He started in a large workshop where they manufactured various components for safes, at first, doing all kinds of jobs, then as an assistant in the assembly of the boxes. So he learned everything about safes. Later onhe became a locksmith specialising in safes, solving problems for people who had lost their keys or forgotten their combination. Once he was caught up in a mess, because attending to one of these services, when he managed to open the safe before the supposed owners, an alarm started to ring andthe customers disappeared, leaving him alone, soon in the company of the police, who were not convinced with any of the explanations he gave them. Later he repeated the same explanations to the judge who, probably was not having a good day, and condemned him to spend a few months in the lock-up. So when he came out, his wife would not speak to him because she thought he was a bad husband. That was how he ended up alone, with no money and with a sign that read “ex-criminal” hanging from his back, and for this reason it became very difficult for him to get work, not even in the toughest and worst paid fields.
However, he had an address a fellow jail mate had given him, telling him that if he ever needed help he should go to that address and say he was being sent by him. Finally, when things got really bad he decided to go to the address on the paper and, as soon as he told them about his skills with the safes they put him on the payroll.
Whenever he had a pencil and a paper he enjoyed drawing sketches of wooden boats. That had always been his passionsince littleand he had always thought he’d become a naval engineer and would be able to design his own boats, but fate sometimes resists one’s plans. So ashe started going down the criminal path, he had a chance to save some money to make his dream possible. Many thought it to be utterly stupid but Flat fully believed in it. He had read so much about boats and their construction that knew everything there is to know to become a good boat builder. But of course, he also had his feet on the ground and his idea was to buy a small dock on the great lake of the East. It was an old dock with boards that had been rotten by the moisture and lack of maintenance but the place was ideal to carry out his dream, a dream for which he had been working all his life.
His idea was to restore the old pier and fix the interior of the structure to build small sailboats, small yachts of classic wood construction that would allow a family to sail around the world - vessels built with dedication, with his own hands, by shaping the wood with his hands, sanding and polishing it to produce authentic floating beauties, so stylised and solid that they would not float, they would slide, fly over the water aided by the light breeze.
Sometimes people are born in the wrong place. For instance, an architect born in a coastal area who yearned to live inland could very well end up building homes with the shape of boars. Flat also had the soul of a sailor even though he was born inland. When he opened his eyes he saw the face of a beautiful woman, and below, a slogan that read: “peace is knowing that your future is in good hands”.
His head was spinning and did not quite know where he was. He stood up with difficulty and after pausing for a few seconds to catch his breath, he walked directly towards the safe, pulled his tools from his pocket and began to do his work. The box was the one León had indicated and didn’t take long to open. He was an expert locksmith and it showed as soon as he started to work. He worked calmly, as if completely alone in the bank. There were people still lying on the floor. He opened the door of the safe and took out all the cash it contained. The money was inside a few bags bearing the logo of the bank. He grabbed them with confidence and walked with short, relaxed steps. He exited the bank and saw several police cars whooshing down the street at full speed with the sirens on.
Flat walked serenely, as if hypnotised or sleepwalking. After a while he came to a metro stationanddescended the stairs. No one paid any attention, it seemed as if they didn’t even see him. Quietly he pulled out his ticket and continued his weary walk. The subway at that time looked like a busy anthill, everyone was on the move and people crowded on the platform waiting for their train. Then, when the trains arrived, all they wanted was to get into their crowded wagons at all cost, crushing those who were already inside. Flat sat on a bench in the station, staring at all that hustle and bustle, with the bags of money by his legs, quietly allowing time to go pass until the trains began arriving less full. Shortly after, they arrived almost empty, and there was no one waiting on the platform. So he climbed aboard and quietly sat in a seat next to the window, leaving the other seat next to him empty. The train’s doors closed and it began to move through a dark tunnel. Flat stared at the wires on the wall of the tunnel through the window.
After exiting the tunnel, the train came to a new station where there was only just a couple of people waiting to get on it. The doors opened and in came a very sleazy-looking man. On first impressions, Flatdidn’t like that man at all. He was wearing a strange sport suit, matchingred head and wrist bands, dirty clothes as if he had been rolling on the ground and hada slit in his head from which a stream of already dried blood gushed throughout his forehead. The man walked towardsFlat and he thought:
I hope this pervert does not sit next to me, as if there was no other empty seats in the train!
