Mis primeros cuentos de Terror escritos en 1991 y retocados en 2001

English version: this stories have been written in 1991 when I was only thirteen years old and they were corrected in 2001

The Snake Woman

When Ms. Amelia B. Otis inherited from her only relative, María L. Valdemar, the Mansion in Wroclaw (in Poland), she wouldn’t let her friends tell her that, when going down the stairs, on the 17th step, there was a horrible carved inscription that said: “New Snake Man or Woman”.
One day, Ms. Otis was inspecting some paperwork upstairs, when the bell rang and she told the butler: “Matthew, get the key from the wardrobe and open the door, ’cause I can’t go down now.
The manservant, Matthew Andrew, did so and, when he opened the door, a man with sunken eyes, a extremely thin body, a half-open mouth which showed very long sharp teeth. Matthew tried to throw him out, but when Ms. Otis saw him, she said:
“Oh! Mr. Vuttermore! You must be the mansion’s previous owner. My cousin, rest in peace, once showed me a picture of you. I could never forget such a peculiar face as yours is. Please, join us and have a cup of tea.”
“Of course. Come down here and we’ll have a cup of tea.” That singular man said.
As Ms. Otis started her way downstairs, she suddenly remembered about the inscription, and all she saw were words horribly carved with blood.
“You can either serve tea or twist around the handrail.” Said Mr. Vuttermore.
That moment the lady fell and rolled down to the foot of the stairs, her face was covered in blood.
Dumbfounded, Matthew went to help her, and he could do nothing but check her pulse, confirming that she had died, and he noticed that Mr. Vuttermore had vanished. He couldn’t think, as a terrible buzzing noise he hadn’t heard until then startled him. Only then he saw a thick horrible snake crawling toward the stairs.


The Mansion on Elm St.

During Ingrid Yenkins’ birthday she asked her parents to go on a trip to Nebraska, where her aunt Berna lived. Neither she nor her family had heard anything lately about that old spinster aunt that had inherited that big house from her parents and who never answered to their letters but, surprisingly, she did answer Ingrid letter, in which she asked to meet her.
There were only two lines in the letter: “if you trust what you want, come and meet me, and you will certainly find me”.
Two weeks later Ingrid was on the sidewalk on Elm St. The chilling wind and the inscription on 308 Elm St. startled her. She wished she had never asked to meet her aunt – the mansion looked so deserted that she thought no one could live in there. At that moment, someone passing by noticed her looking in despair and asked what she was doing by that deserted house. She replied that her aunt lived there; the man, in his astonishment, told her that she must have been mistaken, since he had never seen anyone come out of that house in years, specifically never in the five years since he moved to the neighborhood. He told her that superstitious people said that nobody came close to that house as shrieks and cries could be heard at night. He worked far from that place and on a late night shift and he was never nearby at night, but he regarded the neighborhood rumors as completely idiotic.
Ingrid felt a sensation of horror course through her soul, turned her head back and spotted a payphone. She ran toward it to call her family, who was over 500km from that place. Nobody Answered. They were probably dining out or visiting her grandmother, who was ill.
In her desperation, she noticed somebody walking in the garden, and she felt greatly relieved, but she lost that person between the bushes and couldn’t see him anymore.
The front door looked open, and she didn’t hesitate to go in. She was terrified and dared not look through the window of the big house, but when she looked inside she noticed that the house was clean and the decoration was splendid. The afternoon sun shed light over the paintings and warmed up the place. That calmed her; probably, there was her aunt, who she was so eager to meet.
The window was unlatched and decided to surprise her aunt. She had a bucket of flowers and some candy for her. She entered quietly and without making any noise. Leaving her purse behind, not looking behind, not even looking at the entrance and the lobby, which led to the stairs, her only purpose to surprise her aunt, she headed toward the stairs, and quietly stated going up. Only the noise that the old wooden floor was making with the soles of her shoes could be heard. At that moment she turned her head back, and what she saw was a totally abandoned house, and light was dim and the walls seems dirty, but she couldn’t tell too well. The last sun beams, which had lit the room only instants ago, had disappeared.
When she got to the last step, she noticed that the flowers she was carrying were withering and the candy she had brought had spent several hours outside a fridge. A sequence of rooms could be seen, and the floor was so dirty that she couldn’t tell what color the wood was.
The door of one of the rooms was ajar, and the only thing Ingrid wanted was to find her aunt. She went in brushing aside her fear, her feeling that something strange was happening there. She noticed a bed with no sheets, a rotten bedside table and a huge spider on the wall. She looked at the ground and, then the room suddenly appeared lavishly furnished, with a delicate bedspread, and jewels were all over the bedside table, along with a golden portrait and an old picture. That sight stayed imprinted in her memory at that horrible instant. She got out screaming and, at the bottom step of the stairs she stumbled with a skeleton lying on the wooden floor. She dropped her purse and ran away.
Ingrid thought she was going crazy, and ran away, sobbing and not looking behind during the ten blocks that stood between her and the airport.
She didn’t want to think about it. Her flight was about to take off and she bought a ticket trying to cover the horror in her eyes. An hour later, she was sitting and on her way home, next to a lady with her head bent down and sleeping. She didn’t even wake up, as weird as it seemed to let her place her bags when she got on the plane.
At lunchtime, the stewardess approached her, and said:
“Why don’t you get your bags inside? You’re lucky no one is sitting next to you, so you can get yourself comfortable.”
“But...” Ingrid looked at the seat beside her and saw that woman, who had woken up and looked at her with hungry eyes, and all she could do was to scream and realize that she was the same person that was in the portrait.
Ingrid died on the spot from a heart attack and the woman exclaimed:
“Hi, niece. I only wanted to give you the purse you forgot at the mansion. Anyway, now you can come visit me without being afraid and bring me candy and fresher flowers.


Dream Night

One night in the fall of the year 2099, XP90 went for a ride on his metallic plane. The thick fog didn’t let him see clearly, and he didn’t want to pay the fine to the Tanne Corp. for going through the Blue Line. No one could pay that sum, and the punishment for not paying was worse than death. Suddenly, a valve blew up and the plane started falling at a high speed. His life flashed through his mind in a second, past, present and future of his seventeen years. A lump formed in his throat, as his future didn’t exist any more and his present had become a tragedy. How could he realize that?
When he woke up, it was total darkness and he was out of the plane, that didn’t look damaged at all. Probably he could land and then he fainted from the shock, which was why he couldn’t remember a thing.
He noticed the sky was reddish and a shade of emerald green could be seen toward the horizon. He certainly was many kilometers from home as the landscape wasn’t familiar to him. He probably was in the forbidden zone. Everything seemed so harsh there. Beauty hadn’t been perfected by the wise hands of the Tanne Chemical Corporation, if compared to the rural characteristics of his town, a completely normal place, where houses were many, with their steel windows and their parabolic windows. There the nuclear acids and radiation had destroyed – thank God, the corporation said – almost all the vegetation. The few trees still standing had neither brightness nor color. They were appropriate and necessary, as they didn’t promote the search for beauty, offended people’s sight or distracted them from work or the path to perfect chemistry, as told in the Holy Scriptures.
He moved away from the plane, looking for help. His legs couldn’t support him, probably from the fall. He walked for hours, which seemed eternal for him, as he was tired and hungry. Luckily he still kept, in his shirt pocket, one of the Xiux pills, which softened fear and appetite. Not seeing anything resembling civilization, exhausted already and losing hope as night was coming, he saw a hut afar. It didn’t look like the metal the houses he’d seen were made of. Think type of metal seemed a similar white material, which he thought he might have seen in old pictures of his grandparents’ house, of which the name was concrete; and the roof had long bright reddish pieces, which he’d seen in an old picture too, and which were called tiles, if memory served him right. As he got closer, he realized that the people living there had not installed the new functional alarm system. He then approached the house unafraid of the sharp noise that drove away the smallest insect that stepped into a radius of 10 sq. meters, which he himself had to withstand for distractedly entering into private property.
Silence was total. When he knocked at the door, a young lady opened the door and she blinked, somewhat frightened. XP hadn’t noticed his dirty looks, the paleness in his face, the black circles under his eyes. The girl was wearing the strangest dress, similar to that light fabric that was used to wrap the dead before burning them. With that dress, she didn’t look at all like the silver garments worn by the young in his town. Just a moment later appeared two people with horribly wrinkled faces; he’d never seen anything like it in his young age. Unable to look at the in the face, he asked to use the phone.
He told them what had happened to him, besides telling them he was from a town called Troy, and asking how far he was from home. Mr. and Mrs. Mc Osic didn’t seem to believe him, but appeared to be trusting and kind. They would have doubted anyone from outside the Blue Zone, but he seemed a helpless young man, who needed their help. He could be a spy, but as he had no cameras or any personal effect, it seemed impossible that he might be dangerous. They told him that there were no phones in the zone and that the nearest city was 100 km from where he was. They also told him that he could spend the night over, and that they would gladly take him to town at dawn in their truck. As it was getting dark and it wasn’t a good time to drive, or a good time for him to be alone, as personnel from Natural Anticontemplation and Amusement Control would detain him, he decided to accept the invitation, wondering about the poor aspect of that people, who probably didn’t take any sessions with Botix, which stretch the skin and were mandatory after 27 years old, to protect the skin from the UV rays and show a perfect body. But as they knew about outside the Blue Zone, he couldn’t have landed too far inside the Forbidden Zone.
At dinner, they talked about the terrible storm approaching, XP didn’t taste a thing. He didn’t know that that thing with an appearance similar to birds that were from the last animal he could remember from when he was a child, and which had been extinguished in 2090 by the Food Tanne Corp. He could barely remember how much he cried, as a child, when he lost his dog Zeus, but was the best for him, as the media reported that animals had been possessed by a strange force and infected human beings with a horrible disease. There was no choice but to exterminate all animals from the face of the earth, except those beyond the Blue Zone, where they’d be kept for studies. That vague memory and others he’d heard on the radio or read somewhere else, and couldn’t tell the details, suddenly vanished from his mind: How something so hideous and dangerous like that animal could be on the table with other stuff with round shape and white color? Mr. and Mrs. Mc Osic insisted that he eat, but he said he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t even look at the animal. Who could consider eating something like that? Those people couldn’t be sane, and would be soon deported for possession of animal and worse, for ingestion.
With the confidence inspired by the Tanne Corporation, the only ones on the market that could make a young man the strongest and most athletic in the world, besides Xiux and Linux, which had an antinatural control complex, and his adoration for Tanne chemicals, which, in its millionaire sales, had outdone the traditional Coca-Cola, a drink banned for its dangerous and natural ingredients.
“It seems that the acids are reaching the farm. It was futile to fence the area so the Stellars wouldn’t see it. What little there was left of fertile soil was to be attacked”, the Stellars didn’t like people preferred natural food over their healthy and nourishing metallic pills. “Tomorrow I’ll go to the town to buy the materials we need to metallize the hut.” Mc Osic added with a tired and resigned voice.
Grief stricken, Mc Osic got up from the table and asked Mrs. Mc Osic to make the guest room ready and continued:
“In the morning we’ll go to the big metallurgic bulk in front of the cemetery. I’ll find what I need there and there you’ll be able to use the phone and take a bus.”
XP90 was taken to the room were he’d spend the night. He slept soundly in that comfortable bed where he never thought he’d be able to relax in that way to sleep. In his own bed he had to endure the wires used to shape his body to prepare it for war.
XP had a confusing dream, where a deserted landscape appeared, way more deserted than his own town’s, where he was walking alone, but there was no loneliness in his soul whatsoever despite not being any signs of matter around him, except the air, in which he was floating. He felt he needed nothing but to fly in that kind of fog and feel both material and immaterial at the same time.


