If you keep yelling like that, Mateo, I’m going to sign the paperwork to have you committed today.

That’s what Carlos said, his voice breaking, standing in the doorway of his son’s room, while the ten-year-old boy banged the cast on his arm against the wall as if he wanted to tear his life away along with that white thing.

It was almost two in the morning in a large house in Coyoacán, and the dry sound of plaster against the wall echoed through the hallways like an alarm. Knock. Knock. Knock. Mateo’s face was drenched in sweat, his eyes were wide and bulging, and his lips were chapped from crying so much.

“Take it away! Dad, please! They’re getting in! They’re biting me!”

Carlos ran towards him, not with tenderness, but with the furious weariness of a man who hadn’t slept for nights. He grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him onto the bed.

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