The Double Nine / Rebeca Monzo

The Double Nine / Rebeca Monzo
Rebeca Monzo, Translator: Unstated

On my planet dominoes have been and continue to be the most popular
table game.

Game played with twenty-eight rectangular tiles, generally white on the
face and dark on the reverse, with each divided into two squares, each
one of which is marked with from one to six dots, or with none at all.

Thus says the Volume I of the Encyclopedia Espasa-Calpe, sa. Madrid 1035
(third edition).

But we Latinos, we like to do more complicated things, we add to make it
fifty-five tiles in total, and there reigns the dreaded, unwanted, hated
and sometimes loved double nine.

I remember papa Manolo, Cubanized-Asturian, passionate lover of this
game, who for many years proudly wore a belt with a wide buckle of
silver and enamel that said champion. In the first years after 1959 he
sold it, who knows for what paltry sum of money, to put food on our
table, back in the seventies when we could barely manage one meal a day.
All this led me to think that our country, by the work and grace of a
personal utopia, was becoming a metaphor for this game:

Double Standard: To express in public the exact opposite of what you
really think, and say, behind closed doors.

Double Currency: One, with which they pay our meager salaries and
retirements, which has barely any value, and another which, even though
it's only good inside the country, at least can be used to acquire most
of the basic necessities, and that must be gotten and spent at your own
risk.

Double Health: One very precarious and lacking in resources, which is
offered to the people. Another more specialized, with a wide range of
medicines and better facilities for the leaders and foreigners.

Double Education: One very deficient, with schools in a terrible state
and most improvised teachers. And the other with very good conditions
and qualified teachers for the diplomatic corps and a very few
privileged Cubans.

Double Market: One, with little variety in products and prices
extraordinarily inflated (more than 250% of costs), and the other in the
so-called Cuban Convertible Pesos.

And another only for diplomats and senior leaders, with more varied
products and better prices.

Double Migratory Law: One, draconian and violating human rights, which
is applied to the population in general, and another, more expedited and
economical, that favors only the leaders and high officials.

Double Supply: Almost nothing for the people's markets, and another with
home deliveries in record time, for the ruling elite and selected officials.

Double Justice: The surprisingly cruel, pompous and media focused
applied to citizens who violate the law, and another quiet, almost
secret and less aggressive, applied to officials who have committed
crimes against the economy.

Double Information: One, transmitted to the population through all the
official media, and another of antennas and Internet, fiercely
persecuted, which only a few privileged have access to.

As you see, there are various doubles. Now we just have to focus on the
table, calculate how many tiles are still to come, and above all, try to
guess who is crouched over the double nine, because in any moment he can
play it and that's the game!

As I told you, this may be the most uncomfortable and surprising tile,
of this other twisted entertainment.

May 15 2012

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