Initially these people were brothers, but they gradually distanced themselves to the point that when they met again they no longer recognised each other as the colour of their hair and skin had changed, and different races had been created.
“Hazel Eyes’”children spent so much time on their own that when they met they were wary and suspicious of their brothers, and this distrust, this fear,would causethem to fight one another. They struggled to possess land, a land that belonged to them all, a land that was there long before they appeared, and even long before I arrived, a land that would prevail long after they had gone.
They walked for centuries, they walked on a long pilgrimage around the world trying to finda reason for their existence. They felt alone, lost. They forgot the beauty of the little things and searched for a god, an omnipotent god to give them a reason to live. The truth is that without even knowing it, they already had it. This search for such an elusive god would take them to distant lands they had never dreamed of. Why did they feel lonely? I had always been alone, right from the beginning, when everything was dark.
Zero
THE INVENTION of Zero has brought great advances in science and in the way we understand the universe but it has also led us to make one of the greatest mistakes - forgetting that it is our invention and therefore it does not exist in nature. We always imagine that everything starts at a zero point from where we measure all events, and this causes us to make considerable errorsin judgement, such as believing that before the Big Bang there was nothing and that this nothingness was zero. This is totally impossible because nothing is quantifiable if not in positive numbers, certainly in negative numbers, but it is never zero. So, before the creation of the particles of matter that forms our universe, there existed a universe of antiparticles and antimatter, possibly similar to ours, perhaps with the only difference that the numbers had a permanent minus sign in front: “Could it be possible that in this universe the less money you have, the richer you might be?”
If we remove zero, we realise that things are very different from what we think. If you do not use zero as a starting point speeds become relative and even the speed of light stops being a constant.
About León
EVERYTHING FALLS under its own weight, and in León’s life everything began to fall over him. A few months ago he had his driver's license removed because while he was doing one of his deliveries, just after having stopped to eat and have a few glasses of Sanblás, by an unfortunate combination of events, he found himself involved in an accident. His explanations did not convince the police and hisbreath test exceeded the allowable limits tenfold. According to León, the driver of the vehicle he had collided head-on with, had no clue how to drive and attempted to overtake him, invading his lane, not giving him enough time to respond and ended up steamrolling him. The police’s investigation suggested quite the opposite and added to the high level of alcohol in his blood, he was taken to the police station. The ramshackle iron-madetruck was completely destroyed but itvaliantly made León come out of the accident without a scratch. The same could not be said for the little blue sedan which, now resembled an accordion, its interior splashed with blood. Fortunately, the woman was taken away alive -her condition was serious but she recovered favourably. This helped reduced León’s sentence. He awaited for his trial for quite some time and was unemployed throughout this period. And although he did try to find work wherever he could, being aged over fifty, having no experience other than working as a driver, not holding a license, and his peculiar physical appearance, made his search for a job very difficult. Rejection after rejection, he continued doing some illegal deliveries, removals and rubble pick up which, he then released anywhere he could, whether it was a park or even sometimes in the middle of the road. These small jobs provided him with enough money to spend the rest of the week sitting in any seedy bar where he would drink anise until he barely had any cash to return home with.
He was often seen going from bar to bar begging for a drink, but most of the bars knew him and refused him a drink as soon as they realised the state he was in. He used to drink and drink until he fell to the ground. Sometimes another drunken friend accompanied him to his front door, leaning on each other. Other times, he walked on all fours, unable to balance himself on his legs. Then he tried to open the door, but inserting the key in the lock seemed so difficult - you had to be William Tell, he thought, even his apple was bigger than these tiny keys. But he persisted, in all possible ways, even banging his head against the door, so the woman inside would know it was him and would rush to open. Then he’d collapse in the entrance hall and stay there until the next morning.
The arguments at home were increasingly more destructiveevery day. His wife refused to put up with his insults any longer. His children were older and had their own life so the woman was no longer willing to toleratehis psychological abuse. León started out insulting her and as his mouth projected the vile abuses she’d get hold of object of various kinds, some sharper than others, and throw them to his face. One of the objects caused a gap in his forehead. Blood began to drip but he did not even flinch. All those glasses of anise, which he had taken during that day, worked very well as anaesthetics. Finally the woman, fed up with that situation, left home. At first León was glad, thinking she was guilty, that their relationship was a calamity, and now that he was alone everything would change, he would devote himself to truly live his life. The reality was that two weeks later his situation bordered the catastrophic. Heemptied the house of valuables andeven sold the beds in order to get money to invest in the bar, invest in anything that he could swallow and it contained alcohol. His condition was regrettable - unshaven, uncombed, didn’t change his clothes in days, he looked like a wreck.