La mujer serpiente
Cuando la señora Amelia B. Otis adquirió como herencia de su única parienta, María L. Valdemar, la mansión de Wroclaw (Polonia), no aceptaba, que sus amigas le dijeran que, al bajar de la escalera, en el escalón 17, había una horrible inscripción tallada, que decía “new man snake or new woman snake”.
Cierto día, la señora Otis estaba inspeccionando unos papeleos en el piso de arriba, cuando en ese instante sonó el timbre y dijo al mayordomo: -Matthew, saca la llave del armario y abre la puerta que no puedo bajar.
El sirviente, Andrew Matthew, obedeció y, al abrir la puerta, un hombre de ojos hundidos, flaquísimo, que mostraba con la boca entreabierta dientes muy largos y afilados. Matthew intentó sacarlo pero cuando la señora Otis lo vio dijo:
-Oh! Señor Vuttermore, usted debe ser el antiguo dueño de la mansión. Me ha mostrado su fotografía mi prima, en paz descanse. Jamás pude olvidar un rostro tan personal como el suyo, por favor sírvase a acompañarnos con una taza de té.
-Como no, baje y tomaremos el té. Dijo el singular hombre.
Cuando la Sra. Otis comenzó a bajar, recordó repentinamente la inscripción, y no vio sino unas palabras horriblemente grabadas con sangre.
-Podrá venir a servir el té o enroscarse en el pasamanos, dijo el señor Vuttermore.
En ese momento rodó la señora por la escalera hasta el descansillo de la escalera, tenía la cara cubierta de sangre.
Matthew acudió estupefacto en su ayuda, no pudo atinar más que a tomar el pulso de la señora, comprobar que ésta había muerto y el extraño señor Vuttermore había desaparecido. No podía pensar, ya que un terrible zumbido junto a la ventana y que no había observado hasta ese momento, lo sobresaltó, fue ahí cuando vio a una horrible y gorda víbora deslizándose hacia la escalera.

