Los elementos (The Elements)
En español
Los elementos numerados. Los niños que se hacen hombres para defender la Patria. El orgullo de los padres. Unos años más y serán oficiales en las distintas armas, hombres de valor y muchas medallas. Ellos sufren todo el rigor de esta pirámide. Algunos se asimilan a la maquinaria que despersonaliza. Los más, soportan esperando su momento para el desquite. Otros no pueden y optan por el suicidio, o no resiste su organismo lo que el espíritu se niega a aceptar y caen doblegados por los rigores del polígono militar o los accidentes de trabajo en el campo. Éste finge la locura y come limo de las charcas o canta a viva voz en plena madrugada. Aquel golpea a un oficial para que lo expulsen y da con sus huesos en el calabozo. Aquellos crean la mayor cantidad de problemas para que les retiren el pase y permanecer incluso meses sin ir a la ciudad, con lo que esperan que sus padres, conmovidos, los saquen de la escuela. Es una lucha callada que se extiende por tres, cuatro años. Los más curtidos guerreros apenas alcanzan los dieciséis años.
In English (tran. by Andrew Hurley)
They are "elements." The boys will be made men so they can defend la Patria. Their parents pride. A few more years and they'll be officers in the various services, men of courage and chestfuls of medals. They bear the entire weight of this pyramid, and the full brunt of its harsh rigors. Some come to resemeble the machinery that depersonalizes them. Most simply bear up, waiting for the moment they can have their revenge. Others can't take it, and they choose suicide, or their bodies can't take what their spirits refuse to accept and they crumble on the parade ground or fall casualties to accidents in the fields. One fakes madness and eats mud out of the mud puddles or sings at the top of his lungs as the sun comes up. That one there hits an officer so they'll expel him, and he lands in the stockade. Those over there make as much trouble as they can think of, so they won't get their passes and for month on won't see the city, which they hope will make their parents, moved to pity, come take them out of the school. It is a mute struggle that goes on for three, four years. The most seasoned warriors are barely sixteen years old.