Someone knocked on the door. No one answered. After a second they knocked again. Thena heavy pounding. León had no choice but to go and see who it was. He opened the door and saw a policeman. He was being summoned to trial but he was in no mood for trials so he try to shut the door and leave the policeman out but the foot of the official prevented him from closing it. The agent then called his partner who was out looking at what was left of the garden. The two of them entered León’s house and manhandled him while León continued throwing all kinds of profanities at them.
The trial was quick - the judge was benevolent despite of the many imprecations León continually sent his way. The truth is that the judge’s harsh appearance would have been sufficient cause for most people to behave before him. They say that dogs look like their owners but in this case it must have been the opposite, because the man had sharp canine features. And yet, despite all that, León was cast a very light sentence – only six months in prison- which, it even surprised his lawyer who after studying the case and having to continually excuse León’s behaviour, thought this was a sentencinghe would have signed for right from the beginning.
He left the van. The day was grey and the cold wind nailed his face like a rain of needles. There were lots of nasty rumours about what new prison inmates have to endure and this made León a little nervous. As he entered, he was taken to the store, and the quartermaster put the bed sheets on his arms and over them a shirt, a pair of pants and underwear, all in navy. Finally,he was handed some slippers of the same colour. Loaded with everything he needed, he took him to his cell. To reach the room he had to go through one of the prison’s long corridors. This was his first contact with other inmates who were in their cells. Walking through the corridor the prisoners began to yell all sorts of things - some insulted the guards, others asked León questions and those in the highest cubicles tossed rolls of toilet paper at them.
They put him in a cell with two prisoners. Contrary to what usually happens in most movies, these prisoners were rather friendly and theygreetedLeón with a firm handshake. Theskinny and lanky prisoner was called Cagalubias. The stout man’s name was Flat. It soon became obvious he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed because Cagalubias constantly told him what he had to d
o, including things like sit, greet, etc. They called him Flat because rumours had it he had opened a safe using far too many explosives once and caused the door to be flung up in the air. Evenbarricading himself behind a sturdy table top, the thick steel door landed on his head. Since then, everyonesaid that his head was flat.
Cagalubias was a nervous person. He stuttered and didn’t inspire any confidence. He was physically small, had strange factions and prominent cheekbones that appeared even more noticeable under his sunken cheek. He had bulging eyes andan evasive glance. His mouth was just a slot, and although it was a large mouth his lips were imperceptible. When he spoke, one only saw rows of misplaced teeth, grouped in some parts of the mouth and separated in others. He was always hunched, head down, his vertebrae prominently protruding in the upper part of his back.
A nervous tic caused him to make sudden jerky movements, like a horse scaring flies away. He used to explain that his nervousness was due to the fact that the police knocked on the door of his house one day and said:
Police, open up!
At that precise point in time Cagalubias was weighing the cocaine he used to sell on a small scale and since he could not come up with a hiding place, he started eating the powder by the handful. The police kicked the door down and found him standing in the living room in underwear and a green undershirt, all covered in a white powder, as if he had dropped a sack of flour from above. Then, with his face and hands coated in white due to the cocaine and while swallowing the last handful of the drug remaining in his hands, he said:
I'm a baker and I love icing sugar, he he.
After having said this, his eyes rolled back and he fell to the ground, foam coming out of his mouth. When he awoke he was in the prison’s infirmary.
Cagalubias’ criminal career started very early. At the age of fourteen he used to steal cars for the sole purpose of taking them for a quick spin around the open fields in the city, leaving the cars with a little more than just minor damage. Of course, the vehicle’s owners were never too pleased and so the claims against him for theft and vandalism started accumulating until the police finally decided to wait in the field where he used to take the stolen vehicles. The police awaited patiently until the engine of the car he was driving would run out of fuel and stop. Then they took him away without any resistance. Since he was only young, instead of prison he was sent to a juvenile correctional facility where he learned everything he needed to go from being a car thief to being a cook. He had great talent for chemistry, and he studied hard during his stay here and earned himself a cook’s diploma.
He spent most of his evenings going to the local pharmacies to buy all kinds of medications for a host of non-existing diseases. Of course Cagalubias was very healthy and instead, he used these products to manufacture designer drugs by extracting the chemical components from these medications and various other cleaning products. The extraction and purification of the elements were done through different processes, including boiling them in large pots - that’s why he was given the alias “cook”.
“On the other hand, when I learnt about this, I finally found a list of the establishments, called drugstores,where they sold cleaning products with narcotics.”