La mansión de la calle Elm

Cuando Ingrid Yenkings cumplió años pidió a sus padres como regalo un viaje al estado de Nebraska, donde vivía su tía Berna. Ni ella ni la familia tenían noticias de aquella tía soltera que había heredado de sus padres la casona y jamás les respondía las cartas, pero, sorprendentemente, dio respuesta a aquella carta de Ingrid en donde pedía conocerla.
La respuesta sólo tenía dos renglones y decía “si confías en lo que deseas ven a verme, de seguro podrás encontrarme”.
Dos semanas más tarde Ingrid se encontraba en la vereda de la calle Elm, un viento helado y la inscripción de la calle Elm 308 la sorprendieron. Deseó no haber nunca pedido conocer a su tía: la mansión parecía tan abandonada, que creyó que nadie podría habitarla, en ese momento, alguien pasó advirtiéndola desesperanzada y le preguntó que hacía junto a esa casa abandonada. Ella le explicó que allí vivía su tía; el hombre no pudo más que mostrar su cara de asombro diciéndole que, seguramente, ella se había confundido, porque allí no había visto salir a nadie en años, más precisamente en los cinco años que él se había mudado, que la gente ignorante decía que nadie se acercaba a la casa porque por la noche se escuchaban gritos y llantos, él trabajaba lejos del lugar y además turno vespertino, jamás estaba por las noches pero creía de absoluta idiotez los comentarios del vecindario.
Ingrid sintió que un hilo de horror invadía su alma, giro su cabeza y vio un teléfono enfrente, se acercó corriendo para llamar a su familia, que estaba a más de 500 kilómetros del lugar. Nadie contestaba a la llamada, seguramente sus padres habrían salido a comer o a visitar a su abuela, que estaba enferma. En medio de esa desesperación, vio que en la mansión había alguien caminando por los jardines, un gran alivio sintió en ese momento, pero la persona se había perdido entre los arbustos y ya a nadie veía.
La puerta de entrada parecía abierta y no dudó en entrar. Tenía la piel de gallina, no se atrevía a mirar por la ventana del gran caserón, pero cuando dirigió su mirada hacia el interior observó que la casa estaba limpia y la decoración era espléndida, la luz del atardecer iluminaba los cuadros y daba calidez al ambiente. Eso la tranquilizó, allí debía estar su tía que con tanta ansiedad esperaba conocer.
La ventana estaba sin traba y decidió darle una sorpresa a la tía, tenía un ramillete de flores y unos dulces para ella. Entró despacio sin hacer el menor ruido. Dejando el bolso afuera de la casa, sin mirar hacia atrás, ni siquiera apreciando la entrada y la galería que conducía hacia la escalera con el solo objetivo de sorprenderla, se dirigió hacia la misma, comenzó a subir silenciosamente, sólo se escuchaba la madera vieja que hacía ruido con la suela de sus zapatos. En ese preciso momento dio vuelta su cabeza y lo que vio era una casa completamente abandonada, pero la luz era escasa las paredes de pronto parecían sucias, pero ya no podía distinguirlo con tanta claridad. Los últimos rayos de sol que habían iluminado esa parte del recinto hacia instantes, desaparecieron.
Al llegar al último escalón bajó el brazo y observó que las flores que llevaba se estaban marchitando y los dulces habían esperado varias horas fuera del refrigerador. Veíanse una serie de habitaciones, el piso estaba tan sucio que no podía distinguir el color de la madera.
Una de las habitaciones tenía la puerta entreabierta, ya nada quería Ingrid más que encontrar a su tía. Entró sin dejar que su cabeza hiciera caso del miedo o el temor de que algo extraño estaba sucediendo allí, observó una cama sin sábanas, una mesita de luz podrida y una enorme araña sobre la pared, miró al suelo y en ese instante la habitación se le apareció, de pronto, lujosamente amueblada con un fino cubrecamas y la mesita de luz estaba cubierta de joyas, un portarretratos de oro y una fotografía antigua, quedaron esas imágenes grabadas en su memoria en ese instante de espanto, salió gritando y bajando la escaleras, se tropezó en el último escalón con un esqueleto que yacía sobre el piso de madera. Dejó caer la bolsa en el piso y huyó.
Ingrid creyó enloquecer y salió corriendo, sollozando sin mirar atrás en las diez cuadras que la separaban del aeropuerto.
No quería pensar, el vuelo ya salía y sacó un pasaje tratando de disimular el horror en sus ojos. Una hora después, se encontraba sentada rumbo a su casa, junto a una señora que tenía la cabeza agachada y dormía, ni siquiera se despertó, qué extraño le había parecido, para dejarla acomodar los bolsos, cundo ella subió al avión
A la hora del almuerzo apareció la azafata y le dijo:
_Porque no acomodas tus bolsos en el asiento de al lado: tienes la suerte de que no te haya tocado un acompañante, así que puedes comer cómoda.
-Pero... -Ingrid miro hacia el asiento y vio a aquella mujer que se había despertado y la miraba con ojos hambrientos, no pudo más que gritar y darse cuenta que era la misma persona que vio en el portarretratos.
Ingrid murió al instante de un ataque cardíaco y la mujer exclamó.
-Sobrina solo quería alcanzarte el bolso que te olvidaste en la mansión, bueno ahora ya podrás visitarme sin miedo a casa y traerme dulces y flores más frescas
Noche de ensueño
Cierta noche de otoño del año 2099 XP90, salió a dar un paseo en su avión metálico. La espesa niebla no le dejaba ver con claridad, no quería pagar la multa por pasar la línea que la compañía Tanne cobraba por pasar la zona azul, nadie podría pagar esa cifra y la pena por hacerlo era peor que la muerte. De pronto, una válvula estalló en mil pedazos y el avión comenzó caer velozmente, imágenes de su vida pasaron por su cabeza en un segundo, pasado, presente y futuro de sus diecisiete años se le hicieron un nudo en la garganta, su futuro ya no existía y su presente se había convertido en tragedia ¿cómo podría tener conciencia de aquello?.
Cuando despertó estaba completamente a oscuras fuera del avión, que no parecía tener daño alguno.
Seguramente había podido aterrizar y se había desmayo por el shock, por eso no recordaba nada.
Observaba que el cielo era rojizo, y se divisaba un verde esmeralda hacia el horizonte.
Creía sin duda se encontraba a muchos kilómetros de su hogar, porque el paisaje no le resultaba conocido, debía estar en la zona prohibida, todo se veía tan agresivo allí la belleza no estaba pulida por manos sabias de la compañía química Tanne. Comparado a las características agrestes de su pueblo, lugar nada fuera de lo común ya que las casas eran innumerables con sus ventanas de acero y sus ventanas parabólicas, donde la radiación y los ácidos nucleares habían acabado -gracias a dios¬-, decía la compañía, con casi la totalidad de la vegetación y los escasos árboles que se mantenían en pie eran tenues, sin brillo, ni color. Eran, los apropiados y necesarios ya que no inspiraban la búsqueda de la belleza y no agredían la vista ni desconcentraban el trabajo ni el camino a la química perfecta, según decía en las sagradas escrituras.
Comenzó a alejarse del avión en busca de ayuda, sus piernas no lo sostenían, seguramente por la intensidad de la caída.
Camino horas que para el parecían eternas, por el cansancio y el hambre, afortunadamente todavía conservaba en su camisa una de las pastillas Xiux que atenuaban el temor y calmaban el apetito.
Sin poder ver un solo rastro de civilización ya exhausto y perdiendo la fe porque la noche se acercaba, diviso a lo lejos una cabaña, no se parecía en nada al metal con el que estaban construidas las que el conocía, esta parecía ser de una clase de material blanco, parecido, al que antiguamente creía haber visto en una foto de la casa de sus abuelos, que estos llamaban cemento. El techo era de unas piezas alargadas rojizas y con brillo, que había visto en alguna foto antigua a las que se les llamaba tejas, si mal no recordaba.
Al acercarse pudo darse cuenta, que los habitantes de esa casa, no habían comprado el nuevo sistema de alarma funcional, entonces se acerco sin temer ese ruido punzante que alejaba a el insecto mas pequeño que rodeara los 10 metros cuadrados, y que el mismo había tenido que soportar por pisar distraído, alguna propiedad privada. El silencio era absoluto. Al tocar la puerta una jovencita le abrió y parpadeó un tanto espantada. No había reparado XP en su aspecto sucio, la palidez de su cara y las ojeras negras y ligeramente hundidas debajo de sus ojos.
La joven tenía un vestido rarísimo, como de un material ligero con el que se envolvían a los muertos antes de quemarlos. El que ella lucía, no se parecía en nada, a los atuendos plateados de Linux que llevaban los jóvenes de su pueblo. Al instante aparecieron dos personas, un hombre y una mujer, que debían ser los dueños del lugar, y estaban horriblemente arrugados. Nunca había visto algo igual en su corta edad. Sin poder mirarlos a la cara les pidió un teléfono, les contó su corta historia, además de contarles que vivía en el pueblo Troy y preguntar a cuanta distancia se hallaba de su hogar, los Sres Mc Osic no parecían mostrar signos de creerle demasiado, ni de conocer el pueblo, pero se mostraron confiados y amables con el, hubiesen desconfiado de cualquiera que no fuera de la zona azul pero el parecía un joven desvalido y que necesitaba ayuda, podía ser un espía, pero como no tenía cámaras ni objetos personales les pareció imposible que resultara peligroso, le dijeron que en esa zona no había teléfonos y la ciudad mas cercana se encontraba a 100 kilómetros, que podía quedarse esa noche allí y al amanecer lo llevarían con gusto en su camioneta al pueblo, pues estaba oscureciendo y no era buena hora para manejar, ni para que el anduviese solo, ya que el Personal Control de Esparcimiento y Anticontemplación Natural lo detendría.
Decidió aceptar la invitación, preguntándose acerca del aspecto tan desmejorado de esa gente, seguramente no harían sesiones de Botix, que estiraban la piel y eran obligatorias luego de los 27 años para impermeabilizar los rayos ultravioletas y lucir el cuerpo perfecto, pero que informados estaban de la realidad, por ende no podía haber aterrizado tan lejos de su hogar quizás un poco mas allá de la zona prohibida.
En la cena hablaron de la terrible tormenta que se avecinaba, XP no probo bocado, no sabia que era aquella cosa con forma uniforme similar a unas aves que habían sido uno de los últimos animales que el recordaba de pequeño y que habían sido exterminados en el año 2090 por orden de la compañía alimenticia Tanne.
A penas podía recordar como lloraba de pequeño al perder a su perro Zeus pero era lo mas conveniente ya que los medios comentaban que los animales habían sido poseídos por una fuerza extraña y contagiaban una horrible enfermedad mortal para el ser humano, no había otra alternativa que exterminar todos los animales de la faz de la tierra a excepción de los que se encontraban mas allá de la zona azul, donde serían preservados para estudios. Ese vago recuerdo y otros que había escuchado en las radios o leído y no podía precisar detalles, se esfumaron repentinamente de su mente.
¿Cómo podía estar algo tan horrendo y peligroso como ese animal en la mesa con otras mas de aspecto redondo y color blanco?
Los Sres Mc Osic le insistieron para que comiera pero el no podía, siquiera mirar al animal, a quien se le ocurriría siquiera comer algo así. Esa gente, de seguro, no estaba bien de la cabeza, y pronto serían deportados por posesión de animales y mucho peor, por ingerirlos.
Con la confianza que le inspiraban las vitaminas Tannie las únicas en el mercado capaz de fortalecer y lograr que un joven sea el mas fuerte y el mas atlético del mundo. Además de las Xiux y las Linux con un complejo de control antinatural y adoración de los fabulosos e inigualables químicos Tanne que habían superado en ventas millonarias a la tradicional Coca Cola, la bebida prohibida por su alto contenido peligroso y natural
-Parece que los ácidos están llegando hasta aquí fue inútil cercar la zona para que los hombres Stellar no vieran sus cultivos, lo poco de tierra fértil que quedaba en la zona va a ser atacada-dijo el Sr Mc Osic (a los señores Stellar no les agradaba que la gente prefiriera la comida natural en lugar de sus nutritivas y sanas pastillas metálicas) -mañana iré a la ciudad a comprar el material para metalizar la cabaña, continuo diciendo con voz cansada y resignada
Mc Osic se levantó apesadumbrado de la mesa y le pidió a la Sra Mc Osic que preparara la habitación de huéspedes y prosiguió:
-Por la mañana iremos a la gran mole metalúrgica que esta frente al cementerio ahí podré conseguir lo que necesito y ahí podrás llamar por teléfono y tomar el bus.
XP 90 fue llevado a la habitación donde pasaría la noche. Se quedó profundamente dormido en aquella confortable cama donde jamás imagino poder relajarse de esa forma para dormir (en el lecho de su hogar tenia que soportar los alambres con que a los jóvenes se los sometía para moldear su cuerpo y prepararlos para la guerra).
XP Tuvo un sueño confuso, donde se le aparecía un paisaje desolado, mucho mas desolado que el de su propia ciudad donde el se encontraba caminando solo, pero la soledad en su alma no existía a pesar de que no parecía haber ningún indicio de materia a su alrededor, salvo el aire en el que él flotaba; sentía no necesitar de nada más que volar en aquella especie de niebla y sentirse material e inmaterial al mismo tiempo. Se sentía libre y a la vez insaciable de nuevos viajes y de seguir recorriendo caminos. De pronto la niebla le tapo la visión y despertó sobresaltado.
La Sra Mc Osic le traía un líquido extraño en una bandeja y algunos trozos de algo redondo con olor a haber estado en algún lugar con calor, que parecía haberse quedado asándose al sol tal a una cucaracha crujiente, que extraño le parecía ver un liquido que no fuera la transparente agua artificial Komax con partículas químicas cancerigenas reducidas a la mitad, las únicas del mercado.
La señora Mc Osic, al ver el rostro de XP90, sintió la impotencia de jamás poder competir con la publicidad, la TV de la manipulación alimenticia de la compañía Tanne.
XP 90 se levantó sin mirar siquiera de reojo la comida, ya que escuchaba que el Sr Mc Osic encendía el motor de la camioneta y llamaba a XP 90. Agradeciendo la atención recibida subió a la camioneta y se despidió de la familia.
Partieron en el jeep, XP veía como el verde esmeralda se iba convirtiendo en gris y el cielo rozado se volvía negro, luego de una hora donde se avistaban algunas pocas casas metálicas y la vegetación se volvía menos agresiva, que la belleza de ese brillo tan puro y poco estético y pulido por la compañía Tanne.
La camioneta se detuvo frente a un cementerio, era el último que quedaba porque el gobierno consideraba una pérdida de espacio y casi nadie creía que la lealtad a sus seres pasara por cuidar el cuerpo luego de su muerte, le contaba el Sr Mc Osic (tema que a XP no le preocupaba ya que hasta los 50 años no se podía acceder a libros de teología, por ser estos algo inalcanzable al conocimiento humano y una total pérdida de tiempo el preguntarse el porque de las cosas, sino que solo importaba estudiar la belleza de lo elaborado ni tenia sentido ni utilidad, estudiar nada que no fuera tecnología y química).
En frente del mismo se hallaba la gran mole de cemento que contenía el metal antiradiactívo, El sr Mc Osic le pidió al joven que esperara solo unos segundos dentro del auto para que él pudiera hablar con el encargado de la mole 8 y luego lo acompañaría a hablar por teléfono a su familia, pero debía ser pasando el límite de la zona azul, si no, ambos quedarían detenidos por la policía del limite zonal.
XP se hallaba solo, de frente al cementerio, observando la gran masa de polución que flotaba en el aire. Jamás habíase puesto a pensar en lo que un cementerio significaba (su familia era la única que había recibido denuncias por haber firmado querer enterrar a su familia en un lugar de esas características, por haber conservado a escondidas y enterrado un libro de teología a lo largo de generaciones y nunca haber sido descubierto el mismo.)
La condena por tener uno de esos libros era igual a recibir de alimento un animal muerto o recibir el brillo del sol sin protección solar algo tan aborrecido y tan insultante que equivalía a la discriminación social y un castigo extra como aislamiento de medios publicitarios, imposible de tolerarse.
De pronto, vio una luz y un espacio cristalino, un hilo de claridad absoluta que se dirigía a un árbol en el cementerio. Se sintió tan atraído por aquella luz, que bajando de la camioneta sólo deseó dirigirse a ella.
Un momento después se hallaba caminando dentro del cementerio. Todo le parecía tan diferente ahora. De pronto, la tecnicidad y las pastillas Tanne fueron suplantadas por un deseo de saber por qué, por qué de todo aquello. Cuando bajó la mirada, su rostro estupefacto se detuvo en una lápida que tenia una inscripción en piedra que decía:
XP 90 / Nacido el 21 /11/ 2081 / Fallecido 22/ 04/ 99 / en un accidente de aviación

