Many years ago, there were only two people in the world; Old Man and Old Woman. One time while they were traveling around the earth, Old Woman said to Old Man, "Let's come to an agreement of some kind. Let's decide how the people should live when they come to this earth."
"Well," said Old Man, "I should have the first say in everything."
"I agree with you," said Old Woman. "That is, of course, if I may have the second say in everything."
Then Old Man began to make his plans. "The women will have the job of tanning hides. They will rub the brains of the animals on the hides to make them soft, and scrape them with the scraping tools. And they should do all of this very quickly, for it won't be hard work."
"No," said Old Woman, "I won't agree to this. They have to tan hides like you say, but it has to be hard work, so that the good workers can be found out and honored."
"Well," said Old Man, "we will let the people have eyes and mouths, set straight up and down in their faces in a nice, neat line."
"No," replied Old Woman. "Let's not do that that way. Let's put the eyes and mouths in the face like you said, but let's put them crosswise."
"Well," said Old Man, "the people will have ten fingers on each hand."
"No, no, no!" Old Woman cried. "That's way too many. They'd just get in the way. They should have four fingers and one thumb on each hand."
And so the two went on like this until they'd decided everything for how the people would live when they came to the earth.
"What should we do about life and death?" asked Old Woman. "Should the people live forever, or are they going to die sometime?"
Old Woman and Old Man had difficulty agreeing about this one. But finally, Old Man said, "I'll tell you what. I'll throw a buffalo chip in the water. If it floats, the people will die for four days and then come back to life again; if it sinks, they'll die and stay dead."
So, he threw a buffalo chip into the water, and it floated.
"No," said Old Woman, "We WON'T decide it that way, since the buffalo chips always float. I'll throw this rock into the water. If it floats, the people will die for four days and come back, and if it sinks, they will die forever."
So, she threw the rock in the water, and it sank quickly.
"There," said she. "It is better for the people to die forever. If they didn't, they wouldn't feel sorry for each other, and there'd be no sympathy in the world."
"Well," answered Old Man, "let it be that way, then."
After a while, Old Woman had a daughter, who soon became sick and then died. Old Woman was then very sorry that they'd agreed that people should die forever. "Let's talk this over again!" she pleaded.
"No." answered Old Man. "We're not changing what we agreed upon."
And so, to this day, when people die, they stay dead.
This is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood. The violent scene, whose meaning he would not grasp until much later, took place on the great jetty at Orly, a few years before the start of the Third World War.
On Sundays, parents bring their children to watch the planes... Of this Sunday, the child of this story would remember the frozen sun, the scene at the end of the jetty. Moments to remember are just like other moments. They are only made memorable by the scars they leave. The face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had he invented the tender gesture to shield him from the madness to come? The sudden noise, the woman's gesture, the crumpling body, the cries of the crowd. Later, he knew he had seen a man die.
And sometime later, Paris was destroyed. Many died. Some thought they had won. Others were taken prisoner. The survivors settled underground. Above ground, Paris and no doubt most of the world was uninhabitable, riddled with radioactivity. The victors stood guard over an empire of rats. The prisoners were subjected to experiments apparently of great concern to the experimentors. Afterwards, the latter were disappointed--the others were dead, or went mad.
One day, from among the prisoners, they selected the man whose story this is. He had heard about the Director. He expected to meet the mad scientist, a Dr. Frankenstein. Instead, he found a gentle man who calmly explained that the human race was cut off from space, and the only hope for survival lay in time, a hole in time through which to send food, energy, supplies. The aim of the experiments was to send an emissary into time to summon the past and future to the aid of the present. But the mind balked at the idea. To awaken in another age was to be born again, fully grown. The shock was too great. So, having failed repeatedly, the experimentors began selecting subjects given to strong mental images. Having a memory of a certain time, they might be able to reinhabit it. This man was chosen because of his obsession with an image from the past.
At first he is simply ejected from the present and its certainties. They begin again. He does not die. He does not go mad. He suffers. They continue. On the tenth day, images begin to appear, like confessions. A morning in peacetime. A bedroom in peacetime--a real bedroom, real children, real birds, real cats, real graves.
On the sixteenth day, he is on the jetty. Empty. Sometimes he recaptures a happy day, but different; a happy face, but different; ruins; a girl who might be the one he seeks. He passes her on the jetty. She smiles at him from an automobile. Other images appear, merge, in that museum which is, perhaps, his memory.
