Haunting Pasts

Throughout the collection, Pachico dramatizes how, however hard one might try, one will always be haunted by one’s past. Many of Pachico’s characters try to avoid or to forget their pasts, resorting to the use of recreational drugs. In “Honey Bunny,” La Flaca snorts cocaine in order to avoid thinking of her past experience in Colombia. Similarly, in “Junkie Rabbit,” the General inhales hallucinogenics in order to forget that he was responsible for the disintegration of the rabbit herd. Indeed, all of the rabbits in “Junkie Rabbits” are under the influence of the leaf-drug, which drives them mad and, by the end of the story, causes them to turn to cannibalism. In this way, Pachico implies that trying to escape one’s past can lead to harmful circumstances, which may in fact destroy the individual.

Moreover, Pachico implies that forgetting one’s past...