Fragmented Mythologies: A Guatemalan Tale

By Benjamin Clabault

Lying awake in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala, my wife’s body tucked against my side, I
suffered a horrible confrontation with what Albert Camus would have termed the absurd. The
fibers connecting my consciousness to the universe seemed to have dissolved, and my “self,” the
collection of perceptions and ideas I’d always taken to be “me,” felt a random historical accident.
I managed to fall asleep eventually, and upon waking up in the morning I set about examining
the strange, shattered sensation.

This was in October of 2021. We were well into the pandemic, and I wa...