Cagalubias was good at chemistry but had no idea how to market his products and that’s why he quickly landed in jail as he was caught attempting to sell his own production pills to a policeman. In prison he continued with his intensive courses but this time he learned all there is to know about drug trafficking.
Cagalubias and Flat were reoffenders, but since the crimes they had committed were not very serious, they served very short sentences. You might wonder how a gang of robbers forms itself because, of course, one does not go into a bar, becomes friends with any Tom, Dick and Harry and starts planning a robbery right there and then. This is what happened in prisons- you walk in for committing any crime, just like the one committed by León, and leave with a masters in safes’ robbery, sale and manufacture of narcotics and explosives’ assembly. As time was abundant, theyspent hours plotting different ways to find easy cash. And that's how Cagalubias, Flat and León spent all their time planning to rob a bank.
León provided all the information pertaining to the branch. He knew one of them very well, he was even familiar with the type of safe they had. From the description given by León, Flat immediately knew what type of model it was and how long he’d take to open it. Cagalubias was to get everything needed for the robbery - weapons, clothing and a vehicle toflee on. León would be the driver. Gradually, the plan took shape in each of their minds and they spent the time they had left in prison wondering what they would do with the money. Each had a different plan to spend it on. León wanted to buy a new truck with climate control and start his own transport company. He could see the truck in his mind, big signs on the sides that read: León Transports.
Being in jail was not all that badif it wasn’t for the fact that you were forced to be there. In fact, many would be happy to walk in of their own accord because the food was better than in most homes -you could even go as far as saying that it was as good as a restaurant. The prisoners spent time together as one big family and the guards were their only enemies. That’s why, if any of the inmates committed a punishableoffense, all of them would try to cover it up to prevent the culprit from being arrested. Thishad happened sometimes when the inmates were ordered to stand in line in the yard and the guards asked for the culprit of a particular crime – like yelling in the middle of the night, or breaking a table or a window - to reveal himself but all prisoners stood and faced the punishment together. The guards lined them upand waited for the guilty prisoner to emerge but, even if this happened, even if the culprit did not want everyone to be blamed for his actions, there was nothing he could do. If he took a step forward and raised his hand to let them know it had been him, all other prisoners would also take a step forward and raise the same hand at the same time to self-incriminate themselves. They knew only too well that unity was strength and, as a rule, in a few minutes, the guards became bored of having them line up and sent them back to their cells.
The days were generally quiet, except for the odd occasion when there was some incident. First thing in the morning the inmates went to the dining area to have coffee and a sandwich for breakfast. There was a different type of sandwich for every day of the weekto be taken with coffee and milk. Afterwards, they were servedsandwiches and cold cuts. Prisoners werenot permitted to take food to the cells, but most of themhidthe sandwich in their pockets and took it to their cells to eat later in the patio. After breakfast, a little exercise and then recess in the courtyard. For the rest of the day, theywere free to focus on whatever they pleased. Normally they visited the library’s classroom where some of the prisoners were taught differenttrades but while the guards and warden thought that the prisoners were learning a trade to make an honest living when their time in prison was over, the classes were of particular interest to the prisoners because they taught them all sorts of interesting trades that could be applied in their criminal activities like stealing cars, robbing banks ortrafficking drugs.
As I said, if it were not because in jail one is held against one’s own will, many would volunteer to attend these intensive courses.
León’s WondrousTales
ONE OF THE most surprising stories León used to tell took place in Australia. What was León doing in Australia? Well, according to him, he had to find a job there for a period of time because work was scarce in Europe and in Australia they were short of manpower. He had a repertoire of stories about his days in Australia.
Many of the roads in this country are characterised by their never-endingstraight lines that make you lose sight of the horizon and even if you focus your gaze on the distance, you can barely notice any changes over long periods of time. Since the country is so vast, Australians had to come up with new methods to lower transport costsand invented the so called road trains ormega-trucks that pull lots of wagons. Overtaking these beas
ts is really dangerous, but not for expert trucker León. The concrete of the road blended with the red sand of the desert and those endless lines made him lose concentration easily, causing him to swerve abruptly at times. The heat too put a dent in his will. In one of the straight stretches of road, the landscape changed suddenly, from sandy dunes to spectacular lakes. This is impossible, León though,it must be some kind of mirage. The water nearly reached the road and the heat made the asphalt seem as though it was covered by water. León continued contemplating that wonderful landscape, he almost felt like stopping and taking a bath. As hesurveyed the wetlands he looked under the seat, where he found a bottle of Sanblás and, while watching this wonderful scenery, he drank a few gulps of anise.
The Relic Page 5
