LuisBaltazarPoirier
Pale and fleeting is a collection of horror microfiction by Uruguayan author Luis B. Poirier, subtitled "Brief flashes of horror before darkness devours everything." The anthology comprises stories that blend psychological terror, body horror, and supernatural elements, frequently set against the backdrop of contemporary Montevideo and rural Uruguay. The collection explores recurring motifs of identity dissolution, temporal anomalies, cursed objects, doppelgängers, and the intrusion of the uncanny into quotidian existence. Poirier's narratives employ unreliable narrators, fragmented temporalities, and metafictional techniques to create atmospheres of ontological uncertainty where boundaries between self and other, past and present, reality and delusion become increasingly porous. Central themes include maternal trauma and repressed grief, professional and domestic stasis leading to psychological deterioration, demonic possession reframed as internal fragmentation, and the dissolution of personal identity through supernatural encounters. Poirier's prose oscillates between stark minimalism and baroque elaboration, demonstrating influences from Río de la Plata literary traditions-particularly the metaphysical horror of Jorge Luis Borges and the rural Gothic of Horacio Quiroga-while incorporating contemporary urban alienation and digital age anxieties. The work situates itself within Latin American "weird fiction," employing second person narration and direct reader address to create what has been termed "participatory dread," synthesizing regional specificity with universal themes of existential displacement and corporeal vulnerability.