MEXICO UNDER FIRE AND TEARS! CHRONICLE OF AN APOCALYPTIC WEEKEND: BETWEEN ROAD HELL, THE VANITY OF THE “LIKE,” AND THE MONSTERS THAT LURK IN THE NIGHT
SUBTITLE: Death showed no mercy and unleashed its fury this weekend. A brutal bus crash that incinerated dozens of dreams, innocent children swallowed by the earth and violence, and inexplicable phenomena mark 72 hours of pure terror. While the country mourns and the “National Grief” brings us to our knees, others prefer the circus of social media, oblivious to the pain that is bleeding the nation dry. Come in, come in, and find out about the horror that is shaking the nation.
BY: “EL CHALE” RODRÍGUEZ / LA VOZ DEL BARRIO / ALERTA ROJA MÉXICO .
MEXICO CITY, A TRAGIC HANGOVER MONDAY. — If you, dear reader, thought you’d seen it all in this vale of tears, hold on tight and sit down, because this weekend the Devil decided to change his zip code and come live in Mexico. We woke up this Monday with our souls hanging by a thread and our hearts crushed, with a moral hangover that can’t be cured with chilaquiles. The image that best sums up this feeling is the one that’s already gone viral: an elderly couple, their faces etched with grief and their eyes swollen from crying, under a headline that leaves no room for doubt: “NATIONAL SADNESS .” And it’s no wonder, my friends, because what we just experienced seems like something out of the twisted mind of a gore film screenwriter, but unfortunately, it’s the pure and simple reality that’s hitting us right in the face.
HELL HAS A ZIP CODE: THE HIGHWAY OF DEATH
It all began with the roar of the beast on the asphalt. What promised to be a relaxing holiday weekend for many Mexican families ended up becoming a branch of hell itself. On the federal highways, those we so often cross chasing our daily bread, all hell broke loose. Recklessness, death’s crony, took the wheel.
The images coming from the scene are horrific, the kind that haunt you for weeks. On one stretch of highway, speed and inexperience led to major tragedies. A blue passenger bus from the “Rosario Bus” line ended up embedded in a ravine, while another truck, a giant red double-decker, lay sprawled on the undergrowth, like a mortally wounded animal. But the worst was yet to come on another road: a brutal collision caused an explosion that shook the earth. Thick, toxic plumes of black smoke stained the blue sky, visible for miles around. The fire, relentless, devoured everything in its path.
There was no chance for many. The twisted metal of the vehicles stood as silent and macabre witnesses to the massacre. And there, on the hot pavement, under the relentless sun, was the scene no one, absolutely no one, wants to see: dozens of bodies covered with white sheets, lined up like dominoes toppled by Death in a macabre game. The highway became an open-air morgue, and the smell of burnt rubber mingled with the stench of death. In other places, the tragedy took equally horrific forms: an overturned dump truck crushing a compact car as if it were a toy, leaving a scene of utter devastation, and another wrecked white vehicle being lifted by a crane, leaving a black ribbon on the asphalt.
Among the victims, fate was cruelest to the youngest, those with their whole future ahead of them, breaking all our hearts. We mourn with rage the loss of the neighborhood star, that young soccer player who proudly wore her pink and black uniform, posing with the ball at her feet. A young woman full of life, captain of her team and her dreams, who today will no longer score goals on dirt fields, but among the stars. Her photo, now adorned with a huge black mourning ribbon, breaks our hearts.
NATURE ROARS AND MONSTERS APPEAR
But as if the fire and twisted metal weren’t punishment enough, Mother Nature also reclaimed her due, showing us just how small we are. In an image that seems straight out of the apocalypse, the ground literally split in two. A gigantic crack, a deep wound in the earth, divided an entire community, leaving humble homes on the edge of the abyss and people running in terror for their lives, watching their belongings being swallowed by the earth. And to add insult to injury, as if we were being paid a debt, satellite maps show a monstrous hurricane, with a perfect, destructive eye, threatening to wipe out what little remains standing on the coasts.
And amidst the chaos, human madness, and medical enigmas that defy science and sanity, hospitals reported cases that defy explanation. What goes through a man’s mind to swallow an entire metal chain? You heard me right, folks. Doctors couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the X-ray: a thick chain lodged in the stomach and esophagus of a patient who arrived in the emergency room, which they later showed being removed on gauze. They had to extract it in a maneuver that even Harry Houdini couldn’t pull off.
Equally shocking, though even more tragic, are the X-rays that reveal human suffering at its most extreme: legs shattered, bones held together only by nails, plates, and screws—evidence of the violence of the impacts that sent so many people to the hospital… or to the cemetery. And in the countryside, there’s the mystery of the “bodybuilding pig,” an animal with such grotesque and disproportionate musculature in its hindquarters that it appears to have been injected with steroids, causing panic and astonishment among the ranchers.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN: VANITY, MISERY, AND THE INDIFFERENCE THAT KILLS
This is where things really get under your skin, folks. Because while our country is falling apart, while mothers mourn their missing children and grief envelops thousands of homes, the circus of vanity and frivolity continues its show at full volume on social media and in the streets.
