Flash Flood Winner—Atzaed Arreola translated by Rachel Whalen

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Fue a las 19:30 horas cuando los agentes del Ministerio Público encontraron una Lap top
amordazada con una cinta roji-negra debajo de las escaleras. Minutos más tarde dieron con el
infractor, se encontraba en la tina del baño estrangulando a un iPhone XS. El agresor era una
máquina de escribir Remington Quiet-Riter de 1957. Uno de los agentes declaró más tarde que
en el interrogatorio la máquina articuló unos “clinchazos” vehementes; había sufrido un trauma
psicótico porque no había escrito una palabra en cuarenta años. En el reporte se señaló que a las
19:50 horas se descubrió un rastro de masas humanoides que provenían de la cocina. El horno de
microondas, por órdenes de la máquina, reproducía personajes amorfos. En el interior del horno
se hallaron restos de una cena, una revista de GQ, un libro de superación personal y un tenedor
de metal.

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translated by Rachel Whalen

It was 7:30 p.m. when public investigators found a laptop gagged by a reddish-black tape under
the stairs. Minutes later they found the assailant in the bathroom, strangling an iPhone XS. The
aggressor was a Remington Quiet-Riter typewriter, circa 1957. One of the agents later recounted
what the typewriter had said in several vehement pings during his interrogation: he’d suffered a
psychotic break after not having written a word in forty years. In the report, it was noted that at
7:50 p.m. a trail of human-like figures was discovered leading to the kitchen. The microwave,
acting on orders of the typewriter, had been reproducing amorphous characters. Inside the
microwave they found the scraps of a dinner, a copy of GQ magazine, a self-help book, and a
metal fork.

Atzaed Arreola has a Bachelor’s in Literary Creation from the Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de México (UACM). His minifictions have been published in Cuando te vuelva a ver, Ibero León, Latinoamérica en breve, Gato encerrado UAM, and in the Spanish magazine Manifesto Azul. He is also a collaborator for “Laberinto,” a cultural supplement of the newspaper Mileni. He lives in Mexico City.

Rachel Whalen is a writer and translator from Buffalo, New York. She graduated with an MFA from NYU and currently lives in Mexico City. You can find more of her work at rachel-whalen.com.