The Tunnel

From the Saga of El Ciro Versus State Security

Always working to safeguard freedom of expression and alternative art, I left on an operational mission to Jibacoa Beach, to protect the activity and to keep a tight rein on our rotten friends from the Ministry of the Interior, MINIT.

What a bunch of people, and how subversive, my God! I know the security guys are plotting something, but… where? I activated the GPS tracker to detect any agent that I’d previously marked with a harpoon. The scanner began to send me signals from underground. Well, well, what were they doing down there? Meanwhile, unpacking the one-person excavator* I started to investigate the depths.

Down, down, down… Got ‘em! A tunnel! They had dug a tunnel that seemed to be headed toward the main stage. Once again, I made myself transparent and advanced. As always, a light at the end and you can imagine my surprise when I found myself on top of a pile of boxes of dynamite to Fernando Rojas (vice minister of culture) and various high ranking officials from State Security promising an end to Cuban art. Once the concert started and it was packed they would light the fuse and make the artists disappear and, as collateral damage, all the public in attendance, subverted by others.

“How nice, eh?” I said as I materialized. Suddenly fear tightened their throats and tears flowed from the eyes of the officials, drawing forth the memory of so many lost battles and so many sorrows inflicted by me on their souls. But the vice-minister, who didn’t know me, was a real son of a bitch,

“Hey! You! Get out of here! This is a covert operation,” he dared to say to me.

“The rest of you take off please, I have a bone to pick with this comrade.”

The agents took off running.

The Festival was excellent. Escuadrón Patriota led off the fun, Los Aldeanos wore out the vocal chords of everyone chanting their songs in public, and it all seemed like a huge Protestant church in South Carolina, only multi-racial and preaching freedom. By the way, I don’t expect to see Fernando Rojas for many months; he has a lot of dynamite to eat and it’s not going to be easy.

Until the next adventure,

El Ciro

* One-person excavator: A device to dig and move underground. Developed by El Ciro in the eighties. Used in the North Korean film, The Pied Piper Against the Ninjas, in the scene on the beach.