Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica

 Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica is a collection of short stories . I'll share my thoughts and reactions to each story as I read them.

A Light, Swift, and Monstrous Sound

This short story explores the other side of suicide: the impact it leaves on the people who see it. While my initial reaction was to think she was self-centered in this situation, I thought that “people like you didn't deserve this...you were destined for success”(pgs. 4). She made it seem like she was the one who died, that her dreams were shattered by witnessing death. Her life will go on, but the old man won't. After the man committed suicide, their neighbors came down to the dentist's apartment to comfort her. She felt that the neighbors' sympathy was fake. “They lived comfortably submerged in a combination of evil and normalcy produced by an unhealthy amount of leisure time... they need to be present for every occurrence...in order to talk about it later in the hallways”(pgs. 5-6). In this moment, I think that she and Menendez are similar both on the reciving end of gossip to keep the neighbors entertained rather than having actual sympathy for them. This is the moment that she starts to understand Menendez more and starts to sympathize with him, rather than thinking about what was done to her. Both she and Menedez were in a community surrounded by people who cared about them, but they never felt the care.