On the thirtieth day, the meeting takes place. He is sure he recognizes her. It is the only thing he is sure of in this world whose richness amazes him. Fabulous materials everywhere--glass, plastic, velvet. When he recovers from his trance, the woman is gone.
The experimentors tighten their controls and send him back on the trail. Time flows by again, the moment returns. This time, he is close to her, speaks to her. She welcomes him without surprise. They are without plans, without memories. Time builds up around them, their only landmarks the flavor of the moment and the markings on the walls. Later, they are in a garden. He remembers that there once were gardens. She asks about his medallion--the dog tags he wore in the war which is yet to come. He invents an explanation. They stop at a tree trunk, covered with historic dates. She mentions an unknown name. As in a dream, he points beyond the tree and hears himself saying "that is where I come from," and he fall back, exhausted.
Another wave of time washes over him, the result of another injection perhaps. This time she is asleep in the sun. He thinks that, in the time it has taken him to return to her world, she may have died. She awakens, and again he talks to her. The truth being too fantastic to believe, he tells only the essentials--a distant contry, a long journey. She listens, not mocking him. Is it still the same day? He no longer knows. During endless walks they will take, a deep unspoken trust will grow between them, until he senses before them a wall.
This was the first of a series of experiments in which he would meet her at different times. Sometimes he finds her in front of their markings. She welcomes him happily. She calls him her ghost. One day she seems frightened. Another day she leans toward him. He is never sure whether he seeks her out or is sent, whether he invents or dreams.
On about the fiftieth day, they meet in a museum filled with eternal creatures. By now, the technique has been perfected. Aimed at a given moment in time, he can live there and move about freely. She too seems used to it. She accepts the behavior of this visitor who comes and goes, exists, speaks, laughs with her, is silent, listens, disappears.
Back once more in the laboratory, he sensed a change. The camp Director was there. From the conversation he gathered that after the success of his trips into the past they want him to go into the future. Excited by this idea, he did not realize that the meeting in the museum had been the last.
The future was better protected than the past. After even more exhausting efforts, he made contact with the world of the future--a world tranformed; Paris rebuilt; then thousand unknown avenues. Other men awaited him. Clearly they rejected his leftovers from another age. He recited his lesson: since mankind had survived, surely it could not deny assistance to its own past. This sophism was accepted as Destiny in disguise. He was given a power supply strong enough to start the world's industry, then again the doors to the future closed.
Soon after his return, he was sent to another part of the camp. He knew they would not spare him. He had been a tool in their hands. His childhood memory had been the bait. He had played his part, and now they would liquidate him, together with his memory of a time twice-lived. Then, deep within him, he received a message from the men of the future. They too travelled in time, more easily. They invite him into their world. But he asked for something else. Rejecting their tranquillized future, he asked that they return him to the world of his childhood, and the woman who perhaps awaited him.
Back on the jetty at orly, on this hot Sunday before the war, where he could now stay, he realized that the child he had once been must be there too, watching the planes. But first he looked for the woman's face, at the end of the jetty. He ran towards her. But when he saw the man from the underground camp he realized that one cannot escape time, and that this haunted moment, given him to see as a child, was the moment of his own death.
Once upon a time, a man, his horse and his dog were travelling along a road. As they passed by a huge tree, it was struck by lightning and they all died. But the man didn't realize that he was dead so he continued walking with his two animal companions, just as before.
It was a long, uphill walk, the sun was beating down on them and they were all hot and thirsty. At a bend in the road they saw a magnificent marble gateway that led into a gold-paved square. And in the centre of the square was a fountain overflowing with crystal-clear water.
"Good morning. What is this place?"
"It's Heaven," the guard at the entrance replied.
"Well I'm very glad to see it, I can tell you, because we're extremely thirsty."
"You're welcome to come in and drink all the water you want."
"My horse and dog need water too."
"I'm terribly sorry," said the guard, "but animals are not allowed in here."
Although the man was really thirsty, he was not prepared to drink alone. So he thanked the guard and went on his way. Exhausted after more trudging uphill, they eventually reached an old gateway that opened on to a dirt road flanked by trees. A man, his hat pulled down over his face, was stretched out in the shade of one of the trees, apparently asleep.
"Good morning," said the traveler.
The other man greeted him with a nod.
"We're very thirsty - me, my horse and my dog."
