Me preocupa el televisor. Da imágenes distorsionadas últimamente. Las caras se alargan de manera ridícula, o se acortan, tiemblan indistintamente, hasta volverse un juego monstruoso de rostros inventados, rayas, luces y sombras como en una pesadilla. Se oyen las palabras claramente, la música, los efectos de sonido, pero no corresponde a la realidad, se atrasan, se anticipan, se montan sobre los gestos que uno adivina.
Me dicen que un técnico lo arreglaría en dos o tres días, pero yo me resisto. No quiero la violencia: le meterían las manos, le quitarían las partes, le harían injertos ominosos, trasplantes arriesgados y no siempre efectivos. No volvería a ser el mismo.
Ojalá que supere esta crisis. Porque lo que tiene es una fiebre tremenda, un dolor de cabeza, una náusea horrible, que lo hacen soñar estas cosas que vemos.
I'm worried about the television...
I'm worried about the television. Its images, ultimately, are distorted. The faces are stretched until they're weird, or they shrink, or they shimmer out of focus and then turn into a monstrous game of invented faces, beams, lights and shadows, as in a nightmare. The words are perfectly distinct and the music and the sound effects, but they don't correspond to any reality. They're delayed, or they're too early, superimposed on the features that appear to be there.
I'm told that a repair man could fix it in two or three days, but I'm against that. I don't want violence. They'd put their hands inside there, take it apart, stick sinister things into it, risky transplants that might not take. I would never be itself again.
I really hope it gets over this. Because now it has a terrible temperature, a headache, awful nausea, which give it the dreams that we're watching.
Translated by W. S. Merwin