beginning where everything started, where I was thrown into the shoes of Felipe. But then I realized there would be no end to the horror that lurks around the corner like a Consuelo (yes it should be a phrase now) should I choose to continuously slave across the pages over and over again. Consuelo is Aura and Felipe is Llorante. It should be kept at that. I’d be damned to join the vicious cycle. Quite literally. Perhaps Andrew Ryan said it best. A man chooses, a slave obeys. So perhaps Consuelo is right. Aura would come back.  And Felipe would, too, bounded by his contract as he is. But even then, I won’t.