"Nobody can doubt that things relapse. A man falls ill, and suddenly on a Wednesday, he relapses. A pencil on the table frequently relapses. Women, how they relapse. Theoretically, nothing or no one is supposed to relapse, but it's still bound to happen, especially because it relapses without consciousness, as if it had never happened before. A jasmine, to give a fragrant example. To that whiteness, where does its painful friendship with yellow come from? Mere existence is already a relapse: the jasmine, then. And we're not talking about words, those deplorable relapsing words, or cold pastries, which are the nailed relapse. Against what happens, rehabilitation is patiently imposed. In the most relapsed, there is always something striving to rehabilitate itself, in the trampled mushroom, in the clock without a winding mechanism, in Pérez's poems, in Pérez. Every relapsing thing already has a rehabilitating aspect within it, but the problem, for those of us who ponder our lives, is confusing and almost infinite. A snail secretes, and a cloud inhales; surely they will relapse, but compensation beyond them rehabilitates them, makes them gradually climb to their best selves before the inevitable relapse. But we, aunt, how will we do it, how will we realize that we have relapsed if in the morning we feel so well, so coffee with milk, and we can't measure how far we have relapsed in sleep or in the shower? And if we suspect the relapsing nature of our state, how will we rehabilitate ourselves? Some relapse when reaching the summit of a mountain, when finishing their masterpiece, when shaving without a single nick; not every relapse goes from top to bottom because up and down don't mean much when you no longer know where you are. Probably Icarus believed he was touching the sky when he plunged into the Aegean Sea, and may God spare you from such an ill-prepared dive. Aunt, how will we rehabilitate ourselves? Some have argued that rehabilitation is only possible by altering oneself, but they forgot that every relapse is a de-altering, a return to the mud of guilt. Indeed, we are the most we can be when we alter ourselves, we leave the mud in search of happiness and consciousness and clean feet. A relapsing person is then a de-alterer, from which it follows that no one rehabilitates without altering themselves. To seek rehabilitation by altering oneself is a sad redundancy: our condition is relapse and de-alteration, and it seems to me that a relapsing person should rehabilitate themselves in another way, which I otherwise ignore. Not only do I ignore that, but I have never known when my aunt or I relapse. So how do we rehabilitate, then, if perhaps we haven't relapsed yet, and rehabilitation finds us already rehabilitated? Aunt, could that be the answer, now that I think about it? Let's do something: you rehabilitate yourself, and I'll observe you. Several consecutive days, let's say continuous rehabilitation, you are constantly rehabilitating yourself, and I observe. Or the other way around, if you prefer, but I would like you to start because I'm modest and a good observer. That way, if I relapse during the intervals of my rehabilitation while you don't give relapse a chance and rehabilitate yourself as in a continuous movie, after a while, our difference will be enormous, you will be so far ahead, and then, I will know that the system has worked, and I will start rehabilitating myself furiously. I'll set the alarm for three in the morning, suspend my married life and the other relapses I know of, so only the ones I don't know remain, and maybe, little by little, one day we'll be together again, aunt, and it will be so beautiful to say, "Now we're going downtown and getting ice cream, mine all strawberry and yours with chocolate and a little biscuit." Tribute to Julio Cortazar. The golden egg is a GIF taken from a video clip of the entire song made with AI.