Cancelado y transmutado

Category C: Third Place (2025) Monash Short Story Writing Competition
Author: Elena Disilvestro

I’d never directly pass the salt to my mum at the table; she raised me better than that. I know to push it closer to her – close enough for her to reach, but never so close that we might risk passing it hand-to-hand.

I know to sell shoes to people for a few cents on their birthday, not gift them freely. I know to never mention his name in front Tita, my grandma. And I know to never say something terrible out loud, unless I declare it cancelado y transmutado as soon as the words leave my mouth.

I know it all because if I forget it, then the salt might slip as I pass it and send all our money tumbling down with it. Those I love will walk out on me using those same shoes I gifted them. He will take a break from beating his wings in the frozen ninth circle and pay me a visit. Most of all, my odious words, uncancelled and untransmuted, will spring true.

So, the salt stays strictly on the table; even here at this servo.

The drive has only been two hours, but it has felt like ten. My joints ache, my neck is stiff – even my knuckles are sore from gripping the wheel. Sitting here, all I can do is chew my overpriced sandwich as fast as my jaw will let me.

I left the house yesterday morning and drove all the way to visit a friend. Had to crawl past roadworks at first and then dodge kangaroos as I sped down the Hume: all just to spend the night sleeping on a couch, in darkness, with my heart pummelling my ribcage.

For eight miserable hours I felt nothing but dread because I had not only left my house that morning: I had left Milo.

Milo is an angel brought to me by a deluge; to this day I still remember his tiny, soaked body and pitiful meow. He’d been sharp at first: all teeth and claws with bristling fur. (If you squint your eyes, I swear you can still see some of the scratches on my hands from the first time I tried to pet him.) But it’s been years, and time softens all edges. Now he chirps at me when I get home, melts on my lap as I sit at my desk and licks my eyelids open to wake me at dawn. But I left Milo yesterday, and all night long the only thing I saw was his little ginger face.

I saw him cold and rigid, because I can’t remember if I left the heater on. I saw him bald and charred, because I can’t recall if I tapped each stove knob from left to right before I left. I saw him gazing sightlessly while sprawled on a puddle of puke, because I can’t remember shutting the medicine cabinet door. Worst of all, I saw him cleaved in two, because I don’t know if I checked where he was before I slammed the door shut, and what if he was right there?

I know I don’t have to tell you how quickly I bolted out of my friend’s house this morning. Or how fast I’m scarfing my food now. Or how quickly I shut down the old man who asked me to pass the salt just a mere moment ago. And now that I think about it, I don’t remember jiggling the back door.

Now I can see his little body ripped apart by fox.

The wind stings my skin as I leave the servo. In two seconds, I’ve reached my car, just two seconds more and I’m back on the Hume driving home. 

Thoughts are just thoughts in the same way that words are just words: that’s what a fool would tell you. A miserable fool like me who wants to ignore what their body knows. Because if thoughts are just thoughts, and these visions of Milo, bloodied, ripped and raw, are just thoughts, then why am I whispering cancelado y transmutado under my breath? Why do I grip the wheel so much harder than I need? Why is my car going 10km over the limit? And why is there that much roadkill?

I’ve counted four. Four; the worst number. Any other number would have meant nothing, but four! As a child, for me to not feel uneasy, the TV volume couldn’t be a multiple of four. As a teenager, the microwave couldn’t heat my food for a number of seconds ending in four. And now, here, as an adult, the roadkill cannot be a total of four. And I’m 14km over the limit now!

Oh, wait, thank God. It’s actually 15km.

But back to what matters, all four dead kangaroos were mangled and torn, and each glance at them conjured a vision, so clear and complete, of Milo meeting the same fate. As I close my eyes to will the image away, I feel a speedbump under my car. God, a bump? Why is this happening, I need to get somewhere fast! But at least when I open my eyes I get some relief, there’s some fresh roadkill to my right – that makes five.

But now I’m looking at the kill and I see Milo all over again. I see him so clearly the road almost isn’t there anymore, but I’m brought back just in time to make my exit by a screeching noise to my side. At least there’s some luck for me today! That sound, with its loud griding metal and beeping tones, definitely brought my focus back to the road so I can make it to my home.

My burning, freezing, open-medicine-cabinet, fox-having home. And his little mangled body is back behind my eyes, and the pedal is back to being pressed right down to the floor.

I speed down the side streets, go straight through the roundabout and I’m close to making it home. Absentmindedly I see something swinging on the left side of my car where my mirror should be and hear some yelps of surprise and the pprrriiiing prriiiing of a cyclist’s bell; but I can’t focus on those, only Milo occupies my thoughts.

One more turn and I’m at my street, one spin of the wheel and finally I’m parked at my driveway. I pry my door open, some viscera and debris falling off as I rush out to open my door. My fingers fumble for my keys, shaking as my heart begins pummelling my chest once more.

I hear him before I see him, but only after I see him do I fall to my knees. He purrs and chirps as I seize him, kneads me as I hold him against my chest. I can breathe for the first time in nearly a full day.

Nothing can take me away from holding him in this moment; not even the sirens behind me, growing nearer and nearer.