A SHORT NOVEL
Chapter 1
Still falling branches of old trees and young, killing people walking below, and have even begun to fall suddenly whole trees, without any explanation to this phenomenon as disturbing.
No one knows why, unexplained collapse as if it were a heart attack, but the trees have no heart, you ?.
Huge pines fall endlessly here, there, and the noise is continuous, overwhelmed, is going ask the people who witness these tremendous facts of Nature it destroys itself.
It is a prelude to what is to come ?. Could it be that our world will end well, first falling trees, a few others there, and each passing day the pandemic consuming arboreal environment extends here.
In cities and towns the mayors do not know what to do, they try to reassure its neighbors They are saying that they have reviewed the fallen and are apparently healthy, which still is much more disturbing.
Healthy? ask everyone, as they will be healthy if they fall fulminated down and kill everyone who caught underneath.
Sheep, cows, people, chickens, everything is crushed under its weight.
No one can avoid looking up when it is below the trees will fall over my ?, we ask everyone.
I do not usually leave home often and the two trees he had against the viewpoint of felled two years ago caused me sad to see how the sawed and left the stump ground.
Today almost glad I not see them, would fear to fall against the glass and produce one mess.
Just as well, wait, do not go, no explanation will I tell myself.
The wait in vain because they do not have and can not give it, and the phenomenon of falling trees is spreading outside the cities, it spreads to the countryside, to other countries and the terror of such a global and inexplicable tragedy begins to spread throughout all regions of the world.
This arborea slaughter is warning us a catastrophe near where the land protest by human intrusion ?. unnatural
overcrowding in the cities, the annihilation of millions of plants by the inhuman and unnatural asphalt highways, roads and streets with massive populations that do not respect the land or the animals, and natural grass is even eliminated and replaced by a mass green report imitating the inimitable nature.
widespread alarm is what is occurring in the absence of a reasonable explanation.
It's not natural, it is a disease that attacks the whole the forest in the world and is decimating the forest stand ?, is the question being asked in the media, talk shows, and even within families.
As old trees can fall leaving exposed roots, raised land and dread anyone who sees or hears rumblings by the great unexplained collapse for the country people and the city.
It is announced with these facts ?.
try to reassure saying stop, which is transient, there is no evidence of such a fact and in the absence of criteria or scientific evidence to support the theory of a tree disease people speculate, they speculate media, and terror spreads like a wildfire that is flooding the earth as they fall centennial giant that nothing had affected them before.
+++++
Some announces the end of the world and proclaim that we prepare for total disaster, extinction of life on Earth.
They invent nonexistent sentences of scripture, prophets and we go out anywhere.
"They will come evils that ravage the earth "and
announced Armageddon in the Bible is what comes to everyone's mind.
Constantly theories or threats will evolve as this natural disaster are heard. They ask us to imagine a falling trees because they no longer find the right environment for their development. They will fall steadily, first to an area of the world, as is the case, then in all other places, no region or country is exempt and finally not be a single tree in the entire globe.
The life of beings will need those trees are dying with them.
We ourselves need the trees to purify the atmosphere, breathing, and experts on call ask, how long would the necessary oxygen for millions of human beings who inhabit this planet ?.
Impossible to conceive life for birds, squirrels, humans and all kinds of animals that need forest cover to survive, to breathe, to hedge against the relentless rays of the sun, for rain, for regenerating the water go.
Who would be in the world? Hard to imagine.
No rain, no plants, no animals, how long would have to go to the absolute and utter desolation from seizing the whole earth.
Not really very little, and those who were surviving devour their own by not having to eat.
The drying would swamps, rivers would stop flowing, and the burning thirst would be implacable.
Finally death for almost all living things that depend on the forest, rain, water, and oxygen.
Possibly cockroaches or other insects could survive?
Who knows, but it is likely that these beings also need the trees to eat their leaves, lay eggs, away from the cold or extreme heat, especially breathing.
They seek alternative to survive and be the only living things in a withered and desolate land ?.
In the absence of insectivorous birds, insects by the millions would propagate at least for now, making it impossible to end up with all different kind of existence.
And so the speculation continue of so-called experts that we are already putting the willies.
Fear spreads everything starts to be chaotic, everyone tries to dig in their homes, ensure their lives, to procure what is necessary and little else.
deaths Crush are counted as thousands.
At first they succored the wounded, collected the dead beneath the branches, and is not given to rough and no one dares to go deep into a wooded area.
