1985 - One of the last photos of the Maestro - The young writer is photographed outdoors

Juan Lopez and John Ward

It was their luck to be born into a strange time.
The planet had been parceled out among various countries,

Each one provided with loyalties, cherished memories, with

a past undoubtedly heroic, with rights, with wrongs, with a

particular  mythology, with bronze forefathers, with

anniversaries, with demagogues and symbols.

This arbitrary division was favorable for wars.

Lopez was born in the city beside the tawny river;

Ward, on the outskirts of the city where Father

Brown walked. He had studied Spanish in order

to read Quijote.

The other one professed a love for Conrad, who

had been revealed to him in a classroom on

Viamonte Street. They might have been friends,

but they saw each other face to face only once,

on some overly famous islands, and each one of

them was Cain, and each was Abel.

They were buried together. Snow and corruption

know them.

The incident I mention occurred in a time that

 we cannot understand.

by Jorge Luis Borges
Argentina (1899-1986)