"There's a spring over there amongst those rocks," said the man indicating the spot. You can drink as much as you want."
So they went to the spring, quenched their thirst and the traveler then returned to thank the man.
"By the way, what's this place called?"
"Heaven."
"Heaven. But the guard at the marble gateway told me that was Heaven!"
"That's not Heaven, that's Hell."
The traveler was puzzled. "You shouldn't let others take your name in vain, you know! False information can lead to all kinds of confusion!"
"On the contrary, they do us a great favor. The ones who stay there are those who have proved themselves capable of abandoning their dearest friends and have no place here anyway."
Ava was a good girl. Their only sin was to give birth to a child without a husband, in a town like Shiraz.
I met her when I was a teenager. Then it does not fix me, I was not anybody, nor deserved. Today things have changed: I am the mayor.
His family was in Khorasan Aires, had a great and a lot of money. Only child of bohemian mother and father "evil entertaining, traveling the world with no charges. When his parents came to the secondary pupil chose to let the nuns at school and my aunt Mehr-Bano, officiated tutor in exchange for occupying the old building had to face the plaza.
She was very pretty. Was distinguished by his way of walking, by his grace. The men, with its undulating walk, across the square. It was nice and pretended he knew but none got their favors. It was not a woman either, except for those, harass their way or were hiding behind the bushes to watch.
He returned to the village a few months ago. Neither their parents nor the camps exist. You do not have anything or anybody, only one son and fuzzy memories. Currently holds fourth in the pension of beans and my aunt was working through it in the bakery.
My aunt would have confidence, he has things the other day said she had been very hard to accept this child, but in fact he had always liked children, recalled that nearly drove the convent when they refused to surrender adoption.
According to her, man, man really was only one: Siyavash.
Siyavash worked as a laborer at the mill of the nuns, where she was sent to hide her pregnancy. With him escaped to Khorasan Aires full of dreams and projects that could not meet.
Mehr-Bano aunt wants me to marry her, I think possibilities. He tells me all night Jacinta prays in front of the image of the Virgin.
A few days ago I saw her again. the bakery is near the quartermaster and I could see from the car: it is still beautiful. I still remember that day of spring when along with other novices was swimming in the river and into the bush to change. She could not see us. There we became men, where I lost my.... Fortunately, her son is not like any of them.
She want to be famous,
Revelation itself?
Late in her life
Treading clouds
moment
I believe to her
Last night we went,
the restaurant
shadows at night,
She looked
But I was not ...
lifeless body
containing
not content
content
continent ...
I suspect invades a happiness
As a bullet in his imagination,
Or waking up in Paradise,
But the truth of this smile
is the mysterious appearance of Pax ...
When you get close, you can see perfectly. It's like at the beginning, when you sleep and could include, without haste, as the artist loves his model with just a look.
You can be quiet now that what happened will only be a mystery to the curious still listed suicide as the cause, that the known and unknown at this time around us, they can make without fear of error, that a decision like that would not be so outlandish ...
If you could repeat again that I never liked the cynicism or large cities, and that these events even further suffocate me that the mere fact of being back and watching the sky, having to receive the reasons for the guests, knowing that sooner or later we will see. And what good that you are still not very concerned that one day I'll be at my side again.
I admire your coolness result of your nervousness, because you know that any mistake would mean a life in prison, or perhaps in a clinic, where my last cries do not stop to sleep and not sleep yesterday, when the hysteria seized, Your hands and pointed at me.
If you could come back to say "I love you" ... If you could only get out of this box...
The days on the island passed peacefully, smoothly, until that fateful morning in the
Teresa found a black spot on the sea horizon, then another and another and annoying
itching for a black omen traveled throughout his body.
Teo, the incombustible hippy London, peering the horizon from the vantage point of an insecure
injured by the scourge of sea wind. The air degenerate the sheaves of dirty hair
that almost completely burned face, angular, man. With her the Castilian
Prairie launched a question that did not surprise either of these:
"Those guys, who will be hell?"
Teresa responded with just the words, neither more nor less, and all felt the sharp in his soul
bitterness of dreams ended in the hopes had barely begun when malogradas
germinate:
"They're the real world."
Not too much time had passed since the last time you felt this profound regret Teresa
inside. It was during the days of embarrassing retreat in his home town, a beautiful town on the coast
Cantabria. In contrast to his previous visit to the town, with the parade Cadillac
street, under a rain of paper and colored streamers, feeling the touch of thousands of
Hands feel anxious success, treading the soft carpet leading to the table gala
chaired by the mayor's pearly smile, the last and final (because it was to stay)
arrival occurred at night under a downpour Seat Panda provided.