The bodies of animals and humans are rotting under the branches and the smell is irresistible.
Like land mines scattered, exploding when stepped on, the trees fall without warning crushing everything around them.
Some flee to open, clear, even desert terrain, but foods become scarce, the roads are impassable with thousands, millions of fallen trees is preventing step for them.
Just circularcampo through possible scarce supplies to keep poorly stocked populations, and no one thinks anything other than survival of the unknown and wait, wait it all happen.
They have finished the contests for whoever cares to make war when everything seems to be destroyed.
+++++++++++
All this is mere speculation to something that is happening in my city.
Dozens of branches have fallen this summer, they have been killed two or three people, trees that suddenly they collapse without knowing why and City Hall promises to review the hundreds of thousands of trees growing in Madrid.
Someone may believe that this revision can be done ?.
I doubt it, and I think we cherish much our environment or other generations will live situations impossible to conceive.
Sleep well, without nightmares, and look up when riding under the trees.
Episode 2
The poor do not understand anything that happens. My wife begs me not to leave, have much fear of what might happen to me, and prefers to be consumed without food before losing me.
She can not move, you are in a wheelchair and needs someone to push, help you join if you want sit elsewhere and can barely stand up.
We have rationed the food to the absolute limits but runs out.
There is no catastrophic speculations in the media.
They have been controlled by the Government and the army takes care to follow the necessary guidelines do not panic.
We control everything, supermarkets, communications, some roads cleaned by removing thousands of trees to prevent the passage of trucks with supplies.
There are cabinets crisis everywhere who strive to tackle the environmental catastrophe involving the loss of forests.
They do not tell us what will happen in the jungles of the Amazon and the like that are the lungs of the planet.
Terror is generally the army circulates through the streets of Madrid and tries to control that no looting or riots .
I'm in the street and the view is bleak. Nowhere is a tree not be down having crushed cars, structures, roofs and causing countless casualties among unsuspecting pedestrians.
No bodies, have been withdrawing in the absence of physical danger of landslides, I am not standing tree, and there more than danger of epidemics.
Nothing is said the number of casualties among the population they do not want to panic even greater than it already is.
Where do I go ?, I think the best approach to any known supermarkets.
The first is open in police custody, an endless line of people throng to go coming in.
The line of people goes around the entire block, and large posters announcing that must be the ID of the relatives or units who live in one floor to deliver foods that are logically and rationed.
The order exists, at least for now, and that reassures me.
I call my wife on the phone and tell him what I've seen, I tell him to stay quiet, I'll take a long because I have to wait in line, and that all is well as take the DNI yours and mine.
He tells me not to worry about it, it's OK, and wait all it takes.
With patience I get in the row, pull my kindle and start reading trying to calm my spirits.
No whether to buy food Gatufo have to carry a document proving their identity and living with us.
If I can not have to share with ours, not there will be a problem.
In the row I notice that there are all kinds of people, seniors, young men and women sometimes in pairs, almost everyone is silent or try to hear news on the radio.
The police and army have imposed a great respect, the order is saved and there is, to my knowledge any kind of tumult.
When panic started if there was, then European governments were taking joint actions and order was recovered in the streets.
Now people quiet and whispers whispered the latest news that usually never be true.
Come filtered by governments and actually say nothing about what is happening.
How far the plague of "áboles and bushes fallen" comes?. It is not said, they have found a remedy or explanation ?. It also discussed.
Only regional or national news is given, what happens in European countries who suffer the same consequences and take similar measures as us.
There is a large cabinet crisis in Brussels, which dictates the rules of what needs to be done in different EU countries.
Nothing is said or says, secrecy is total.
It is quite possible that a general attempt to stampede does not occur, fleeing the devastated areas of the European continent and marching by air or any other means of transport to areas that have been spared the tragedy of trees.
There will be no ?, I wonder, or this is absolutely global.
I do not know, no one around me knows that, but imagine or desire think not, the consequences would be too horrible at short notice.
We do not see anyone come out, they will at the other door, that way we do not know what they take.
Presumably as they pass
the first row supplies are They are ending. No one can control stocks if they do not know how many people will go to buy them.
I've a list of what we need, always have been before and now with more reason.
The review mentally to not think about anything else.
I try not to talk with anyone and hear what others comment.
Fear is what let understand all conversations. There is no possible explanation for what is happening, and the spectacle of all the trees that were in the walk, lying on the ground is not a reassuring image.
