The expression «tibi seruiat ultima Thule», drawn from a verse in the 1st century BCE from the Georgics (I, 30) by Virgil, «that the faraway Tule be your slave», referred to a distant point located toward a remote and ancient north. The poet wished to immortalize with the words «the last Tule», meaning the farthest, and with the other two thousand hexameters or so, the subjugation of extreme, inaccessible territories to Cæsar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, and the absoluteness of his power. Also, in passing, he extolled the generosity of the patron of artists Maecenas, a great friend and adviser to Augustus, although in reality the millennial poem Georgics (from ge and orgon, in Greek «works of the earth», «agriculture») by the thirty-something Virgil sought to sing of and exalt agriculture, which at that time — a few years before the birth of Jesus — was in decline in Rome. Two of those words, «Ultima Thule», ended up representing metaphorically any unattainable border, the far north or the most lagging edge of the known world.
Recurro a esa idea de poner límites confusos para reproducir en esta pantalla unos textos mínimos que difícilmente podrían considerarse historias, a no ser que quien los lea complete las circunstancias, los quiénes y cómos, los cuándos y dóndes. Qué debió de ocurrir antes, qué podría llegar a continuación. Es decir: la colaboración del lector incorporará antecedentes, más la siguiente etapa, un particular después. Si se forma un contraste, un desequilibrio entre dos puntos que no existen, la a y la zeta, podrá asomar la naturaleza de una narración. O esos rasgos afines al microrrelato, la escandalosa brevedad, lo ingenioso, el humor de muchos colores, reclamar la participación de quienes leen…
On July 4, 2021, a Twitter account at the time, @cuartopal, “The Box of Words,” launched this challenge: «Write a horror story with only three words. I’ll start: “We need to talk.”
Of course, it depends on who utters them and where and at what time the listener hears them. Or the recipient. And whether they are alive or come directly from a recent beyond. “We need to talk” can sound like a threat, a demand for explanations, or at the same time an attempt to justify oneself, to have uncovered something dishonorable, to reveal whatever it may be.
The first to respond to the challenge was a writer, actor, theatre director and Doctor of Hispanic Philology: Enrique Gallud Jardiel, who crafted this emphatic line: «I know everything».
A few days earlier, the same Twitter account had circulated a quotation from Winston Churchill in My Early Life, 1874-1904, a volume published in 1930: «The optimist sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible».
Indeed, and words that become aphorisms also require the reader’s contribution: someone optimistic is capable of imagining a future or a solution that others cannot yet perceive. Even if the present offers no proof of success, they maintain expectations, stay hopeful. Their attitude gives them strength that seemed beyond their reach.
Out of reach. Ultima Thule. Those few decisive words. Locate on your map what these triplets point to, far from their confines. Rather near. Very near, more. Closer: well.
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18 Three-Word Horror Stories
I know everything.
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I was waiting for you…
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There is no beer.
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Better another day.
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Telecinco only works.
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Stay at home.
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We have power! Did you pay?
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The chainsaw started.
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Better another day.
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We all pay taxes.
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Not that way.
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It’s not you.
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Aren’t you the one?
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We live in Cuba.
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Against the wall!
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Tell me your last name.
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When did you meet her?
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Then we’ll fix that.
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