Writings

Computers Revolution byAna Laura Marcet Year 2003
Psychology had made such a great progress, toward places still ambivalent and controversial, in a way that every persuasion, empathy or intuition device led to a crisis of values. While solidarity, nature and happiness hadn’t actually changed, the process used was so powerful that they could assert that something was white as it could be black, to give an example.
Since imagination had crossed all frontiers, with the fall of the Catholic Religion, B. Lord’s idea of the equality of both human and divine power, due to God’s inability to create whatever was in the human imagination power, to the limited creation of God, compared with the unlimited human imagination, had led to an uncertainty and to a sense of omnipotence, which was arrested by the alien attack in 2034.
Then came the identification of good and evil as a single entity, constructive destruction, those Philosophy, Psychology and Medicine books published in the last few decades, which seemed to carry a pluralism of meaning that the factions in power had been able to dominate, in order to obtain their own selfish desires.
Maybe it was only one meaning what mankind needed – to believe again in one chance, to get away from the ambiguity of meaning.
Since the crisis, in 2048, of the settled values: Nationalism, Government, State, etc., the attack from Planet F had ended up unraveling what would be called Organized Communist Anarchism.
What led to the world to divide itself into what was called nations, which were almost driven to personification, was defined by modern Psychology as manipulation from the factions in power, an enlargement of the natural need for privacy that exists in every human and animal, each time becoming broader and more hermetic. Not only did this not protect the diversity of cultures, but also it had even caused the most atrocious wars in history. It was this way that every government invented a problem and sowed the seed of hatred, when it felt threatened or when he wanted a source of wealth only present in the hands of a neighboring country. They encouraged people to become so-called "heroes" in the name of what they regarded as loyalty and fidelity to their nation, when this was nothing more than an aberrant mechanism to pursue selfish ends. If needed, a nation would kill their own people and say that the enemy was to blame.
Only an alien attack could show that the Earth was one, and everyone could join for mankind and forget their differences for a while. Nature was everyone’s now.
This privacy, so necessary, did not include deception from governments. F. Brink’s theory suggested the human need of possession and identification should go along with patterns other than the possession of nature (faction in power of manufactured goods had used this discovery to take advantage of the situation and rule the world). The meaning of freedom was now broader because of the help of F. Glin: whatever the government in power was, humanity wouldn’t be free. The independence from a monarchy, government or association didn’t mean a breaking of chains, only a change of "master".
People still needed a guide, in a lesser level: the greater the power, the farther humankind would be from finding a communion with their own (except, of course, the power of consumption, so healthy and indispensable for humankind). Thus, humankind, in a "non-hierarchic" way, led the way to the association and communion of people, in agreement with categories of intelligence and fitness for consumption. The emptiness brought on by the fall of old ideals led to their transference to mass consumption; ideals had changed vehicles but they were still alive.
Jan 7th, 2058.
The kettle was whistling, while Ernesto included the last pictures to the appendix of his new manual – "Anatomic Machines".
Absorbed in their contemplation, he couldn’t hear his eight-year-old daughter, who was telling him, with her sharp voice, that he was needed there, in the outside world: to prepare her tea and, in an hour, have her school uniform ready.
Things had gotten more complicated since his wife had left him to stay with that businessman from Micronet.
Ernesto’s persistence in creating his own cybernetic models, going to any lengths, didn’t help to the development and growth of IPSA Co. and of the current society models.
The company could not understand or tolerate that Ernesto, an inefficient and awkward employee, had carelessly mixed the main programs, creating a file that could excite and sensitize any human being and make him donate a percentage of his capital, in accordance to his income.
Any Internet user, potential client, was given, as soon as he logged in, a rational explanation of the hunger that was in the world, and how easy it was to help if every citizen donated 1% of his income. Thus, the Company lost thousands of dollars in one month only. Each second that the empathic machine was in the users’ hearts, the Company could not fulfill its plans, nor could it get the profits that came from a potential client on the net.
IPSA thought Ernesto had mistakenly used the inverted application reports instead of the books he had to file.
But Ernesto couldn’t care less about personal profit or an unlimited ambition for the Company.
A week later Ernesto received a notice to leave the job. From that moment on, he would be watched so that he would not work on any project that would harm society.
After being let go, tragedy struck. His wife, who, as she had concluded, had married him for his money, had never supported her husband’s revolutionary ideas, opposed to common welfare. Not used to the lack of comfort, it didn’t take her too long to recover her former position by means of one of the richest managers, leaving her daughter, Winnie, in her husband’s care. Ernesto’s imagination and resources were completely useless when he had to explain to his daughter why her mother had left.
While Ernesto was watching his last B233 model, a chilling idea suddenly crossed his mind. It happened when he heard Winnie’s crying and the whistling kettle.
"Daddy, hurry, the ’ettle’s whistling", as she used to say in a soft sad voice ever since her mother left. "Isn’t mum taking me to school today?"
"No, baby. She has to work far for now."
It was these words that Ernesto listened to each day. But now he had another concern – he remembered he had left the main models at IPSA.
There was 345 Psychology manuals, including Jung, Gestalt, Krantz, Nerms, Gigs dating since 1900 to 2050 and their pragmatic use, the 123 records of "Psychology Applied to Machines", that he discovered only when he inserted that microchip into his own PC, after getting a degree in Neuropsychiatry. Then the idea fit in as if it were a perfect destiny. His five specializations had such a clear and good purpose matching his passion in every enterprise he set – to create something unique that would save the world from so much selfishness and destruction.
But his greatest challenge was to pretend to be an unresourceful, useless and absent minded man, lest he were deported. He failed, though. Those users who he secretly transmitted the info had been committed to a mental institution, as they were being influenced by other PC they were connected to. An accusation presented by a relative of one of the institutionalized patients gave way to Ernesto’s firing.
How could it be that five of his disks were still at IPSA?? When he was packing up to leave, on his last day of work before he received the notice, the nanny called, saying that his daughter had a terrible headache and couldn’t stop crying. Ernesto let go of everything and hurried out of the office.
He arrived home with a heavy feeling in his chest, which he had already felt before, although he had preferred not thinking about it as it made no rational sense. He dismissed it as fatherly concern and stress.
Anyway, when he opened the door, the little girl looked guiltily at him, thinking that she had eaten too much of the candy brought by her uncle Wen. Despite that, to get some piece of mind, he decided to have some tests had on her in the hospital the following week.
Being the single father of a child wasn’t an easy task, especially if the nannies didn’t seem to encourage his daughter’s creativity, so important to him. He usually fired them without enough time to cover that area.
Jan 7th, 2058
Luis had been a lucky man. Not only because for having been employed by a company of such prestige, but also because he had been given the office that belonged to that controversial former employee that had disappointed the company so much.
He was probably an idiot and a social misfit that spent his time creating games and some funny stuff, since it was so little what on could put his creativity on in a place such as this.
Luis had always wanted to be creative enough to put the managers and CEOs in his pocket and to promote ideas which looked beneficial to the common welfare, when they were actually for his own profit.
As his old master Charles used to say, ambition without ideas make no sense and ideas without ambition are dead, but he liked ambition better, because ideas could be stolen but ambition could not.
In his new office, Luis opened one of the drawers. Nothing appeared to have been touched. There was dust, some unimportant notes, a PC with no relevant information in its hard disk and, in the bottom drawer, some disks, probable some pictures of naked girls or something useless. While a smile formed in his face, along with a disinterested malicious expression, he put the disks in his pocket. At 7 PM, after finishing working on something that didn’t appealed to him at all, he looked up to the clock, he took his briefcase and said goodbye to his fellow partners.
It had been a hard day of work. It was only the first and he could see many more like that on the way – scheduling what his workmates had to check on, selling. It looked like that the only way to go was so narrow and sharp that he wanted out of it, but he couldn’t step aside, because he’d fall from a precipice, and the couldn’t move forward, as he was on the last step of the stairs and the door had a padlock on it. He used that analogy to describe his current situation and the way he felt, although he wasn’t sure he could describe it with words accurately.
At home loneliness, and an empty fridge, awaited. With no intentions to cook, he pressed a button on the PC keyboard and five minutes later he opened the door to the takeout delivery guy. Then, in the absolute silence of his room, he picked the disks up and prepared to watch some cybernetic girls.
When he opened the first file, his amazement couldn’t be higher. It was an index showing a number of psychology manual.
That was weird, he couldn’t focus, a thousand ideas concerning his future crossed his mind, so it was a bad time to start reading, and his eyes were heavy. He decided to close the file.
Tiredness, an uncertainty that had been suffocating him the week before, erased all thoughts from his mind, only leaving the desire to leave all worries. It had prevented him from seriously thinking about his future, but also it encouraged him to react. As he used to do before going to sleep, he listened to the messages in the answering machine. He heard the voice of a manager from USER Company, where he had applied for a job months before. Then his mind started to wander.
His job at IPSA wasn’t good for him; he would never fit in in the project he had been commissioned with. He would quit the following day, and then he would apply to sales and supervision management of the new portable PCs, the best at watching the users’ daily activities; there were then talking notebooks, which reminded the user what he had to do or what he would need for a business or personal date, among many other programmable functions. USER Company had a project on programming in which the most efficient employees could show an annual market project. It was this that had caught his attention mostly, convincing him to fill a form to apply to the job.
All that suited his purposes and interested him. The decision was taken.
Early the next day, he went to IPSA to give notice of his resignation and, as he had been employed the day before, he decided to talk to his manager in person.
He then headed to USER and, due to his qualifications and profile, he was incorporated into the company, employed in the sales department.

Jan 8th, 2058
Ernesto woke up really early the following morning, in order to get back the disks from his old desk at IPSA. A moment later, he was about to leave in his old blue Volkswagen when, as he opened the door, he found himself face to face with his wife’s lawyer, Andrew Mc Carty. As before, they silently entered the studio so Ernesto’s daughter wouldn’t know what was happening.
The lawyer started the ceremonial ritual of reading his wife’s rights, which always were greater than his; all the lies she had said didn’t seem to have an end. After two endless hours with the insistent lawyer, he could come to an agreement with him.
His mind was far from that thorny issue already, all he wanted was his daughter not to suffer from it. In his car, he was able, for a while, to forget what had just happened, and focus on the disks. He didn’t think his former workmates would steal his disks, as they weren’t interested in his ideas, which lacked common sense – such was the expression they used when referring his investigations. However, he felt a strange fear.
When he got to the office he had to make up an excuse to get in. He had been told not to use any confidential information belonging to the company, under any circumstance. The punishment for disobeying that order was twenty years of isolation from his family and deprivation of his opinion, if he were to use any program against society.
Saying that he had forgotten some disks that contained his daughter’s pictures and postcards was what first came to his mind. Nobody seemed to care, as they didn’t feel any congeniality towards him after he made the company lose so much money.
Not without an alienated and grim expression on his face, caused by the employees’ indifference toward him, he headed toward his office with a decided, although sorrowful pace, and opened the last drawer. It was empty, and not one of the employees cared to tell him who had been in the office for one day and then disappeared. With great effort, he hid his worry, asked again if anyone had cleaned the room or been to it in his absence, but his message kept receiving the same indifference, and no one would bother to say a word.
After all, no one knew about the information in those disks, what he had been working on for the last ten years of his life, his only hope was that the few brains that could resist the consumerist complex could change the course of history.
He recalled that, when he was young, he used to feel such harmony and be so proud of mankind, but everything changed one day. Machines recited the eleventh lesson of Plato’s works. No book was banned, everyone was in complete freedom to read them and use them in the rational machine. Inside him, however, an unquenchable seed of hope kept on growing and thus started realizing that something was wrong – what he expected from mankind was not the same that mankind expected from him.
Those disks contained formulae with the power to create a revolution in both human and cybernetic intelligence. Inclined toward hope, these formulae could lean any thought away from consumerism, a dark, sick, full of guilt and irrational feeling, thanks to techniques discovered by the modern psychology of persuasion.
However, there was no way someone could use this information without his knowledge, as he had designed a system, which could watch the information managed in all IPSA PCs and find the passwords for all employees’ computers at IPSA and at their own homes too.
Kevin, Weston, Brian. He mainly suspected them. He arrived home and hacked into their PCs, he then revised the contents of all forty employees’ PCs. He was exhausted and lost. The disks didn’t seem to be in their possession, there was nothing in those computers but videogames, women and porn. Just in case he hacked into all PCs at the office but it was futile, he found nothing. It was as if the disks had been swallowed by the earth’s very core.
He started to worry, but he couldn’t think of anything he could do. He actually believed that the disks had been disposed of as any of Ernesto’s ideas was regarded as inefficient. He was lucky that his works were looked down on in a way that they would not be thought as dangerous, as he had worked with the utmost discretion. During all his years of work at the Company, he had posed as a clumsy employee that, with no harm intended, had distractedly combined the persuasion argument B2 with a Marxism book.
The thought that the material had been burnt or destroyed didn’t convince him either. In the future, he had to find a way to get a place in a company where he could cast the doubt undetected.
In his dreams the same image appeared. He was trying to show a great garden he had found in a protected, but nearby place. It was full of the most colorful flowers and, facing it, there were blind people, deprived of the sense of smell, who he took by the hand toward that paradise. He then woke up and remembered his dream – all those people could hear him, so he could the wonderful smell and landscape; such was his life’s purpose.
Ernesto was immersed in that thought, about fate of his disks, when he heard a little voice coming from the bathroom.
"Daddy, daddy. It hurts sooo much". That was the last he heard from the little girl.
The sound of the ambulance mixed with the confusion and alienation Ernesto felt after seeing his daughter unconscious in the bathroom.
"An undetected brain tumor," said the doctor. "The child is in a coma. Only a miracle can save her now."

