The Autumn of the Patriarch

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses murder, suicide, and sexual assault.

Early on a Monday morning, an unnamed “we” enters a presidential palace—empty of people and full of decay. While they were unsure for centuries whether the palace was truly inhabited, now the visitors cannot deny its ruin. Exploring the palace, the guests discover tables in disarray, clothes strewn across the floor, and cobwebs and vegetation along the walls and crevices. The palace, now home to cows and their dung, overlooks a city visible through the windows and a sea no longer full of water but dust. In an office hidden in the wall, the body of the despot lies face down on the floor with his right arm under his head to cradle him to sleep—a position that he takes every night. Once discovered, and covered in lichens and parasites, the narrator recounts that this is the second time the despot has been found dead. It may not be the General at all, since no one is sure what he looks like.

Before his death, the General, paranoid and vulnerable, finds someone playing a parody of him in the crowd to grift citizens of the city.