Always and Never versus Sometimes [Full Communiqué]

ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

MEXICO.

September 12^th, 1998

To the national and international press:

Ladies and gentlemen:

A letter goes out to the national PRI about the filth of the Chiapanecan PRI and a communiqué about the atrocity that is being committed in the mountains and southeast coast. Without comment.

Vale. Cheers and, is there punishment for a crime of that size?

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos

Mexico, September 1998.

P.S. The great celebrations continue! Now the gift is the Supmarino tale which is called…

Always and Never versus Sometimes

Once upon a time, there were two times. One was called One time and the other was called Another time. One and Another time formed the Sometimes family, which lived and ate from time to time. The great dominant empires were Always and Never which, as is evident, loathed the Sometimes family. Neither Always nor Never tolerated the existence of the Sometimeses. Always could not allow One time to live in its kingdom because then Always stopped being so because if there now is one time then there is no longer always. Never also could not allow Another time to appear another time in its kingdom because Never cannot live with one time even less if that time is Another time. But One time and Another time went on bothering Always and Never time and time again. And that’s how it was until Always always left them in peace and Never never again bothered them. And One time and Another time went on playing time and time again. “¿Qué me ves?” Una vez would ask, and Otra vez would answer: “¿Pues qué no ves?” And like that they pass the time happily from time to time, you now see. And they always were One and Another time and never stopped being Sometimeses. The end.

Moral 1: Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between one time and another time.

Moral 2: One must never say always (all right, sometimes one must).

Moral 3: The “alwayses” and the “nevers” are imposed by those from above, but below appear “the bothersome” time and time again which, sometimes, is another way of saying “the different,” or from time to time, “the rebellious.”

Moral 4: I will never again write a story like this, and I always do what I say (all right, sometimes I don’t).

Vale encore. Cheers and, sometimes, the always and the never are born below (from the belly, for example).

El Sup battling time and time again with the buttons of his shirt (long live t-shirts!).

Click here for original Spanish text.

English translation copyright © 2014 by Henry Gales. All rights reserved.