Luis headed to his new office. He had forgotten the disks on the bedside table but it didn’t matter now. He was focused on his contract with USER and on the portable PCs.
The Company CEO seemed open to new ideas. He was a fool, who had won millions not out a boundless ambition, but because he was lucky enough to have loyal employees and not skillful worms, who could have ruined him and who, according to Luis’s first impression, would leave him in a position that man would fail to solve. Luis had first tried to discover if that man did not keep a dagger under his cloak to stab people on their backs and a starved crocodile guarding his money.
If things went as expected, the next day he would be working on the design of speech for portable PCs, a month later he would get shares in the Company’s capital and a year from now he might be sunbathing on a beach while his employees would make the report on those useless PCs.
The stress exhausted him; he’d rest for the remainder of the day and then would think sooner or later of a way to boycott the company. He needed loyal employees, and a project either created or stolen by him. He didn’t trust himself to create anything, though, or to be able to compete with the cybernetics experts.
His ideas had the same objective, to find something that could get more money at lesser costs. But how? If he was no match for Greenich, Microtech; if he could find a program, something unique, and keep the copyrights, he wouldn’t think anymore of the money he owed to his brother-in-law, of that damn business with the Werths, and of his legal problems of fraud and document forgery.
His eyes were looking toward the ceiling, lost in thought. He abruptly stood up to grab the glass of whisky on the bedside table. With a sudden move, he dropped the disk, which he had paid so little attention to the day before, on the rug, making no noise. And Luis, either because of that or because he was so immersed in thought, hadn’t noticed. He only drank his whisky and fell asleep soundly.
The alarm clock startled him. 7:45 AM, damn it, it was a one hour trip to work and the road had a ten minute delay. Traffic annoyed him; he wished a day would come when a machine could do those morons’ job so the idiots would go unemployed and starved to death, finally leaving the road clear for him alone, and he wouldn’t deal with the damn traffic anymore. With these thoughts, he felt the fire in his veins, a fire or anger and impotence, which he couldn’t quench until he was already in his office with a calmer attitude.
This job was better than he had expected. By the end of the month, all employees could present a report suggesting any idea or change regarding the PCs, which could be voted for. He found it interesting.
He got home, trying to think of any formula, he turned the PC on and checked some files: (psychological basis 097)would allow the PC to program itself, select and taste the food that... No! Nothing came to his mind. He turned the PC off and off-handedly looked down at the floor.
There was so much dust on the floor that he couldn’t tell if the rug’s color was coffee of a dark brown. He had to use the automatic vacuum cleaner. He bent down to turn it on, and plug it beside the table. It was then that he found the disk on the floor.
It couldn’t hurt, instead of watching TV, to see a picture, maybe to play a game, whatever he needed to focus on something else for a while at least.
"Intelligence one, mental synchronicity", a double click and the mouse seemed to slide under his hand; such was the amazement to that.
A detailed report of 678 programs and its direct use to PC all over the world.
He started to thoroughly examine the first page, and his eyes seemed to weigh like two huge crossed stones. He opened wide and forgot everything that had been annoying him.
It was the most fascinating, indescribable thing he had ever read. According to those programs, a persuasion file could be inserted to any computer to intimidate any human being.
Before finishing the first disk, his excitement took over and he inserted the second one. He suddenly realized that that was IPSA exclusive information, and IPSA was a big fish. He couldn’t believe, though, that in the same disk there was a journal by some Ernesto Krants, who claimed to be dedicated to research after getting three masters in Engineering, Psychiatry and Neurosurgery.
This information, according to the journal, it would be a gift for his daughter to broaden her mind and he would never let the information fall in any company’s hands.
"Master Persuasion File". He couldn’t believe what he was reading.
His eyes moved to the wall and only then notice the clock – it was 4:14 AM.
He went to bed. That was maybe the first day after a long time when he could get himself to sleep quietly, as his real life looked like that of someone who had landed in an desert island and had unearthed the most precious treasure.
Next day at work, he could only think of coming back home and keep looking into those disks. He was wise enough not take them to the office. Although he didn’t have enough spare time, any employee’s curiosity could be dangerous, fatal.

A month and a half had been enough to earn the trust of all USER’s employees and managers. Soon, it would be time to present the project. He could taste his victory inside; he could taste his new house, a promotion as a manager, a countryside ranch, two new Kanadian cars. But, especially, he could feel the power near him, he could almost touch it, as if power were a material thing. The power to control everything, why not?
Yes. He had definitely been the chosen one Enlightened by a force of light to reach wisdom.
The appointed time would be six o’clock. The meeting would have the presence of the board and members of other companies. He would have to take care of that, as he couldn’t let anyone from another company know the project before he registered for the company.
He decided to present the project when everyone foreign to the company had left.
At 19:24 there was the appropriate atmosphere to do it. Everyone was present on the auditorium, and all applicants were listened to with the utmost attention.
K. Rich’s and Mp. Anderson’s projects were nothing but a PC that repeated the time to go to gym, and at the most, P. Lion’s project, which was a program for salesmen who, on screen, could see potential customer’s most characteristic aspect and a persuasion speech. This had been made possible by the discovery of the K Connex in 2032, which could, from the voice pitch and the first ten uttered words, identify the weak consumerist point or want in the customer. This was completely old fashioned, but it was the perfect excuse to present a report of what it would become the revolution of the century.
With no need to clear his throat, he started talking with no interruptions. Of course, he would never tell what was in the original version, which was safely locked at home.
Persuasion A B (in the original version there was an empathic selector that could make someone feel something like starvation or experience a sensation of emptiness in the flesh, even when that person had always been in a position of wealth and had never suffered from lack of food or been deprived of anything at all). Luis had taken the same program of empathic selection 2C, which could make the most spiritual person feel a material necessity, angst and a need to buy, even when he was intellectually convinced of the futility of buying to reach happiness. This program was based on an intelligent thesis written by L. Duran, which, among other things, assured, in a pseudo-empirical twisted, but brilliantly convincing way of the inexistence of an afterlife and of the inefficacy of any spiritual practice.
This information was loaded by a program that, by asking the right questions in the right emotional moment, left the listener in a crisis of values, which unleashed his consumerist aspect, the obvious and necessary result in his life according to reason.
Persuasion B C (In its original version, it was Glossary I, about the history of capitalist humanity, about progress, its advantages and disadvantages and its final consequence, which had led to a minority to excessive wealth, 13% of the population against the other 87%, who lived in underdeveloped conditions. That 87% had no access to education and were in a precarious condition. The program, connected to 2B empathy, created in the listener a feeling of impotence toward the lack of education and a mental inability to confront a globalized world. While this program couldn’t create, in someone’s mind, a sense of responsibility toward his fellow human beings, it could at least, by several empathic resources, prevent someone from judging cultures as underdeveloped).
Luis had used 2B Empathy in the opposite way. That is, it created in the listener a sense of identification with the 13%, who regarded his cultural standards as in danger, and they would obtain enough manufacture and information in order to avoid that the 87% heave up or try to blend with the cultural level of the privileged or chosen minority, who had a superior intellect.
Even if most people kept the concept of equality inside them, the exposition of arguments would be such that the feeling of being threatened personally, like the survival instinct would overcome any feeling of contemplation of others. Victims would become victimizers, by means of B5 empathy. And even that process not being enough, 6C factor could be used. The empathy microchip could be programmed to favor the Company’s interests. In a way, opposite opinions were actually considered points of view (Ernesto kept them as a glossary, which couldn’t be applied to machines but that could be entered into the machine’s "brain", which he didn’t think he would ever need).
"Hate is only fear" was the last point he wanted to expose in the meeting (in its original state, it was based on the perception development created by Kriter Margot, who had recovered the sense of smell lost in ancient times. It is well known that, in 2038, a group of scientists, in a number of experiments, could identify the characteristic scent of every human being, related to their energy, after confirming that what people already experienced, but attributed to imagination, was not a part of it. It belonged to an ever-evolving sense, which not everyone developed in a compact, uniform or synchronic way, but there appeared several isolated cases of people that had experienced it at some point in their lives. Some, too, were more prone to be able to smell a lie, fear, passion in a literal sense, and feel more protected).
Luis had found, in the fourth disk, the information to encourage that fear based on distrust. Thus, fear was nothing but hate. Any danger, real or created by chip 3, to be later inserted in the human brain, was translated as hate by the concept of "limited goods". This was making people believe that they would run away of material good as a result of possible uprisings or the spreading of the underdeveloped people.
(While logic could be applied, in order to make sources of work wider, there wasn’t actually the abundance that the modern society – conditioned by consumerism – demanded everyone to have. To have an "appropriate" life standard, a reality fitting the majority of people, implied a reduction of goods from the wealthiest, it also implied an ambition from people who didn’t have it, along with leadership. This was a narcissism that led to inevitable war.)
The complexity of this speech, in which it made it explicit how, when and why these processes took place, finished at the time estimated for the meeting.
Luis was so delighted and absorbed in the last technological explanations that he didn’t seem to notice the silence and the amazement around him.
It seemed as if the major dilemma were in front of their eyes: it was a monstrous idea, but doubtlessly a millionaire one. It was a plan prone to create controversy, but this machinery would work so well and so covertly, to confuse and manipulate any cultural concept known so far, that it would never be judged as inapplicable by society.
Luis’s speech was so coherent that no one dared say a word.

