El Diablo Fuma (y guarda las cabezas de los cerillos quemados en la misma caja)

Before Mum and Dad disappeared, the Devil came and left the five siblings new shoes. Mum never wrote a farewell letter to Elsa, Marisol, Tomás and the others, she just left. Dad went to look for her and never came back, either. Grandma stayed with the children. She told them the Devil is like the flies – they settle on you when your flesh is rotting and no matter how many times you swat them away, they always come back. Grandma ripped out the doorbell, barricaded the doors with furniture and covered the windows with plastic sheets. Playing outside is now forbidden. Mum used to film the children, and would ask them from behind the camera, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and eight-year-old Elsa still wants to be a ballerina or the Pope who raises his hand on television, makes the sign of the cross and fixes everything. Eventually, the police show up, followed by social services, with the news that the children are going to get a new home. Grandma prepares a last supper and Marisol suggests that everyone burn something they love to make a wish. The fire gets bigger and the smoke rises, blurring and gradually dissolving the boundary between reality and imagination. Soon the children will be gone – or maybe not.