Han section which was in the driveway but almost no cars. People begin to save fuel for fear of what is to come. And that's the big question we all ask, when will this stop ?, we will see in a month or even next week ?. It will all like, controlled, or we'll be in chaos ?.
I prefer not to speculate in my head but it's inevitable. When under Guadia apocalyptic thoughts come to my mind and drew up plans to deal with the catastrophe.
I can not think of anything, I have no car, my wife is almost incapacitated, can not walk, barely sit up, where I or I do if all gets worse?. Again I say to myself, better not think about it, lives today faces today what you have to do tomorrow is another day with other problems that have to be solved.
That's it, no more, many plans you want to do forever another reality is different from what has been thought or expected.
The entrance door is still closer, I look at the clock, the time has passed ?. Two hours, has not been too and I even thought it would be more.
It's a bad sign, I think again helplessly, is a clear proof that the food run out and people take less because hardly can be anything.
Hush, do not think me tell you, you've begun again to assume the worst.
But it is true, check it as I enter, the shelves are almost empty, and as I get to where they collect notes of what we want to take van crossing more half of what I had written.
I bring rice, some milk, beans, pasta, soap, eggs, and little else.
No vegetables, no fruit, no fish, no meat, no cheese, barely oil or sugar, I get a bottle and a kilo only, nor are potatoes, total not know how we will arrange for a week.
It's what they tell me, I sealed a role in specifying what I wear, date, and my next supply can do it in a week. He is recorded in the computer and say clearly "do not try to go to another supermarket" as it is forbidden by a recent law.
If I try to do so they can stop and no longer give me more supplies. I'm overwhelmed, this is much worse than I thought it is not surprising that we leave for another heavily guarded door and tell us that not we comment anything to anyone about everything we've been told.
The people waiting outside could mutiny and could cause an uproar, but it's there and thanks to the ration to reach the most people.
I also begin to feel fear, fear of what is to come and a cold sweat starts streaming from my forehead.
I am going to give Gatufo, rice ?, some sausage, cooked ham that he likes, but is a product expires, then ?.
Before I head out to one of the managers to distribute what they have adjusted and ask if they have food cat.
I feel relieved when I said yes to teach primer pussycat, the look, the seals, and leaves.
It comes with a bag of food, not too big, and some cans.
For a week, I said before can not come so ration the cat everything I can.
Gatufo is saved, relief and I calm, at least the cat will eat and good news.
In silence I leave the supermarket and trying to almost hide the products will watching either side fearful that can steal me.
What can I do if that happens?
The fear is chewed between those who hope to enter the supermarket, talking softly we do not want to unnerve the soldiers or police watching us with perverse face and guard the line.
We do not see anyone come out, they will at the other door, that way we do not know what they take.
It is assumed that as they pass
the first row supplies will running out. No one can control stocks if they do not know how many people will go to buy them.
I've a list of what we need, always have been before and now with more reason.
The review mentally to not think about anything else.
I try not to talk with anyone and hear what others comment.
Fear is what let understand all conversations. There is no possible explanation for what is happening, and the spectacle of all the trees that were in the walk, lying on the ground is not a reassuring image.
Han section which was in the driveway but almost no cars. People begin to save fuel for fear of what is to come. And that's the big question we all ask, when will this stop ?, we will see in a month or even next week ?. It will all like, controlled, or we'll be in chaos ?. I prefer not to speculate in my head but it's inevitable. When under guard apocalyptic thoughts come to my mind and drew up plans to deal with the catastrophe.
I can not think of anything, I have no car, my wife is almost incapacitated, can not walk, barely sit up, where I'm going or I do if all gets worse?. Again I say to myself, better not think about it, lives today faces today what you have to do tomorrow is another day with other problems that have to be solved.
That's it, no more, many plans you want to do forever another reality is different from what has been thought or expected.
The entrance door is still closer, I look at the clock, the time has passed ?. Two hours, has not been too and I even thought it would be more.
It's a bad sign, I think again helplessly, is a clear proof that the food run out and people take less because hardly can be anything.
Hush, do not think me tell you, you've begun again to assume the worst.
But it is true, check it as I enter, the shelves are almost empty, and as I get to where they collect notes of what we want to take van crossing more half of what I had written.
I bring rice, some milk, beans, pasta, soap, eggs, and little else.