A few days later the local paper published in a discreet corner of the page read less, a
short notice: "The withdrawal singer Teresa Lopez finally returned to their homeland." When reading
This Teresa not overlooked several details that reveal your current credit among its neighbors in
First, qualify as "singer withdrawal," a euphemism for no clear mention what
all thought:
"Singer failed," cried the woman in the solitude of the small room floor of his legacy
parents. Some tears his vision, which acknowledged it was just wanting to see anything.
Knelt on the floor, heads bowed, closed fists on the legs. She needed a breathing
but did not have at its disposal a shoulder on which mourn or a mouth that whispered some
warm words of hope, therefore, in a display of masochism, he sought to flee their anguish
deepening the cause of your pain. He returned to take the newspaper and continued reading: "The singer
Teresa Lopez withdrawal ...". Teresa Lopez, the concierge Teresa, Teresina. There was never again would
Tessa, the smile on a hot hair of pure gold, the favorite prey of the best photographers,
rifaban the lover is the most powerful men in the country. Took breath and finished the sentence:
"... finally returns to his homeland." Definitely, that is, to die, because the same thing
him to continue to die a miserable existence.
Their neighbors, both new as usual, received with polite indifference. Neither nor far.
There is, as the castle, the main street, the church, the harbor, the beaches, the estuary, which sharpener
returns each spring and the poor who took refuge in the arcade every winter. The
the first few months and some council - counted - fans really true
"old liners" of the song that kept their faith against the strident new wind
music, tried to revive something that detracted from the cold ashes of the once prestigious race
Teresa, or rather, Tessa. So, the house of culture screened several movies featuring
the above, preceded by a symposium at which all three attended nostalgic always on duty. Aquel
Technicolor Film veraneos with eternal, trouserpress sweater with a peak in girls and modesty
Vespa had gone very, very trendy, fortunately. Teresa believed invited a stone
presiding over an almost empty room (it in December!) and therefore declined to participate in
projections of the remaining cycle, a decision that was not too important because the cycle
fenecio itself pure starvation. The council, which had fans abound
not confessed to Tessa, offered to chair the jury of the "Song of Summer" which
eventually reached its eleventh edition of congratulations to the public and local authorities,
district and provincial levels. However, there also found your site: jurors
(young singers, composers, broadcasters) the tried and looked like a president
I had very little honorable to scratch at the show, the few contestants who had to
bold advice during the pre-selection Teresa received the sermon with the same
I found an enthusiastic hard cardboard in faltriquera. Disappointed, discouraged,
withdrew all advertising and are held in the four walls of the floor ajadas family overcrowded
photos and memories of the grandparents and some fishermen stamp forgotten the wedding of their parents,
when the humble yet betrothed bride dressed in black.
In this way, the daily routine has become customary in monotony, perhaps martyrdom:
awaken late at half past ten or eleven, go to the grocery store bakery and avoiding
agglomerations of housewives; return home regardless of rigor in the comments ( "look,
baby, you can remove pa stupidity of being a singer, "was all I wanted, and more ... And how
over! "," if the poor Ramiro lifted his head! "), through the portal and climb the ladder to avoid
the questioning of the widow of the mezzanine and repugnant insinuations bachelor's attic;
enter the house, throw the bags on the sitting area, falling to lead the armchair where the red grandfather
read the "ABC" stand with empty eyes, lost somewhere in between the paper and colored
plaster from the ceiling ... Sometimes, few would have to go to the pharmacy to buy
Nerve pills ...