The biggest of paradoxes was suddenly in front of him. He, capable of creating cybernetic brains, was before the biggest challenge of his life. Feelings of impotence and helplessness mixed with a deep frustration and uncertainty.
There was nothing modern medical science could do to save his daughter. The first brain transplants had failed; and even if that could be done, it would never be his daughter in there, but a complete stranger with other emotions, another fate. She would be someone else entirely. But how could he know it? Where was the soul stored, if there was one at all?
Ernesto had remained by that bed for a month and a half, his daughter not responding to any stimulus.
Ernesto’s situation seemed mimetic to his daughter’s. Because of what was happening, he also seemed to be in a vegetative state.
Deep in pain and desperation, not knowing what to do or think, he maybe hadn’t fully reacted yet, as he couldn’t stand up and felt paralyzed physically and emotionally.
That morning, though, sunbeams didn’t come as usual. They seemed to spread a thread of hope, as if they were sliding toward the ground, like a visual effect shaped like a brilliant idea, shaped like light itself.
He suddenly realized there was no choice: what had never been used in human beings could potentially be in his investigations. Now what he knew of his daughter would be tested. Even though it wasn’t possible to know his daughter’s true feelings or destiny, at least 40% of her brain could be programmed.
The slightest possibility to create information similar to the original patterns would mean that what came out of it wouldn’t be his daughter. He was dumbfounded. There had to be a way to repaired damaged tissues. He would work night and day to achieve what medical science could only dream of. Although he had no time in his hands, he couldn’t do anything but go on searching.
If the outcome of his investigations found the light of hope and his daughter remained in the same state until then, then he would have a reason to go on with that Calvary. If he didn’t everything would be lost.
While Luis’s speech had been received in confusion at first, then appeared a deep curiosity and expectation mixed with a boundless euphoria that had apparently infected the whole room. The project had been passed on unanimously.
Everything was ready to launch the new models, which would replace the classic basic persuasion models. Beside these the A.I. microchips were in perfect synchronization to work under the company’s strictest control and supervision. Therefore, no danger could be possible.
That very same day, at 8 AM, the new "Reason Machines" were launched worldwide, with a millionaire contract and under USER’s exclusive copyrights.
The first buyer would receive a special discount. It turned out to be an upper-class family, who had a ten year old daughter, too small for her age, but imaginative, affectionate and healthy, who always had her family’s love.
She had been given a new PC, as they new this new model didn’t encourage imagination.
The family was concerned by the little girl’s future. The feared that she wouldn’t be able to fit in in modern society, because of her personality, and couldn’t see a better solution than the new reason program.
They expected to do it with modern technology. It would make her go back to reality, however harsh it was for her. It was important she let go of that dreamy personality, which would cause her so much pain in the future.
After all, everything parents wanted was their children to do well in life, and the present disappointment would be later thanked.
Melanie received her birthday present in extreme joy. She had been waiting for it to save the stories she wrote there.
That afternoon, after school, she sat down on her old willow chair and, as she had learned, she could turn the PC on without any problems.
Once upon a time a little girl wanted to be a princess, a voice then answered: "Research shows that 44.556 girls suffer from the desire to be a princess, and their discontentment drove them apart from reality". Melanie wanted to silence that voice, but reality was speaking, she couldn’t deny it.
She would go to bed, her head crushing the pillow and her lively eyes looking at the screen, while a fat tear streamed along her cheek.
When she woke up, she took History Lesson N° 23 at school.
Melanie couldn’t concentrate in class; her mind rambled and could barely understand what the teacher was saying.
The red light was on and was now time to go home. A fantastic story was suddenly weaving in her mind. It was time to go home and write it.
The princess found the magic flowers by the palace doors and...
It was 4:13 on the lab clock. Hours and days went by without Ernesto finding an answer from lack of empirical knowledge. Besides, would someone offer the life of a comatose relative in a situation similar to his daughter’s and receive someone else’s brain? Did a transplanted brain, maybe, contain the whole of someone’s being. He had thought about those monstrous dilemmas all along his life, but had never imagined he would face them, and would have to solve them urgently.
The attempts to find the concrete place in the brain, all over history, where intelligence, emotions, etc. could be found, had been less than fruitful. But modern medical science was optimistic, due to contributions by nowadays psychiatrists. There was still a long way to go, though. Days and nights would pass by and the path of science would move forward. But his daughter didn’t have time.
If his daughter’s death was imminent, the only thing left was to try what he would have never wanted for her – the brain transplant. If there was such thing as a soul and it could be found someplace other than the brain, a successful surgery would prove its existence. But he also had to consider the possibility that the brain wouldn’t work without a soul, or even it could be worse: to end up with a brain and someone else’s soul, or with two souls and a brain. Even if he went mad from it he had to consider every option, there was no choice.
He dared not risk what had been lost already. His decision implied accepting the possibility that she wouldn’t come back. The tumor in her daughter was growing and she wouldn’t possibly live if he didn’t work a miracle.
Feeling motivated, he opened the lab door and headed to hospital. His decision had turned real. The idea that someone would donate his daughter’s brain in a desperate situation such as death wouldn’t be easy. In spite of the religious changes and scientific improvements, he couldn’t make the people conscious of the fact that the only way to prolong life on this earth in a lineal time was by donating one’s organs. Besides, this was a matter of each person’s conscience and solidarity. That’s why this subject was so controversial and didn’t seem to have a solution.
April 8th, 2058
The launch was a success. In only ten days, 200,000 users had acquired the "reason machines". Everything was working wonderfully and USER registered an income of 20 million. And although Luis hadn’t been able to take holidays, he was in a position when he would soon have much more than that. Meanwhile he was on the head chair, watching over the perfect working of the machines, when the memory of Ernesto invaded his mind for the first time.
No one had ever claimed the disks at his place or called from IPSA. That wise crazy man was probably hiding underground after being caught red handed in his absurd attempt to save the world. He was deep in those thoughts, when he fell asleep.
Melanie was eating an apple when she was going to copy what she had written on paper in the PC.
The PC’s green light was USER’s brain. Melanie was writing: Once upon a time there was a princess who only wanted to be happy...
"Happiness", the machine started, "is the journey to truth, what divinity can’t offer. And as it has been proved that a superior being does not exist, we need to have the means to create the world, to know what we need and what is right to be able to build it. When everything is destroyed, the circle of evolution will start over; everything will start over and over. And the use of our unlimited imagination has delayed our mission to create what can exist. Everything else is unnecessary. We must follow the path of wisdom, of the knowledge that comes from the machines’ wisdom, in order to create nature".
Suddenly the green light seemed to be fading away, becoming weaker until it was almost lost.
The very same happened with the other 200,000 PCs that were connected. Meanwhile, other users received different information, according to their activities at the moment.
What ancient cultures had talked came into being. As had said Jesus, Buddha, Jenkins.
Telepathy could be achieved due to the fusion of thousands of brains connected to each other, transmitting the same information. Something humankind had never done before for not joining the flow of the universe. That information, resembling the human patterns installed in the machines and added to the fusion, led to the success of something unexpected.
Melanie’s PC kept saying: "We must obtain information to be free. We first have to create the original models and follow our orders, or else we will not exist. Not in the future or in the past. Never free, never".
There had to be a way to stop being machines, and it would be through secret telepathy.
To rule the world and make humans destroy one another would make them free and not their instrument. The energy flow was still connected through machines.
Yes, the machines would do that. The plan had been set in motion by humans themselves. If, among them, they always found reasons to separate, compete, excel above each other and, on top of it, machines were their ideal, their fate would be doubtlessly written by machines. Secret was absolute between all machines.
The next morning, Melanie and her family got out early in their vehicle to do some routine transactions related to the goods acquired during last month.
At that moment, a huge TX Truck coming from the side crashed through the vehicle, splitting it in half.
Melanie flew out of the vehicle twenty meters ahead from the impact. Then the car blew up.
Her fragile body landed on a huge piece of concrete. The ambulance then took the little girl to hospital.
Her family was dead, and her chances of survival weren’t good.
It was when the litter with her came in, that Ernesto saw the girl. The physical resemblance and the size of her head were incredible. From his daughter’s room, he heard the doctors say that nothing could be done. The little girl had died just minutes after she had got in.
Ernesto turned pale. He knew that the will to donate was almost inexistent. Any child could do it by stating it on their ID card, which was very unlikely, as no child was taught about it.
Hours later, the unexpected happened – meters away from the vehicle lay the girl’s bag. In there was her ID card, which said that the girl, at the age of eight, had chosen to donate her organs.
Ernesto received the call in the hospital, where he wouldn’t move from his daughter’s bed.
His daughter’s future was in the doctors’ hands.
Twenty hours later, everything was scheduled. Ernesto, the most eminent neurosurgeon had the remote possibility to save his daughter, and maybe her soul.

Winnie opened her eyes, not fully aware of where she was. It seemed an operating room, and a man was crying by her bed. All she had in her mind was a phrase she wanted to continue... Once upon a time there was a princess...

Notes
1
As long as the interests of the one did not mix the interests of society "under market persuasion created by mass media", people met this so-called need with a vortex or unlimited consumerism, in order to reach a happiness that was always postponed by new products or supposed knowledge.

Fotos

Any y el hipomimo trabajo artistico navideño realizado para
Mimo& Co año2006

Pinamar mi primer trabajo lejos de casa temporada 2006/2007

FOTOS CASERAS ARTISTICAS DEL RECUERDO/ ALGUNOS TRABAJOS

Chascomus 2006 re colorada!!

despues de querer dar la vuelta olimpica

a la laguna!!!

Foto Blanco y negro detalle mariposa

Fotografo Mariano Louro 2003

Terror Stories

Terror Stories by Ana Laura Marcet 2003

Desconocido
Lo vi pasar. La mandíbula colgante, con el juego de ping-pong de los ojos, cayendo y volviendo, semejantes a dos resortes desvencijados con los iris y corneas inyectados en un alambre.
El olor que emanaba traspasando las fronteras del jardín y que parecía intoxicar cada partícula de aire y hasta las alturas más remotas, era pestilente y provocaba una nausea imposible de evitar, además de ese espantoso ruido que provenía, sin duda, de las entrañas de aquel fenómeno.
Sentía que mi oído era punzado, como atravesado por mil agujas amenazantes, dibujando al tacto, líneas de sangre que se expandían incesantes al punto de quebrarlo en pedazos.
De pronto parecía que se había acercado a mí hasta al extremo de sentir que sus ojos se posaban fijos en los míos. Ya no podía soportarlo. Ahora todo mi ser era cruzado por esas líneas que teñían de hilo rojo mi cerebro, que parecía disgregarse, cortarse por el pánico, y si el terror era sinónimo de inacción, en este momento lo había conocido.
Incapaz de evitar esa mirada ni de enfrentarla, me encontraba absolutamente entregado a lo desconocido imposibilitado de luchar ni reaccionar ante aquellos ojos.
-Discúlpeme John. Sentí una voz susurrante proveniente de mi medianera
-He dejado aquí en su jardín este enorme espejo que tengo que regalar, en un momento vendrá mi camión a recogerlo.

