Revision #1

My grandparents live in an old, big, and dirty house. Since it is so big and since they are old, they cannot take care of it by themselves. It is a custom, in Cartagena, and most of South America, to have maids, and employees that help you do your house chores. My grandparents have seven different workers. Each of them, stranger and more peculiar than the other.
Hannibal is my grandparent’s house guard. He arrives every night and leaves in the morning. Hannibal has twisted his leg three times. He twisted his leg three times getting of a public bus that drops him off a block away from my grandparent’s house.
“He loves getting off moving buses. He is so ignorant he does not know that when the bus has stopped, it is safer to get off. He just jumps off the bus while it running at 90 miles per hour, as they are used to here in Cartagena, since the driver is a bigger monkey than Hannibal, and obviously, he ends up screwing up his leg.”
That is Carol’s theory. “It would be better if it occurred once and then he learned the lesson, but it has happened three times. It is too hard for me to understand that kind of things. How can that happen? Is it that he loves breaking and twisting his legs? You see? This town is full of crazy people. I believe a trained dog, or a trained monkey could get off the bus without twisting their legs. They do not even have to be trained. ”
There’s an even stranger story. Strange things happen in Cartagena. Hannibal, one of the times he broke his leg, he had to get a surgery. He was operated. He started his recovery sessions. A few days later, he started feeling something weird in his leg. He had been noticing his leg was not going through a normal recovery. He went back to the doctor to check it out. He had to get an x-ray. When he received the x-ray back, he discovered the surgeon had accidentally left his scalpel inside Hannibal’s leg. This story was fascinating for my grandfather because it proved one of his theories that says Cartagena is full of ignorant people.
“What would you expect from a monkey making a surgery on another monkey’s leg? A complete mess. A complete disaster. You should expect the same from that surgeon making a surgery on Hannibal’s leg. You cannot judge who is worse, either Hannibal who likes jumping off buses, or the surgeon who leaves his tools inside the patient! That is the way this town is. One incoherence after the other. It is endless, never ending.”
At least Hannibal was smart enough to place a demand on the surgeon, and, at least, he won the case. Fortunately. “At least his case was not a total circus, where gorillas and dogs play like most things are in this town. No, at least his case was handled professionally and he got what he deserved. Imagine what had happened if another gorilla handled the case? What kind of craziness would have happened? You see?”
Hannibal is the reincarnation of Mike Tyson, or a gorilla. “The same thing, either Mike Tyson or a gorilla, they’re exactly the same. Mentally, physically, and emotionally. They’re exact.” Carol says every time we chat about Hannibal. “They all have no brains. The only difference between Hannibal and the other two is that Hannibal died long time ago. Even though you see him walking in and walking out of the house, day after day, he is already dead. He is a zombie. That is what I have concluded by his actions. That would be the only answer to why he never speaks, or to why you can never understand what he mumbles with his exaggerated tone of voice or to why he has always got his eyes closed. How can someone walk, watch T.V., or eat with their eyes completely shut? He’s a zombie! That is why he walks the way he does, and that is why he has the strength he has. He has the strength of a dead man.”
“But Grandpa, how did Hannibal die?” I would ask Carol just to see and listen what kind of answer he would invent. “Look, son, the answer is pretty obvious. He died doing what he likes the most. Jumping off moving buses.”
My grandfather’s capacity to come up with very elaborate, detailed, and creative answers in just a second is amazing. It would take someone hours to come up with such an answer, but for Carol, it is plain instinct, a reflex. He always surprises everyone. That’s why I do those types of questions. You see, Carol is like those type of toys that have a string, and when you pull it, they talk to you, or make a little dance, or laugh, anything. Asking Carol those questions would be the same as pulling a toy’s string.