No vegetables, no fruit, no fish, no meat, no cheese, barely oil or sugar, I get a bottle and a kilo only, nor are potatoes, total not know how we will arrange for a week.
It's what they tell me, I sealed a role in specifying what I wear, date, and my next supply can do it in a week. He is recorded in the computer and say clearly "do not try to go to another supermarket" as it is forbidden by a recent law.
If I try to do so they can stop and no longer give me more supplies. I'm overwhelmed, this is much worse than I thought it is not surprising that we leave for another heavily guarded door and tell us that not we comment anything to anyone about everything we've been told.
The people waiting outside could mutiny and could cause an uproar, but it's there and thanks to the ration to reach the most people.
I also begin to feel fear, fear of what is to come and a cold sweat starts streaming from my forehead.
I am going to give Gatufo, rice ?, some sausage, cooked ham that he likes, but is a product expires, then ?.
Before I head out to one of the managers to distribute what they have adjusted and ask if they have food cat.
I feel relieved when I said yes to teach primer pussycat, the look, the seals, and leaves.
It comes with a bag of food, not too big, and some cans.
For a week, I said before can not come so ration the cat everything I can.
Gatufo is saved, relief and I calm, at least the cat will eat and good news.
In silence I leave the supermarket and trying to almost hide the products will watching either side fearing that they may rob me.
What I can do if that happens
Chapter 3
I doubt going to save the supplies and back out, opt for this option as the safest and most rushing came to my street.
I go up, I open the door and hear the voice of my wife greets me with joy, it always does, I will see it and well, I confirmed. I explain that I come back out and try to find a friend who can give me a device shortwave.
He has collected and surely some will leave me.
Internet is dead, no line and only reactive moments without Before you can use the browser stably.
The same has happened with the so-called "social networking" or international communications.
No work, Facebook or Twitter, have disappeared and so none of the old networks more modest. Nor does the mail, or google, everything has passed into history.
The mobile signal comes and goes and only allows local or national calls.
You can hardly speak more than two minutes as it is cut and leaves you halfway.
The government administers phone lines as they do with the supplies.
I need a shortwave radio to be informed of what is happening out there.
I kiss my wife and I return to go out.
I called my friend and me waiting at home as well that I turn quickly to the downtown area, Atocha, where he lives.
I have an opportunity to see what happens in other districts of Madrid.
Impossible to catch a taxi as almost not circulate, and the few that there are in great demand.
They must detours constantly to avoid fallen trees and circulation is almost impossible, besides people prefer to save fuel if just or rationed even more.
They have taken up cycling as a precious commodity to scroll through the city while avoiding obstacles and seeking alternative routes that never had trees or large bushes.
Way faster, I'm setting in everything around me and try not to get depressed at the sight of the poor people who wander without direction.
The worst are the elderly who seem quite bewildered and lost.
The groups are dissolved away by the police or the army, no more than four, "circulating please" is the phrase repeated over and over again.
In silence, unwilling, the groups disband and no one knows where run, go dodging fallen trees, crushed cars, and huge piles of garbage that barely collected.
My friend told me that has a lot to tell, but not by phone for certainly are tapped, also is cut immediately communication within two or three minutes.
I'm looking forward and hear what he has to say.
He has prepared a good set for me and assures me that I can hear foreign radio stations with news of what is happening in other countries outside Europe.
The eagerly consumes me, hard to be without Internet, connected've lived the last ten years and now have to get used to the total isolation if this continues.
As you have cut the web and that ?, I asked constantly.
They want to suppress communicated between people avoiding assemblies, news, conflicts and they say the restrictions of a police state are again booming ?.
whole picture is very discouraging and show me the slightest threat to the worst of this technological society comes up.
A young woman with a small hand approaches me, is contorted with terror reflected in his face, sir tell me, you know you. what's going on ?, roughly lady, I say.
And that is it ?.
Ojala Mrs. knew, but all is clear is that trees and shrubs are collapsing all over the place, have blocked communications across Europe, not circulating trains, trucks or only by air transport is possible, and worse is that it is running out of fuel.
Broadly speaking it is what is happening, I think, but should not be alarmed because it seems that European governments have taken control as will the soldiers, civil guard and police, are in the streets.
And I'm going to do ?, she laments, I have to go.
How come you do not have to go ?, perhaps lived in the street with your child ?.
No, sir, I had a house chalet I left my parents work in the house as it was a dressmaker-designer, but everything has been destroyed when two large trees that were in the small garden have collapsed.
