The Latin phrase «Nulla dies sine linea» recommends not ending a day without a line, without having read or without managing to write a notch, a speck, a drop turned into a message. A little. A mere thread. Something. In fact, linea in classical Latin referred to a very fine linen thread.
That millennial saying is attributed to Pliny the Elder, and to his ambitious Naturalis Historia, a pioneering encyclopedia-like work in which he sought to compile the knowledge of humanity reached up to that time. Yet scholars claim that the maxim is first documented in a work titled Proverbiorum libellus, written at the end of the fifteenth century.
Be that as it may, the elder Pliny did not intend to condense his counsel into an aphorism, and he was referring more to a habit from half a millennium earlier embodied in the painter Apelles, in Greece in the fourth century before Christ. Apelles worked every day, never missing a day, no matter how busy he was, at least gliding the fibers of his stubborn brushes once across whatever he was painting.
It is clear that those four decisive Latin words seek to instill the usefulness of doing, daily, practice, of training, to conquer perfection in an activity and to keep advancing.
In any case, and fortunately, the temptation that a single stitch could thread the garments of a story has not fallen on deaf ears. In his article «The Extreme Brevity: Microstories of One and Two Lines» the Argentine David Lagmanovich (1927-2010) collected in 2006 a sampler. With one hundred and eleven examples. Where the title proves primordial. And the references to events or milestones of culture and civilization.
I have gathered here seven, like the days of a week. In a single line each. All with that air of humor slightly tainted by distress. Or wrapped in a cloak of tenderness.
Two are from the Mexican Jaime Muñoz Vargas, a writer worth rediscovering. «The Heatstroke» appeared in his book Monterrosaurio, where he kept the first word and the last three of Monterroso’s The Dinosaur to fit into those four gaps, and in the title added other words that multiply the possibilities, coincidences, and novelties. For example, in «Borges» one reads: “When he died, the other Borges was still there.” Muñoz Vargas added some notes. In The Heatstroke he commented on that carrion bird, the zopilote: “… a petty Mexican scavenger. Ugly and dark and always hungry, the bastard.” It gives dimension to the micro.
Another — classic as the first dinosaur — from the writer and journalist Pablo Urbanyi (1939- 2024), a Slovak-born Argentine, soon became a pretext to read other works by Augusto Monterroso.
Another stroke of genius by Andrés Neuman asks the reader to add a portion of wit. A lot of wit in that “novel.” More than dreams and sheets without staining.
The Colombian writer and professor Jairo Aníbal Niño (1941-2010) twists the fable and offers a decisive solution. We should reclaim his poetry and narrative books and his plays.
A dozen and a half words suffice for Miguel Saiz Álvarez to show us the world upside down, heart below, and thereby complete the world.
The scrupulous discretion with which the character in “The Invisible Man” by the Venezuelan Gabriel Jiménez Emán fulfills his duties is admirable. A misstep would make him more approachable, more like us. Who you’ve seen and who you are seen by.
I had thought, to finish, of playing with the idea of a “finish line.” But I don’t see many outlets. What lasts almost a blink, as this notebook closes, lasts for more than a week. Until next Wednesday.
*****
Notebooks of One Line
Jaime Muñoz Vargas
Justice
Today I killed them. I was tired of being called a killer. ■
*
Jairo Aníbal Niño
Fable
And the mice formed an alliance and the rattlesnake put the bell on the cat. ■
*
Andrés Neuman
Horror Novel
He woke up freshly shaved.■
*
Pablo Urbanyi
The Dinosaur
When he woke up, he sighed with relief: the dinosaur was no longer there.■
*
Miguel Saiz Álvarez
The Balloon
As it rose and rose, the balloon cried at seeing the child slip away.■
*
Gabriel Jiménez Emán
The Invisible Man
That man was invisible, but no one noticed it. ■
*
Jaime Muñoz Vargas
Heatstroke
When he blinked, the vulture was still there. ■