He had to move the bags of money so that the man could sit comfortably and the weirdo sat beside him. Immediately he began to tell a lot of weird stories that Flat couldn’t understand. He just kept on talking and talking until Flat got tired of hearing him. Flat, more than a person he looked like a stone statue, always impassive to what was happening around him, but this man was testing his patience. Feeling ignored, the man put on his headphones and listened to the city’s radio station where they were repeating over and over again the news about the bank robbery. Then, he noticed the big bags Flat was carrying. He thought it wouldn’t be possible but then again, a man as stupid as this could have left the bank with the bags of money without realising that they had the printed logo of the branch. What could he do? The man was probably armed so if he was to warn the police, he’d end up with a shot in his head. On the other hand, it was easy to see this guy was not the sharpest tool in the shed so he could ask for the bounty threatening to call the police and be free of suspicion, because in case he was caught he would argue that he tried to stop the thief and managed to snatch the loot from him. Then, he’d be a hero. Both scenarios were positive.
He decided to try to convince the man that the best thing for him would be to give him some money. Just as he opened his mouth to tell him what he had scripted in his mind, Flat took the starter pistol he carried in his pocket by the handle, and when the man continued nagging him dealt him a blow on the head, finally getting rid of that extremely annoying individual. He forced him to have a good nap, lying on the seat, his head resting on his own shoulder and waited for the next stop. Then, he grabbed the bags of money and walked away quietly. When he arrived at the motel found no trace of his peers. That’s really odd! he thought,but Flat was not the type of person to leave with all the money. Sohe decided to wait there for the others and split the loot as agreed. He left the money by the foot of the last bed and sat on it looking out the window. Time passed but nothing happened, nothing new. He waited a while longer and finally decided to go and see if he could find his partners in crime.
He walked to the point where they were meant to change vehicles. The gas station was not far from the motel but in order to get there faster he used a shortcut across the park. Interestingly, the sky, clear as water a few minutes ago, had suddenly turned dark grey. In the park there was hardly anyone that morning. Flat walked with his usual slow pace, with a single aim in mind - finding his teammates. It started to drizzle, only a light drizzle that soon became so heavy that he had no choice but to quickly find a place to shelter. He found a small wooden structure under which there were informative panels explaining the types of trees that could be found in the park. The park was unable to evacuate that huge amount of water and soon small puddles became small streams that rapidly increased in volume.
; The wooden structure he was hiding under sat on a small wooden stage with a couple of steps, and in no time the water rose to the first level. Flat wasn’t paying much attention to this unusual occurrence and kept on thinking what could have happened to his friends. Far from diminishing, the amount of water increased second after second, just as though someone was throwing buckets of water from above. The wind began to blow hard and the water crashed into Flat, completely soaking him. It was like being on a boat in the heart of a storm, the water tossing him hard in all directions. Then it began to reach his ankles, the wind gusted with such fury that he had to hold tightly to the information panel to avoid being dragged away.
The wind was blowing so fast that the black slate tiles of the small pinewood roof - made of a type wood that was treated with chemicals to withstand moisture that gave it a greenish tint - now were being ripped off. It was quite robust. Nearby trees were windswept and their branches swayed violently. Leaves, torn from their branches, disappeared rapidly in the distance. The structure that was meant to protectFlatcrunched as it wavered from one side to another. Now transformed into a tiny island, the small shelter would not stand tall much longer. Hidden under it, one felt like an ant protecting itself from the rain under a dry leaf.
What once was a small grassy meadow with a few eucalyptus trees, now was a downhill slope with a huge amount of water which, as it crashed into the trees, it created something like small fjords. That large amount of water reached the small stand where Flat stood and dragged it away together with the information panel he was clinging to. It was almost impossible to swim in the mesh of sticks, stones and mud. He spent more time underwater than on the surface, but just enough to fill his lungs with air. Thanks to his strong determination, he managed to get out of that current, clutching to the trunk of a tree. Then he had an idea. In his mind he saw the pier located in the park’s lake and decided to go towards it. There, there was a speedboat with which he used to collect rowboats, but how was he supposed to get to the pier? The best way albeit the longest, was over the top of a chain of hills that formed a sort of a small mountain range. The water had not yet reached that point. The mounds were round as if made with perfect moulds, like children do with the sand on the beach. They formed a perimeter around the parkthat gave people walking through the park a feeling of isolation, of being away from the city. This was due to the fact that the small mountain range secluded the park from the traffic noises of the city. The gorgeous short grass of the small rounded hills invited passers-by to sit on it on sunny days. Dogs particularly, loved running from one end to the other of those small mountain ranges.
There were lots of different things floating or rolling next to him: benches, branches and everything imaginable. A poor dog went by trying to fight the force of the current but it was being dragged against its will until Flat grabbed it by the collar and pulledit towards the refuge provided by the tree trunk.
It was a fairly large dog, about the size of an adult German shepherd, it had black, longish hair with a white streak in the neck, and a red collar. Flatheld onto the tree,keeping the dog between the trunk and him. He grabbed a branch that floated by and, still hugging the tree, he managed to remove its small branches, making a pole to lean on as he walked on the ground. So with the rod in his hands and the dog half way in his arms and half way in his shoulders, he managed to cross that area more or less steadily and got to the top of the small mountain range.