One rainy afternoon in May, while some cursed bride at the altar instability
atmospheric and high school students in the calendar marked the fateful reviews, the
buzzer sounded repeatedly in the street. Teresa used to send the kids to hell
that enjoyed by disrupting its silence, left on the kitchen table filled with a glass
colored pills and fell determined to open the portal. To his surprise, did not appear any child
rebellious, but as a man of about fifty years old, thin face framed by a
guedejas greasy hair, shoes with sandals and dressed in rags putrefactas a
indescribable color. Smelled bad. Teresa had the temptation to close the door on the nose, but chose
to maintain a minimum of courtesy:
"If you come to beg, I am afraid you have chosen the site unless stated, my economy
is very buoyant and say that I do not want to chat with strangers, so if I
allows ... "The man stopped the movement of the door by hand. The woman felt a shiver
of terror, feeling that the man's intentions were not good: "Now I just need to
to violate a lousy fifty years. "However, the man released the door and stayed in the
Street, making gestures with his hand to calm Teresa, and began to speak in a
Castilian precarious:
"You do not know me, but you known each other for me. I call Teo, English I, me good, I
believe in universal love and do not harm anyone .. y.. "
"Well, well, well! But why you come to see me? Do not you see I have no desire to
talk with anyone? I was looking for my things y. .. ¡Zas! Now it is to become a melenudo
please! "
"No visit. I have a better place for you, with single people, unfortunately, hopeless. Company
not accidentally hurt society. They will be fine there, insurance, alone, no one bothered, no one hurt.
All happy in their own way. I want you to come with me, come to the beach Paloma twelve night.
No regret, be better than death. "
Still persisted penetrating odor when Teo Teresa woke caused by the embobamiento
word of it. Closed the site, he returned to the floor and grabbed the frantic decision of the glass
pills, but never catarlas.
At twelve o'clock met Teo at the beach, the scene of past trips and forgotten
snacks. He invited to drink from a bottle, liquor, or whatever, I had a taste
comforting and sweet. After English was stripped and invited Teresa to imitate, she hesitated for a
moment, thinking that it is not wanted to make love with a guy so Guarro, but shortly afterwards
got naked in the sea and noticed the cold touch of water in their meat, again the feeling of Tessa
yesteryear.
After several strokes reached a raft of logs and lay, exhausted, on her. A
Teresa is no longer repugnant aroma of Teo, but on the contrary, he smelled a male, why not
withstood the test skin purified by salt and I do love the Tramp. Tomorrow
Island reached a strange, puzzling, populated only by people whose lives had not
been a constant and exhausting flight. Dwelt there artists without talent, opponents
failed, divorced looted by their former spouses, rebellious misfits, eternal child
bodied adult, missing husbands or wives while they were going to buy snuff, individuals
profession known spoiled children without resources to survive, perpetual melancholy, mad
evicted and some silly auction. Formed a republic in which the only rule was unworkable
"Forget everything and everyone will forget," the company away from their traditional daily
recalled their miseries, there were equal because they all joined the complex, the evils, the
obsessions. So Teresa lived for a time with relative happiness at the island, along
with Teo and other stateless trasegando foreign liquors, singing (rather desafinando) in
around the campfire and then, occasionally, love.
Until the day I arrived everyone expected, but nobody recognized publicly, and
some black spots appeared on the horizon and the marine inhabitants of the island knew it was
and definitely the time to awaken their fleeting dream.
The authorities are not shaken when they decided to send a pulse to all those strange beings
their places of origin and, therefore, the cradle of their miseries. Teo embarked on its way to London
where he waited two daughters, a woman and a mechanical workshop in decline. A car of the
Teresa left police in front of his house, "until further notice." She repeated the withdrawal
hated routine open the portal, go up the stairs, into the desolate floor, turn on
TV, the fall in red chair, sitting next to bags filled with vegetables
rotten and expired yogurts, including the kitchen table and the glass full of striking
colored pills ...
Television news vomited vacuum that no one collect words.
Old Boy ... Shouts from 8:30.
Scream until 1:15.
Among his prayers and also welcomes the walls with striking object (could be their fists or his head ...).
His window has bars like his.
I promise that once you hear screaming "help."
In addition to confess that sometimes I try to speak as he understood to achieve ...
At the moment I am preparing to send a code with Thanatos, but my plans have been diminished by the few chances I have to reach him.
Perhaps a Old Boy, an alien, a political prisoner, a politician, Osama, Elvis, Lennon, the real Paul, or perhaps myself in my parallel universe...
I like to read but do not really read. I know that but I do not really know. I understand that but do not really understand. I like that but I really am not. I like that river, but not really river. I like drawing but not really picture. I like that but not really like. I like to watch but does not really look. I like that but I realize I do not really mind. I like to hear but not really listening. I like to read but not actually read. I do not know but that really know. I do not understand that but actually understand. I'm not like that but actually I am. I do not like laughing but actually laughing. I do not like drawing but actually drawing. I do not like that but in reality. I do not look like that but actually look. I do not like but I realize I can actually. I do not like to hear but really listen.
