In “Welcome to the Club” (original title: Bienvenida a la comunidad), a short story by Samanta Schweblin published in the book El buen mal (2025), a woman throws herself into the water from the pier with stones tied to her waist. As she sinks, she feels the cold, the pressure, the spasms in her lungs, and a strange lucidity. At the bottom of the lake, among fish and algae, she experiences an unsettling suspension, a kind of paralysis that terrifies her more than death: the idea of staying there, unable to move forward or backward. Out of curiosity rather than regret, she unties the stones and ascends. She emerges from the water, crawls along the dock, returns home, crosses the window, and resumes her routine as if nothing had happened.
Shortly after, her family arrives: her partner and their two young daughters, who bring with them a school rabbit named Tonel, which they must care for for a week. The woman prepares lunch, trying to hide the trembling of her body. The girls notice his strange smell, like mud, but everything proceeds with tense normality. During the meal, the rabbit escapes from its cage and the father orders that everything be kept tightly closed. The woman tries to convince herself that everything is in order, clinging to small everyday gestures like anchors.
Later, she goes out into the neighborhood, stops by a neighbor’s house, goes to a café, and runs into acquaintances. Everything seems to be working. But on her way back, she sees the rabbit escaping down the street and then her daughters crying desperately. The family splits up to look for it. The father suggests getting another animal, which increases the girls’ pain. Finally, the neighbor appears with Tonel, brutally grabbing him by the ears as if he were a piece of game. Witnessing the scene, the girls scream. The father takes the rabbit and calms them down, but the neighbor turns to the woman, looks at her closely, and confronts her: he saw her that morning trying to take her own life.
Later, unable to sleep, the woman goes out again and crosses over to the neighbor’s property. He is waiting for her, as if he had anticipated her arrival. He invites her to participate in a macabre task: skinning dead animals. He explains that those who have returned from the depths, like her, must cause pain every day if they want to remain among the living. Suffering, according to him, is the only way to sustain themselves. It can be their own pain or pain caused to someone they love, but it must be real, intense, constant.
That night, the woman gets up, takes Tonel from her daughters’ bed, carries him to the kitchen, and presses him against the sink with a knife nearby. She thinks about the possibility of killing him, about the effect it would have on her daughters to wake up hugging a dead animal. That guilt, she believes, could sustain her. But instead of acting, she remains motionless. The rabbit, also still, looks at her. Finally, she lets him go. The animal jumps to the floor and runs away.
She also leaves the kitchen. As she passes the open window through which she had returned home that morning, she closes it firmly. Then she takes a shower, lies down next to her partner, and allows herself to sleep. Just before doing so, she feels the contact with the bottom of the lake again, but she also senses that her body is still moving, still reacting, still resisting. The balance is fragile, but she is still on this side.
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