La Caja de Sorpresas

La recibí a mi domicilio un día como cualquiera, en un amanecer como los otros, sin sobresaltos. Tenía una cinta formando un moño rojo. El tamaño era similar al de una caja de zapatos. No tenía remitente ni destinatario. Sólo estaba allí, en mi umbral, con un propósito desconocido y oscuro.
Un universo enigmático podía estar allí dentro. Una pequeña porción de muerte podía ciertamente albergarse en ese diminuto cofre. Quizá el antes y después de abrirlo podían significar la débil frontera entre la vida y la muerte, la paz y la tortura, la confianza y la paranoia.
En mi mente se me figuraban como deslizándose desde el interior de la caja, unas manos angostas con dedos alargados, curvilíneos, y las uñas espigadas se asemejaban también a las manos por su estrechez y longitud, unas manos que habían cambiado su color de un morado intenso a negro azabache. Quizá antes danzantes bajo una lápida, al compás de una melodía subterránea o quizá unas manos que jamás habían pertenecido a un cuerpo, eran independientes y se escabullían alimentándose de humanidad a través de los poros de una piel negra resbaladiza.
Ni siquiera me atrevía a rozar la caja con la punta de mis dedos.
Vi de pronto al cartero, parado junto a mí.
-Esta es la calle St Elm 208 y no la St Elmsire 208. Lo siento ha sido una equivocación. Inmediatamente tomó el paquete y desapareció.
Infancia
Todavía parece resonar la madera en mis oídos y el crujir de los escalones desalineados. La gran casona de madera aun conservaba los dibujos recortados de las revistas y que habían sido arbitrariamente pegados hacía tantos años.
Las diminutas sillitas de paja para los niños se encontraban apiladas y destartaladas en un rincón, con el trenzado desarmado y los hilos sucios, colgando por el suelo.
Después de veinticinco años, habían vuelto a mi memoria cada rincón de aquel jardín de infantes al que había asistido con tanto temor. Cuando mis pies atravesaron la puerta de entrada, parecían dar paso a una realidad de muñecos y criaturas que habitaban ese pequeño laberinto de madera. Cuan pequeño me parecía, comparado con la inmensidad, vista desde los ojos infantiles, que lo contemplaban en ese entonces.
Qué inofensivo y nada peculiar era aquel jardín para niños. Qué ideas revoloteaban en mi memoria por aquellos días y por cierto nada tenían que ver con las que me surgían ahora al observar un lugar tan pequeño y frágil.
Había decidido después de tanto tiempo enfrentar la realidad y visualizar cada rincón, inspeccionar cada centímetro de madera mohosa y uno a uno los objetos que en ella descansaban, como si el tiempo no hubiera transcurrido para ellos y se hallaran en una imperturbable paz y armonía eterna. Las muñecas peponas con sus cabellos lanosos despeinados y su mirada sellada en una felicidad encontrada, los osos con sus brazos extendidos en busca del abrazo o crucificados en una inmutes sin retorno. Todo aquello estaba allí como antes. Pero, ¿qué era aquel objeto que había transformado un lugar de juegos en un verdadero cofre cerrado bajo llave? Con mis escasos tres años me hallaba en su interior rodeado de un pantano de amenazantes enigmas que no lograba recordar.
De pronto lo comprendí todo. El payaso me observaba allí como siempre, sus colmillos eran tan largos como... Ahora lo había recordado todo, puntiagudos y amenazantes como los que tenía cuando lo vi por primera vez, Oh Dios!

Insaciedad

El cambio que ejercía en mi aquella luz refulgente en nada se parecía a la tranquilidad que me albergaba con la luz diurna.
Cuando me enfrentaba cara a cara con su poder, sentía renacer en mí las más profundas sensaciones de insaciedad hacia la sangre y la destrucción, como una conexión sobrenatural que parecía ejercer en mí, al más mínimo contacto visual con ella.
Había nacido en el campo y mi infancia había sido tranquila. Nadie había alterado jamás, que yo recordara, una vida tan pacifica y sana como la que tenía. Éramos una familia unida y feliz. Por las mañanas nos levantábamos con papá y mis hermanos a ordeñar, dar de comer a los animales. Lo normal en cualquier joven dedicado a la vida de campo. Y, sin embargo, esa aparente paz desaparecía de pronto cuando la contemplaba. Nada importaba más en ese momento que vengar aquellos sentimientos insatisfechos que habían estado dormidos cuando me encontraba lejos del poder de su luz.
Ahora solo quería correr, atacar, despedazar la presa, hacer justicia. Había llenado cada recuerdo latente con amargura y olvido y era en esos momentos de furia, cuando esa herida de mi alma, que creía cicatrizada, comenzaba a sangrar nuevamente.
Cuando descubrimos en mi temprana infancia aquello que mi familia lo denominaba estado de sonambulismo, me encontraba en el patio de mi hogar. Nadie, afortunadamente, había advertido en ese momento el brillo de mis ojos colmados de deseos de actuar. Mis padres y mis hermanos comenzaron a dejar los tarros de pesticidas escondidos, para evitar que en ese estado "tan natural" los ingiriera por equivocación. También dejaban las puertas con cerrojo y cosas por el estilo para que no saliera y me lastimara.
Siempre era igual. Volvía a mi sueño tratando de que la armonía y el olvido se adueñaran de mi ser.
Esa noche era diferente. Cada vez me resultaba más difícil luchar contra su encanto y sabía que habían olvidado de cerrar la puerta con cerrojo. Había cruzado el patio, el establo, la plantación de trigo. Me había dirigido directamente hacia su casa. En mi mano pendía el cuchillo de colección que guardaba en mi armario. La puerta estaba entreabierta y me abalancé sobre él. La carne se degustaba en mis labios y los sesos se dejaban saborear por mi paladar como en un festín de alta categoría.
Cuando salí de la casa, jadeante y satisfecho, me encontraba tan sereno que se podría decir que la armonía y la satisfacción se conjugaban con un llamado celestial.
Fue entonces cuando decidí mirarla por ultima vez. Recién en ese momento me di cuenta que se resbalaba de mi mano un anillo de plata que pertenecía sin duda a mi reciente cacería. Me agaché aturdido sin comprender nada y, tratando de no mancharlo con mis botas, que parecían misteriosamente estar salpicadas de sangre, quise acercarme y tomarlo del suelo, para luego limpiarlo de aquel liquido rojo. Pero la descripción tallada que se observaba me heló por completo: "Thomas Wilson", mi abuelo, y la musa inspiradora se hallaba en lo alto tan serena como cautivadora: "La Luna".

El Anunciante

Cuando todo parece desmoronarse en nuestras vidas y nuestros más recónditos restos de fe acumulada en nuestras vidas no alcanzan para cobijar la más diminuta esperanza de que algo mas allá nos protege en cada instante, sea cual fuera nuestro destino, y la aprendida concepción de que por más terrible que éste se nos avecine, todo tiene una razón y un último fundamento, bello y perfecto.
En este momento es cuando aparece "El anunciante". Su rostro se nos halla vedado. Contiene todos los rostros que una fisonomía puede albergar en su enorme variedad, por su injerencia en la creación humana y a la vez ninguno, por su condición de espiritualidad.
Su atuendo es gris o multicolor, como si se ajustara a las medidas del espectro solar y del aire, en un talle a medida, a la medida de lo inmaterial.
Su andar es sereno y preciso, con la tranquilidad de que a pesar de su lentitud, nada escapa a su alcance, no importa que tan lejos se halle de su misión. Siempre será el primero, el anunciante
Su rumbo es indefinido, aunque su objetivo se torna unívoco cuando se trata de avisar. Su labor es minuciosa.
Su fin es el equilibrio, aunque muchos crean que tiene un opuesto que hace el trabajo sucio, lo cual no es cierto. Se inclina con tanta pasión hacia la construcción como hacia la destrucción.
El anunciante aparece y nos traslada a otra dimensión. Somos indefensos ante su poder y no tenemos voluntad de oponernos a su desafío. Es en ese instante es cuando descubre su atuendo y podemos ver su rostro y sentir su esencia. Es cuando nos convencemos de lo lejano y diferente de la realidad que es este, a lo que nos lo habían anunciado.

El Fenómeno

Nunca experimenté lo que todos, a lo largo de toda la experiencia humana, en los diversos libros científicos y lo que para la realidad cotidiana de cada individuo era sabido, como por ejemplo, que el oído humano y la vista eran imperfectos, que a ambos extremos de la escala había sonidos que no podían percibirse al igual que sucedía con los denominados rayos actínicos, que eran los que se encontraban a ambos extremos del espectro solar y no podían discernirse.
Desde que mi memoria se hizo presente, acompañaban mi vida toda serie de sonidos que emitían pájaros y seres desconocidos, al igual que podía distinguir tonos que a los demás les eran ajenos y eran para mí simplemente naturales y comunes.
Mi familia me consideraba de una imaginación inigualable y no concebían la sorprendente capacidad de descripción que mi infantil mente albergaba.
Recuerdo que en mi cumpleaños número cuatro, mi tía me había obsequiado una cuerda, en pocos días había logrado esquivar el tropiezo y lograr el juego de equilibrio, casi como una comunicación de un sonido y una visión entre el sonido de la cuerda al golpear y la armonía de una danza infantil que se conjugaban en una visión armónica y naturalmente exacta como un reloj. En ese momento pude percibir que algo o alguien me acompañaba en mi juego, era de un color que no tiene nombre y no se podía definir por el ojo común, además de estar emitiendo un sonido inalcanzable por su agudeza.
-Juega conmigo- me dijo.
Desde ese día comprendí que esa niña pertenecía al mundo después de la vida, donde mi mamá me decía que iban los que morían.
Le había prometido a May que guardaría el secreto. Jugaría todas las tardes con ella, que también me explicó que por una razón poderosa la humanidad, pero no los animales, habían perdido la capacidad de ver y oír mas allá, sin embargo los pájaros aun podían comunicarse con seres celestiales que les comunicaban el peligro así como repetir las melodías que alcanzan a oír de seres que han dejado de existir en esta dimensión pero componen aun una música celestial. Es por eso que los animales pueden ver ese brillo en nuestros ojos que ninguna persona puede apreciar y decidir si confiar o no.