He started a fire in my house and had to leave my son and I with nothing, nothing, we have spent nearly a week in the street eating garbage and nobody is responsible for anything.
The girl looks like and her son is sad, dirty, hungry, frightened and dying of cold.
In the Cool nights and if they have slept in the open miracle will not have caught pneumonia.
Come with me I say without thinking, I go here close to a friend's house to pick one thing and then go to my house. For now until things are solutions able to be with us, my wife and I Gagufo.
But sir, is not to say it will be much trouble for you.
Do not call you, please call me my name is Emiliano.
And yours and which are small?
I am Glória, Pedrito and my son is.
Encantado Gloria, it's a pleasure to meet Peter, how old are you?
Has completed four, but since the house burned does not speak. It does not say anything, he just clings tightly to me and sobbing.
My friend is waiting outside, stuck to its website, he comes forward when he sees me putting a face of great surprise.
Do not dare ask anything, but soon introduced him to Gloria and little, I explain briefly what has happened to them.
Then he tells us that we enter and open way home, we, Gloria and child are seen visibly tired.
Inside your house does sit Gloria and small , will take some refreshments and snacks. Best if you have a few snacks, I tell him, are hungry.
When they are served, Juan put a soft music and takes me to his bedroom.
Silently tells me what he knows listening to shortwave radio.
Speaks English and French fluently and understands what is said outside the continent stations over the world.
The situation is very bad in all places that I could access the radio.
The disaster is general, and in the northern countries where forests were the tone of the landscape there is almost no standing.
It's such chaos follows, by road or rail does not get anywhere. They communicate by air or boat, but they run out of fuel and do not know what to do.
If you want to clear roads just with reservations and no guarantee that can restore the vital routes for supplying fuel from refineries. Nor that they can bring food from stores, harvesters can not collect anything or sow, everything is impracticable.
He continues telling what you have heard, and still, will gather experts worldwide in undisclosed location, their greatest fear is that the atmosphere is deteriorating and will come a time when you can not breathe.
They talk about sacrifice almost all live cattle as it consumes too much oxygen necessary for humans, and then we'll no meat, which is not a viable solution.
What to do then expect? and in the end it is all over ?. Neither does it seem right, but who decides what is feasible or not, not knowing whether what happens and what is the reason.
You'll hear for yourself, he says, in the apparatus of shortwave have prepared.
And with those two poor you brought, you're going to do ?.
I brought them home, I can not let them back in the street, my conscience is above do such a thing.
I've already decided.
It uncle, whatever you say, but you get into a major conflict. Already know that rationed food, and soon rationed many other things that we have no idea.
Okay, John, soon I'll see what I do, now come home with me.
Take the appliance shortwave Take care and have much luck.
Thanks John, you're a friend, I look after and I'm going.
I do not want to end up in your pantry, they are hungry.
Shortly after we left the house, Gloria and her son washed thoroughly have, have brushed their clothes and their faces are not so pale. The color returned to her cheeks.
A good step not headed toward home, we have an hour and a half away and do not want to worry more for my wife.
We have to take the child in turn, the poor can no longer and there is no way if not reach on foot.
The small case where I have the radio is practically welded to my hand. Do not let them take him away if not dragging me with, I trust not.
Desire as never arrive and be next to Maria, and my cat, sure hope and with real anguish.
walk, we walk without stop. I go before pointing the way and try not to walk too fast for Gloria when you bring your child up.
I'm surprised the force that they have when it comes to taking your child.
To my weighs me a lot, I suppose she would have to Although much more, do not complain, I'll have to almost start arms to replace the weight of poor kid.
From time to time we put on the floor and the child walks for a while without saying a word. It says nothing, is silent no matter what. Almost reaching my street witnessed a horrible event.
There is a group of people staring at the floor, police kept them away from what look like two rickety dolls on the floor.
I Fixed better as we get closer and see with horror that two elderly espachurrados the ground. As discussed have been thrown from one of the balconies holding hands, and there are like broken puppets, surrounded by bright red all over the place.
Do not look tell Gloria too late, she is distraught and cover the face of his son .
Capiulo 4
Let Gloria, we must continue, and we need very little to get there.
It's horrible, how they could have done ?.
could not tell you, you have to be in the shoes of one life to know what he feels is removed and despair you can have that person.
These elders should be very frightened, destitute, hopeless like others, and have chosen to stop suffering.
