One Of These Days

“One Of These Days” is a short story about two adversaries who grudgingly accept coexistence in the same town. The story explores the role of power relationships and how those relationships can shift and even reverse depending on life’s circumstances. A central theme of the short story is Power and Vulnerability as Aurelio and the Mayor vie for dominance in the dentist’s office despite the fact that they are not social equals in their town.

In accordance with the principles of Neorealism in film and literature, the story strives for both verisimilitude and political engagement, as García Márquez juxtaposes the two principal characters and highlights the everyday struggles of a common, impoverished person like Aurelio Escovar in an unjust and inequitable society.

The title introduces the motif of time in the story, set in either a specific day in the life of the protagonist—a warm, rainless Monday—or a typical day like any other, depicting the hours-long, solitary tasks of the dentist, who lacks formal education and has no prospects of social upward mobility, in his antiquated and decrepit office.

In highlighting a specific day, ordinary in all respects except for the extraordinary reversal of power that occurs when the Mayor appears in the dentist’s office, the title relates to the neorealist practice of describing everyday life experiences for common people and how they manage the social complexities of an unjust society. The dull passage of time is a motif in this story: Time flows on monotonously, each day much like all the others, but this monotony is punctuated at unpredictable intervals by moments of great consequence. The narrative describes Aurelio spending hours working on laborious tasks, reflecting his everyday experience, until he is interrupted by the Mayor.

The title also has a more generic meaning. The phrase “un día de éstos,” translated as “one of these days,” appears in other neorealist novels written by García Márquez, such as Leafstorm and No One Writes to the Colonel, in phrases describing an unspecified future date when something will happen. This is a common idiomatic expression in English as well as in Spanish, often followed by an ellipses (…), promising eventual comeuppance for wrongful actions committed in the present. For the Mayor, that long-deferred day of retribution has arrived in the form of an abscessed tooth.

Aurelio is the only character in the story who is named, and his characterization is specific and unique, whereas the Mayor’s lack of personal characterization makes him a symbol of personal and governmental overreach. The Mayor’s threat of physical violence, relayed by a child, is the first hint of the theme of Political Corruption, displaying the Mayor’s abuse of power and reinforcing the social and political inequalities between the characters. The unnamed Mayor and town form an allegory of Colombian political violence during the time the story was written, depicting widespread political corruption through the microcosm of this one brief, private interaction. For example, during the denouement, after the Mayor has recovered and is about to leave, he gives a “casual military salute” (75), conflating military and political power. When asked whether to send the bill to him personally or to the town, he claims, “It’s the same damn thing” (76). This depiction of a small town overrun by a corrupt mayor is a recurring vignette in the neorealist stories and novels of García Márquez and reflects the social and political realities in the aftermath of La Violencia in Colombia. Although the Mayor is primarily a symbolic character representing a corrupt local government, his appearance as a man suffering from an infected tooth undercuts his power and simultaneously provides him with a hint of personhood that Aurelio ultimately recognizes and acknowledges.

The initial dialogue between Aurelio and the Mayor relies on repetition—the back and forth of “Papá” from Aurelio’s son and Aurelio’s response, “What?”—disrupting Aurelio’s work and revealing him as calm and unafraid despite the possible danger of crossing the Mayor. This dialogue builds tension during the rising action, as Aurelio refuses to submit to the Mayor. The narrative suggests that the confrontation between the Mayor and the dentist will climax in violence. Earlier in the story, Aurelio sees pensive buzzards outside his window, a symbol of calamity or death. Although the Mayor is invisible in the narrative during the initial dialogue, Aurelio’s body language displays a clear lack of concern for the Mayor as he continues to work without any change in his expression. The tension builds throughout the scene as the conflict between the characters culminates in threats and the appearance of Aurelio’s revolver. However, the actual appearance of the Mayor in his vulnerable and disheveled state diffuses the tension, allowing Aurelio to show compassion for the suffering man while enacting vengeance on the tyrant at the same time.  

The narration of the short story from a third person limited perspective relies heavily on subtext provided in descriptions of body language and through dialogue, since much of what causes animosity between the two characters is never explicitly stated. The Mayor’s physical vulnerability and desperate need for Aurelio’s assistance inverts the power relationship between them, placing Aurelio in a position of power over the Mayor. This shift is subtly expressed in changes in the Mayor’s dialogue and body language. The Mayor makes a concerted effort to dampen the tensions that he incited by his threat of violence while in the waiting room. He greets the dentist, saying “Good morning” (74), and accepts the news that the dentist will not be using anesthesia amicably, saying “All right” and attempting to smile (75). The Mayor also attempts to be subordinate and compliant as a patient through his body language: “When he felt the dentist approach, the Mayor braced his heels and opened his mouth” (74). Yet at the climax of the story, when the Mayor is in immense pain, he holds on to what little power he has—the power of self-control: “The Mayor seized the arms of the chair, braced his feet with all his strength […] but didn’t make a sound” (75). The Mayor’s restraint here is akin to that of Aurelio in the early paragraphs—the only form of power, and of dignity, available to the powerless.

Aurelio’s temporary position of power over the Mayor while he is his patient is displayed more ambiguously through his choice to extract the Mayor’s tooth without the use of anesthesia. The vignette of a dentist pulling the tooth of a corrupt mayor appears in two other neorealist works by García Márquez, but in this story Aurelio reveals very little through his dialogue, and the narrator does not make his thoughts accessible to the reader. Instead, the narrator uses descriptions of Aurelio’s body language to provide some hint of the character’s motivation. Although the Mayor tries to create some gestures of amicability, Aurelio does not. He does not return the Mayor’s smile, hurry, or look at him while he is preparing for the extraction (75). The motivations and extent to which Aurelio uses his power to intentionally cause the Mayor pain are connected to the theme of The Coexistence of Retribution and Compassion in the story. Aurelio responds with a methodical and calm demeanor at the climax of the story just as he responded to the Mayor’s threats earlier, declaring that the pain associated with pulling the tooth is in payment “for our twenty dead men,” but doing so “without rancor, rather with a bitter tenderness” (75). The surprising phrase “bitter tenderness” evokes the paradox of Aurelio’s emotions in this moment: Aurelio is angry on behalf of those 20 dead men, but his anger has long since lost its heat. Bitterness is what anger becomes when it has no outlet. At the same time, he recognizes and feels compassion for the vulnerable human being in front of him, who is suffering physical pain.