There you have the “influencers” and those wannabe models, using any mirror to flaunt their curves and chase easy “likes.” A girl in a tight pink outfit takes a selfie in her “gamer” room, with a pink chair and the blatant sign “More Videos Here” with a downward-pointing arrow, selling her image while the country burns. They’re shameless! Or the teacher (or is she a hostess?) in a short, low-cut green dress who looks like she’s going to a club instead of teaching, dancing and making heart shapes in front of the blackboard, distracting the kids.
The controversy has also erupted in schools, where it seems there’s now a competition among mothers to see who wears the most provocative outfit at drop-off and pick-up. From the woman in a fitted white dress and high heels who looks like she’s going to a wedding while holding her son’s hand at school, to the one in super-tight gray athletic wear that leaves nothing to the imagination while picking up her child at the school gate. A national debate has taken over Facebook: Freedom of expression or a lack of respect in a country that’s falling apart and where modesty has been lost?
And the contrast, the damned contrast that slaps us in the face every day. While they worry about filters and followers, in the heart of Mexico, the Mexico many refuse to see, a child—a true hero without a cape—carries a crate of vegetables bigger and heavier than himself on his back. Wearing his muddy rubber boots and carrying his little Spider-Man backpack, this kid works tirelessly from sunrise to earn a few pesos for his family, risking his childhood and his health . That’s the painful reality, the one that doesn’t appear on TikTok or have pretty filters. It’s the same reality as the Indigenous woman who, sitting on the sidewalk, begs for a coin with a lost look in her eyes, carrying her two babies in her shawl, invisible to those who drive by in their trucks.
CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND THE PAIN OF THE MOST INNOCENT
The crime beat never rests, never sleeps. Authorities, overwhelmed as always, reported the arrest of several criminals this weekend. From the gang of thugs caught red-handed and presented by police in Peru with all their stolen goods (cell phones, laptops), to the cold-eyed, defiant types arrested by police in various operations in Honduras and elsewhere, some even posing with high-caliber rifles. But justice sometimes comes late, or not at all.
In a secluded spot, on a dirt road, they found the body of a man lying face down in the earth and mud, the victim of who knows what settling of scores, fight, or fatal destiny. Another man, with a tribal tattoo on his arm, lay on the ground, perhaps a victim of violence or addiction. And an elderly man with a white beard and his cane beside him lay on the sidewalk, his clothes dirty, forgotten by all, just another “forgotten identity” ending up in a mass grave.
But what truly breaks our hearts, what makes us lose faith in humanity, is the suffering of children and the irresponsibility of adults. A heartless mother was apprehended by police in Brazil, led away by an officer. The reason? The horror her own son was enduring was discovered: the little boy had skin lesions that looked like cigarette burns all over his back and torso, an appalling sight. What a despicable mother! What kind of monster does that to a child?
Or the tragedy of extreme poverty and neglect. A baby was bitten by a giant, venomous centipede while sleeping in her humble crib, leaving her mother, a woman of meager means, drowning in tears, showing the insect and her lifeless child with the bite mark. This reminds us that in this country, poverty is also a deadly predator. And what about the stupidity of a father who, for a photo for Facebook, dangled his young son from the edge of a very tall building, while another child watched in terror from the side. Jail for that imbecile who plays with his child’s life for a like!
THE END OF THE DAY: AMIDST PRAYERS, MOURNING, AND A BEER TO FORGET
The weekend ends with a bitter, metallic taste, redolent of blood and tears. We see the “MISSING” posters of children who went out to play and didn’t return home, innocent faces like Emiliano Ignacio’s that haunt us from the page, and a lump forms in our throats as we watch a mother’s WhatsApp audio on television, a three-second voice message from her missing son that she has to cling to hope.
Mourning is nationwide. Black ribbons flood social media profiles, accompanying photos of young men who left us too soon, women in the prime of life, some very young and beautiful, and even children who went before us, some remembered with tributes like the boy in a wheelchair who now, according to the faith of his community, walks in heaven, leaving his chair empty. We see nighttime funerals in humble neighborhoods, where people gather to say goodbye to their loved ones amidst tears and helplessness.
Mexico is mortally wounded, my people. Between the mourning for those who died in the truck crash, the rage over the abused children, the fear of nature, and the shame at the indifference and vanity of so many, all we can do is cross ourselves. We see the drunk who found his five-star “hotel” inside a blue plastic drum in the street, a pathetic image of reality, and the “goth” girl who fell asleep (or something worse, you never know with so many drugs on the streets) in an old, broken armchair in the middle of a garbage dump in the countryside. These are snapshots of a country in pain.
Light a candle for those who are no longer with us, and hug your loved ones tightly, because in our Mexico, you leave home in the morning to earn a living, but you never, ever know if you’ll return at night. We will continue to report, if reality allows us and sadness doesn’t take us first. May God have mercy on us all!