"IT happened many years ago. It is the story of a love that was not, that was left just like that. It is a sad story...and terrible," says the Sup* sitting on one side, with his pipe in his lips. He lights it, and looking at the mountain, continues: "From far away came a man. He came, or he was already there. No one knows. It was back in other times long past and however that may be, in these lands people lived and died the same as they do now, without hope and forgotten. No one knows if he was young or old, that man. Few are those who saw him at first. It was like that because they say that this man was extremely ugly. Just to see him produced dread in men and revulsion in women. What was it that made him so unpleasant? I don't know, the concepts of beauty and ugliness change so much from one age to another and from one culture to another...In this case, the people native to these lands avoided him, as did the foreigners who were the owners of land, men, and destinies. The indigenous people called him the Jolmash or Monkey-face; the foreigners called him the Animal.
 

* The "Sup" is a nickname for Subcomandante Marcos.


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