The Third Resignation by Gabriel García Márquez. Short summary

5 seconds

The doctor who diagnosed the boy with an incurable disease told the mother that he could prolong the patient’s life. The child would remain motionless and the fact that he was alive could only be judged by the change in height.

1 minute

The hero was tormented by a deaf and painful noise in his head. He understood that he would soon be gone, for he had heard a similar one the first time he died. Before he saw his corpse, he guessed that it was his body. The boy felt his disease-stricken body fill with death.

As he lay in his coffin, ready to be buried, the hero was aware that he was not dead. Had he attempted to get up, he would have succeeded without difficulty. The doctor had earlier assured his mother that her son was terminally ill, but that he would do everything possible to prolong his life. In doing so, his motor functions would be restricted and he would only be known to be alive by a change in his height.

When he first died, the narrator was seven years old. His mother ordered a small coffin for him, but the doctor told him to make a larger one because an adult would not fit in there. The mother ended up ordering the casket as for a teenager and putting 3 pillows in her son’s legs. Soon the boy began to grow inside the box, and every year the extra space had to be made up.