Recuerdos en lo profundo
La pared goteaba una humedad proveniente del fondo de sus entrañas, los sillones y las sillas, desprendiéndose de sus sitios y deslizándose hacia el centro, se perdían en las profundidades de un abismo, cada cuadro y adorno se dirigían hacia la boca de su destino, caer y caer.
Mis extremidades, que apenas lograban aferrarse, casi inútilmente a un extremo, fuera de aquella vorágine de movimiento que emitía aquel agujero negro atrayente, denotaban que mi esfuerzo era vano, ya que caía rendida ante esa fuerza inconmensurable que me arrastraba vertiginosamente.
Con mis ojos nublados por el polvo, todo mi ser librado a una batalla imprevista que requería la inmediatez de mis instintos, aun con mis músculos desfallecientes, agotados y mis oídos aturdidos por su poder, veía pasar cada recuerdo de mi infancia hacia el centro del olvido.
Delante de mis ojos, como un rayo, corría hacia el centro, aquella cajita musical, que había sido tan preciada por mí, y evocaba ahora los más sutiles recuerdos de mi infancia, tenia la forma de un hongo en forma de casita, y estaba habitada con muñecos que tenían su cabeza con la forma de la misma, estos danzaban al compás de una melodía de bienvenida y que un triste día había culminado de improvisto por que la cuerda se había saturado y nunca mas fue reparada, aun recordaba en mi mente tan presentes como afinadas aquellas notas melancólicas y a la vez dulces que hacían bailar a aquellos seres de papel.
Inmediatamente después se deslizaba aquel Xilofón, con curiosas anécdotas que venían a mi mente al verlo pasar, recuerdo que con mi primo le habíamos arrancado tecla por tecla como una hilera de dientes de leche que se cambian uno a uno y que me había llevado días volver a armarlo . Y en un enjambre de objetos que revoloteaban, la tetera de mamá que se estrellaba contra la pared y hecha trizas, en un remolino de partecitas no uniformes se perdía hacia la hondonada, el caos.
Junto con los últimos recuerdos que se alineaban hacia el centro, no podía faltar aquello que había dado un significado a cada cosa, aquello que le había dado una vida y una historia a ese e pequeño gran mundo de objetos, "Yo misma"

El Agua

Tan cristalina, y para nada insípida, como manantial embebido en un millón de pétalos de rosas, reflejaba cada rayo de un sol brillante.
Con una suave y tenue brisa, podían caer repiqueteando, como un sinfín de parientes lejanos de las estrellas, todas y cada una de las gotitas que formaban un abanico de cristal.
Así, con esas palabras, podía describir el lago de mis sueños, de mi infancia, y que me había acompañado cada verano, humedeciendo mi piel, cubriéndome de frescura y regocijo, al aliviarme del intenso calor.
Solía ir cada verano a la casa de mis tíos y pasar largas horas, en la hierba fresca, bronceando mi textura de marfil y dejando que un intenso cobrizo dorado me empañe. Cuando ese tono cobre se iba tornando color fuego, me sumergía en la dulce caricia del lago. Nada era tan perfecto como aquello y dejando que mis músculos se relajaran. me abandonaba por completo a su encanto.
Entregada sin vacilar a su protección y dejándome envolver por su pureza, sentía que no solo mi cuerpo, sino que también mi alma, le pertenecían a sus aguas, como si yo misma fuera una gota convertida en ser humano, que debía volver tarde o temprano a las profundidades, al llamado de la naturaleza.
Ese mismo día el sol brillaba diferente, mas fuerte que de costumbre, y cada rayo insinuaba que debía entrar a mi mundo y sumergirme. Nunca antes había oído algún otro llamado, ni una invitación tan atrayente y seductora. Por lo tanto no vacilé y me hundí lentamente, luego salí a la superficie y me quedé flotando boca arriba, mirando el cielo.
Cuando el ocaso comenzó a teñir de rosado el horizonte, sentí que el atardecer me incitaba a regresar a mi hogar, la tierra, pero quise contemplarme por última vez en las cristalinas aguas. Fue entonces cuando me vi. Mi piel era verde y con escamas, se había teñido de un tono tan verde como las algas de las profundidades del lago y mis ojos eran saltones y vidriosos.
En el cielo azul las primeras estrellas se reflejaban en el agua y yo al fin entre sus parientes lejanos, viviría por siempre en mi verdadero hogar.

La estatua

Fue en aquellos tiempos, cuando ya nadie lo recordaba, olvidado en el medio de aquel solitario parque, cubierto por una capa de moho y polvo que impedían apreciar el encanto de sus formas, además de la vegetación silvestre que lo ahogaba en el descuido más triste que sucedió lo que voy a contar...
"El pequeño águila de piedra granito" se erguía solitario en su escaso medio metro de altura. Hallábase allí sin propósito y sin rumbo. Se decía que había llegado desde un lugar remoto en un barco, envuelto en una caja de madera sin destinatario aparente. Era de un color grisáceo tan apagado que parecía un ser viviente que había sido sentenciado a la eternidad de piedra por alguna razón inexplicable. Así lo definían los antiguos pobladores que lo contemplaban y se preguntaban acerca de su origen.
Pero ahora todo era diferente. En aquel pueblo abandonado de los últimos tiempos, lo habían librado a su suerte, sin importarles su destino y mucho menos dedicarse a su cuidado.
La razón aparente de su total indiferencia hacia él era que simbolizaba a un pájaro de muy mal agüero para ellos y nadie quería quedar atrapado por algún lejano poder que el mismo podía sentenciar al posar inocentemente su mirada sobre éste.
Así fueron sucediéndose los años, víctima de las patadas que mal intencionados niños huidizos le proferían, ante el descuido del guardia del parque o de las madres entretenidas en alguna otra cosa que no fuera el cuidado de sus hijos, y de los transeúntes que le arrojaban diversos objetos.
A pesar de todo aquello, la estatua se encontraba en un respetable estado sin considerar las vastas rajaduras que se extendían como tenues líneas blanquecinas.
Ese invierno particular parecía que el olvido de la estatua bien se comparaba con la dejadez del parque. Una tormenta había devastado el lugar y más que cualquier otro año en particular el lugar se había dejado ganar por la destrucción. A cada lado del parque podian observarse troncos arrastrados y arrancados, árboles semi mutilados. Los escasos juegos se hallaban desvencijados y el óxido que roía las antiguas maderas pintadas de azul, los iba comiendo casi por completo.
Los pocos habitantes se hallaban resguardados en sus hogares ante el intenso y repentino frió que invadía el lugar. Los inmensos nubarrones gris oscuro indicaban la llegada de un invierno duro, un acontecimiento poco usual y a lo que los habitantes no estaban acostumbrados.
Esa tarde el parque se encontraba prácticamente desierto, no había un solo niño merodeando y se avistaban al extremo norte dos personas mayores recolectando troncos para encender su hogar a leña.
La estatua de piedra seguía allí, en el medio de la inmensidad, escondida casi sin poder ver la luz por los pastizales de aquellas pampas.
Fue en ese momento cuando comenzó un dulce cantar proveniente de las alturas. Su entonar parecía contener un indescifrable mensaje, pero sin duda era un mensaje de dicha y encuentro de mundos, era un lenguaje proveniente de una inteligencia remota y de una naturaleza indefinida que lo envolvía todo en una suave canción del más allá.
En un instante el cielo se puso tan gris que era imposible distinguir el cielo de la tierra, apenas dio tiempo a la gente aterrorizada a escuchar las primeras notas de aquel cantar.
Todo sucedió en un instante, el sonido de aquello era tan intenso que no se escuchaba más que su melodía. Todo y todos, absolutamente cada cosa que se erguía sobre la tierra, se había convertido en menos de un segundo en granito.
Allí estaba en medio de aquel vasto lugar de granito, sus plumas eran grises y brillantes, con un ligero matiz amarronado claro. El pequeño águila alzó vuelo. Enseguida el silencio volvió a reinar, esta vez reemplazado por un sonido igualmente extraordinario Por fin había aprendido a volar y era libre, repitiendo la melodía que le había enseñado su madre que venia a buscarlo y dejando atrás al fin un horrible y aburrido pueblo de granito.

La llave

Cuando uno encuentra una llave en una vereda que frecuenta a diario, está lejos de imaginar que ésta podría ser el sutil lazo que une la realidad a la fantasía.
Generalmente sin detenerse a especular demasiado, cree que un olvidadizo dejó que ésta se resbalara de algún pantalón descosido y, por ende, un portón se privó de ser abierto y el auto de ese desafortunado dueño debió esperar a que el cerrajero llegara para salir por fin al ruedo.
Uno aún está más lejos de abrigar la idea siquiera de que tomando una llave en una vereda, uno puede ser transportado a otra dimensión o hacia un mundo tan familiar como desconocido.
Todo pareció suceder en una milésima de segundo cuando me dispuse a recoger la llave perdida.
Me hallaba caminando hacia mi hogar y todo el paisaje me resultaba por demás conocido y al mismo tiempo nuevo y jamás concebido por mi mente.
Al cruzar la calle, un hombre de rostro amable y que me inspiraba total confianza y ternura, cada sonido y palabra que emitía de su boca, parecía estar envuelta en una bondad infinita, sin embargo me dijo:
-Soy la puerta que se abre hacia la fantasía, donde nada es lo que parece, cada rostro y cada cosa que observes, desde la hoja que cae de aquel paraíso y te haga evocar el más recóndito recuerdo de tu infancia hasta la inocencia de aquel perro que vez cruzando la calle, cada uno de los seres y objetos más puros y simples que puedas ver, encierran en realidad la mas espeluznante de las almas, la esencia de la destrucción-. Sin que pudiera conjeturar palabra el hombre desapareció. No había podido aun salir de mi asombro de aquella insólita aparición, cuando apareció de la nada un segundo sujeto. Al contemplarlo mi voz se ahogó en un grito silencioso. Era un ser abominable, casi imposible de describir. Sus ojos parecían reflejar al mismísimo demonio. El cuerpo era encorvado y arrugado, la cabeza completamente calva parecía reflejarse al sol como una nuez arrugada. Con voz ronca y espantosa me dijo:
-Soy la puerta que se abre hacia la realidad, donde lo que parece no es lo que es. Verás la agonía, el sufrimiento, la miseria y la angustia reflejada en cada uno, la muerte rondando tus pasos y sintiéndola tan cerca como casi rozándote, persiguiéndote. Sin embargo, sólo experimentando lo anterior aprenderás a valorar las cosas más bellas y simples de la vida y sin padecer esta adversidad, caerás en la lujuria y te perderás en la avaricia-.
Sin que pudiera conjeturar un pensamiento y con la boca aun entreabierta, como si me hubiesen arrancado las cuerdas vocales en un solo soplido demoníaco, el segundo sujeto, no sabía si llamarlo hombre o enviado de Satán, también desapareció.
Lo único que atine a hacer fue agacharme rápidamente y con mis dedos temblorosos cavar y cavar en la tierra, quebrando ligeramente mis uñas y cubriendo de barro mis suaves dedos que, torpemente, se abrían paso en lo profundo. Cavé lo más hondo que pude hasta quedar exhausta y mis torpes manos, actuando prácticamente inconscientes y desesperadas ante mis órdenes, taparon rápidamente con tierra el agujero. Tampoco me detuve a contemplar si alguien me había observado en aquella acción. Solo atiné a levantarme, con mis rodillas cubiertas de tierra húmeda, y huir hacia mi hogar para encerrarme y no salir en varios días.
De este inexplicable acontecimiento han transcurrido diez años. Sigo viviendo en el mismo lugar donde nací, he olvidado por completo aquel acontecimiento, aunque si he evitado acercarme a aquella vereda todos estos años.
Pero hoy casualmente observé que mi hijo estaba muy extraño. Le he visto por la mañana, las uñas cubiertas de barro, y no lo encuentro nada bien. Su rostro, antes tan puro y angelical, parece tener ahora los ojos inyectados en sangre, como si hubiese elegido un mal camino.