The mountainous area was not yet covered by water, although in order to cross from a small hill to the other it was sometimes necessary to rely on the pole. The dog never abandoned him, and so, forming a team, they headed towards the pier. Everything was going as planned, but as they neared the equator of their journey, they encountered a serious problem - the small mountain range was cut in half by something, making it very difficult to cross from one bank to the other. The top of two street lamps emerged from the water,proving without a doubt that the interruption in the mountain was one of the main roads of the park. Flat did not dare to swim because although one could not see a strong current from the surface, this could be deceiving - underneath the calm surface there could be a mud and earth currentpowerful enough to drag them as they tried to cross it. While he was considering all these possibilities, his canine companion decided to swim across the area, reaching the other shore without any eventualities. The dog looked at him and began to bark, as though calling him, as if to tell him he could cross safely and to hurry. Flat dived into the water like a professional swimmer and quickly crossed the submerged zone.
As Flat reached the shore, the dog barked again, running into a group of bushes. The man followed him and found a young woman lying on the floor with all her clothes covered in mud. It was a very slender young woman. “What a shame, poor girl!”Flat thought. The dog barked at the man whiledrumming the dead woman’s body with its nose. He then thought she had to be the owner of the dog and tried to remove the creature away from the body and continue on their way, but as he attempted to do so the dog stopped himand growled.There was nothing he could do. When he tried to move away once more the dog barked again and drew his attention to the woman by licking her face. So, he made an effort to approach the corpse and examine her in more detail. He stretched his arm to touch the woman’s neck but pushed her face the other way because Flat had a huge phobia of dead people. But, when he touched her, she still felt warm so without wasting any time he performed the corresponding emergency manoeuvres he had so often seen in countless movies, and after a few seconds, she began to cough and clear her lungs of water, breathing with difficulty at first.
As soon as she was able to incorporate herself a bit and sit up, the dog didn’t stop bursting into short barks of joy while wagging its tail quickly and nervously, wanting to lick the girl’s face, from the right hand side of the man, running in circles to the left. Although the girl looked very frail, she was very strong and recovered quickly. She stared at him and the man said, extending his hand:
I amFlat.
My name is María, delighted, she said as she greeted him taking his hand.
The three of them continued up the hill towards the pier.
Rotating Black Holes
LET’S THINK about a blender for a moment, about the liquid turning around its blades forming a vortex or swirlcaused bythe propeller-like shape of the blades. But let’s ask ourselves, what if the item being moved did not present any aerodynamic resistance, say like a sphere? It is clear that nothing would happen at low speed but if this was to increase, the sphere will begin to act as a magnet attracting all the stuff it encountered around. As this matter approached the sphere, it would start to spin in the same fashion as the rotation that occurs when we remove the plug in the bathtub and the water creates a whirlpool as it exits through the drain.
Upon reaching faster speeds, even if initially it were a small sphere with very little mass and therefore very little gravitational attraction, with the acceleration, the spherewould have increased its mass. And even if it were the smallest sphere imaginable, turning at the speed of light will exert an enormous attraction on the surrounding space. Speed would have given the sphere an enormous mass it did not previously have, and this mass would attract any particle inward in a downward spiral. When a certain speed was exceeded the sphere might collapse, and in the same fashion a very massive star can becomea black hole, the high rotation speed of the smallsphere would create the same effect.
This can help us understand how small black holes can be formedin space, small holes that can grow as their masses increase by swallowing all the stellar matter they find around them. On the other hand, it would be easy for these to disappear because as soon as their speed was altered, their mass and gravitational attraction would decrease thus leading the hole to a sudden end. The matter that constantly strikes the core of the sphere, may cause changes in its speed of rotation although it is likely that this material that falls in spirals hits the mass of the sphere, making it turn even faster. This can
also result in different situations. Excessive speed can produce a fragmentation in the atoms that form the sphere. A speed that is too fastcould disrupt the balance between the artificial gravity produced by the speed and the centrifugal force that is generated by rotating the same sphere. If the centrifugal force is greater than the gravitational force, the electrons orbiting the atom wouldbe shot away and, what’s more, the nuclei of these atoms would be split. This process would produce a massive amount of energy with the potential to be fired towards the exterior.
About Elías
I CANNOT sleep with the light off unless the night is clear and there’s enough light coming through the window. I need to be able to concentrate on specks of light in the room, without them everything feels like it’s spinning around me and I end up very dizzy. I think the same happened to one of the characters in a movie, and they explained it by saying that this was normal among pilots who spent a lot of time flying, and the effects of gravity on astronauts who had been away. Both cases had nothing to do with me, but at least, it made me feel better to think I had something in common with pilots and astronauts.
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