“El cuento ficticio”, de Julio Garmendia

There was a time when the heroes of stories were all perfect and so happy that they were
completely implausible. One day came when we wanted to run to the lands, seek adventures and
to try one ’s luck, and walking and retracing steps from then until now, thus we have come to be the

decomposed subjects that we now are, who have succumbed to the absurdity of not being absolutely
fictitious, and of extraordinary and supernatural beings we have become plausible, and even
true, and even real... Extravagance! Abomination! As if we were anything other than
fictitious ones that we intend to stop being! As if it were possible to prevent us from continuing to be

illusory, fantastic and unreal those to whom we were given, at our beginning or origin, a
invisible and tenacious twist in that sense!… I—word of honor!—retain the old temperament.
fictional in its purity. I am nothing less than the current representative and legitimate descendant and

heir in a direct line of the improbable heroes of Blue Tales that are no longer spoken of in the
stories, and my ideal is to restore our first perfections, beauties and idealisms today
lost: return all - heroes and heroines, protagonists and characters, central figures and
episodic extras- to return, I mean, all the fictions we lived, to the Kingdoms and Reigns of
country of the Blue Tale, happy climate of the unreal, benign latitude of the illusory. Adventure

truly imaginary, positively fantastic and materially fictitious of what we are

heroes of detective novels. March or journey, expedition, conquest or discovery,

My first step is to gather the data, memories, testimonies, and documents that establish
clearly the existence and situation of the country of the Unbelievable Tale. Do I need to say it? Spirits
those who are titled strong and who are nothing more than mean insist on pretending that it has never been

has never existed nor can it exist, being by nature nonexistent, and at the same time they are dedicated to collecting the

documents that tend to prove the opposite of what mine prove: as if there were some
merit in not believing in Tall Tales, as there is much truth in knowing that it is indeed so
they existed. As always happens in the preambles of any great undertaking, those who have
They begin by refusing to support me in benefiting from my efforts. Like everyone great
Reformer, they call me crazy, inexperienced, and utopian... This without mentioning the self-interested resistances.

of the large bulky characters, that is, those who lounge in thick volumes
comfortably and at their ease they breathe in a realistic environment, neither of the feigned slights of
those who, whether because they are from a novel or a novella, or because they appear in a short story, which proves nothing, are

they intend to be superior in rank and quality to those of us who have been born on the edges of the Tale, as much

but if we have blue story origins.

But I am not one of those whose faith in the improvement of the fictional species is dampened by the
difficulties, which previously exalt my fervor. My incurable idealism urges me to work tirelessly in
this reckless company; and in the long run, I will end up proving the existence of the country of the Tale

Improbable to these same fictional ones who today deny it, and mock my faith, and call themselves shrewd.

only because they do not believe, while I believe, and because in the course of our exile in the
They have become skeptical, incredulous, and materialistic in these and many other matters; and not
I will only have to test them, but I will also drag them to undertake the long and burdensome journey.
undoubtedly, but it will be rewarded for so much fortune as it is to be, the arrival, entry and
reception in the land of the Illusory Tale, the mere announcement of which already excites, of the mobs of

fictitious of all kinds and conditions, exhausted, miserable and aged after so much running
reality and to never again fall into such a fatal misadventure.

Some may have started to doubt the outcome, discouraged during the march by the wait and
the fatigue. They will not stop reproaching me for having led them to the search or rediscovery of the Lost Kingdom,

in which, even assuming, which is impossible, that we never reach it, I will have done nothing but
to elevate them and magnify them much more than they deserve; and since they will start with
to find the unfindable, I will try to encourage them with good words, of which they will not stop
inspire me the closest proximity of the Unreal Story and the faith I have that enlightens me at its end

discovery and possession. By then I must be the good old man from the stories or fables,
of long white beards, leaning on a thick staff, bent under the weight of the saddlebags
the shoulder; and when passing through a narrow ravine between rocks or through a narrow gorge between
cliffs, and flow out in front of plains, this at the fall of some afternoon, extending the hand to
I will show my fictional companions, increasingly sparse and rare beside me, how
Far away, the fantastic vision of the Blue Tales mountains begins to emerge...

There will be the new shoot of disputes, and the sidelong glances to communicate new doubts.
and inquiring whether such mountains are rather the very real, known, and explored mountains of
such or such a naturally mountainous country where we would happen to find ourselves, and the one that if all the

mountains of any story or country they may be are not blue from afar... And I will speak again of
the nearby bliss, of the neighboring perfection; of the imminent certainty already close to being touched with the

bro!

So until we truly step on the land of Unreal Tales, where we must arrive one day.
another, today or tomorrow, perhaps in a few moments, and where all the fictional ones now shine
and radiant ones come to ask me for forgiveness for the offenses they committed against me, which I grant them wholeheartedly

soul since we are already back in the Tale in which perhaps if ever, for only
setback or displeasure, a ugly hunchback, giant potbellied or deformed dwarf appears.
Small busts and large statues, even equestrian ones, perpetuate the memory of this great
adventure and the science studied or the art not learned with which from the terrestrial countries and
maritime, or of the mainland and insular, or of fresh and brackish waters, I knew how to come here, not only,
but bringing along those who wanted to come with me and dared to retrace Reality where
they had penetrated. My own detractors come to praise and celebrate my name, when my
the name praises itself and celebrates itself. The plump and sensational powerful who
yesterday they did not deign to know me nor did they know in what language to speak to me, they forget their disdain for the

blue story-tellers, and they intend to have the same origin as me, and furthermore to have me
always helped in my dark beginnings, and they even prove it, nothing strange in the domain
of the Impossible, Unlikely, and Extraordinary Tales, which are more so today than ever... My
the fictitious service sheet is, in summary, one of the brightest and most admirable. I am attributed all
gifts, virtues, and eminent qualities, in addition to my character already proven in the fictional.

setbacks. And, in short, it is said of me: He deserves well of Fiction, which is no less illustrious than
other merits...

Por lo cual me regocijo en lo íntimo del alma, me inclino profundamente delante de Vosotros, os
I smile pleased and back away making great bows to you...