A jump, do not know if pain, and it's over in a flash, I do not I can review and I appreciate the decision they have taken.
Come on, please, quickly everything you are almost at my house.
I took your son, I do not think I've seen anything and it is difficult to understand it if you've seen there fallen, I do not think the poor than it is already is more traumatized.
We went into my website, and then open the front door, the voice of my wife greets me as he always does when I arrive. So he is right, that everything is as I left it, and before seeing me going and reassuring.
I bring company, I say after hello, you'll now see a young girl and her child.
I think my wife and nothing surprises As for me, to present me with a strange and his son is not new person, but I think when you know who stays with us if it is going to miss him.
We went into the room and presented to Maria, the child and his mother .
They greet each other, they look, and Gloria apologizes for being in the house, he tells him that I insisted to accompany me.
Gatufo, as he always does with strangers, he is gone.
They like them both, I notice immediately, they will not have problems when I start to tell my wife what happened to the girl and her son, her face is changing and a look of tenderness and compassion extends away from his face.
Of course you stay with us, we have room and if I had not done, their words the issue is settled and I tell them I apologize. I have to leave you because I'll turn on the radio that John has left me.
I go and leave you alone, the child is attached to his mother and says nothing, not even when Maria smiles and tells him to go to his side.
I can hardly tune in a station that is heard well, finally I get it and there's a good sign, I remember my friend and thank him mentally. They relay in English, American insurance, are identified as the Voice of America, and if, are they. On the Internet I've heard many times.
It's not a teaching class, give news, tremendous and discouraging news.
An announcer says that "everything is getting worse," because there are countries that have exhausted their resources and no one can help them.
Mention regions of southern Asia with hundreds of millions of people who have used all their reserves and where people are dying of hunger and thirst for tens of thousands.
Many other parts of the world are alike, they have exhausted their resources and there is hope that they can be helped.
Europe, US and other first world countries do not want to exhaust their fuel planes and sending food that may require its citizens.
It has rained very little after the fall of billions of trees and it is feared that the water cycle is interrupted, experts say. If this were to happen we give for extinguished in a short period of time. The picture he paints these people can not be worse, I tell myself, no wonder they close communications because all would rapidly deteriorate and people flee in panic looking nobody knows that.
There would be riots, lynchings, murders, people ruthless trying to grab what they could.
Neither the policeman nor the army would contain the wave of
people to despair.
I turned it off shortwave after nearly an hour to hear such news.
We're home, I feel tired, I leaned back in the chair and my mind begins to wander the edge of sleep.
My eyes just closed, thoughts of what has been my life so far crowd in an instant.
I remember in my youth we were always on the brink of nuclear disaster.
Russians and Americans were in possession of ballistic missiles, many of them loaded with warheads capable of destroying the earth dozens of times.
The idea was and is terrific although we can not imagine a mass suicide of that nature for the human race.
Chapter 5
is not said, it is not discussed, not reported, but the weapons are there.
Today there are not only two countries which are in possession of them. They are a dozen or more that is known, those who have the ultimate weapon, "The power ring" we could call it that would destroy the planet several times.
Even today it is feared that the end of the world comes from the hand of man, a war devastating and end, it is what has been written, has been fictionalized and even there have been countless movies about it.
I am used to it, like all my generation, to live in a world threatened by nuclear energy in all its forms.
I never imagined reaching this simply that trees began to disappear without anyone knowing why.
And the end of the world as we know it may come from the same land we inhabit, tired of being attacked, the poisoning of the water, its atmosphere by the irresponsible and predatory human action.
If the situation was not hopeless would your moral.
There will be moral if everything is destroyed and man disappears from this suffering planet.
+++++
I awake, that I'm thinking I say to myself.
Your child has to do with what is happening right now ?.
Nothing, I think, and return to relax without realizing that memories become flooded my head.
I have something cold lying on the couch, I get up for something to linger over. The two women are chatting, seems to get along I think, and I return to my memories.
Again awake, reality imposes, I've slept or just remembered other times ?.
Will we primers and rationing facing shortages coming ?.
Stop speculate, I say, get going now.
In the room my wife and Gloria are downcast and very quiet.
Hey, is something wrong? I ask.
He has stopped working television, no tune any chain, and are alarmed.
It's not good news, what is the point of the TV stops broadcasting ?.
It may be a technical or maintenance failure, I do not know, I do not understand anything about telecommunications.
Suddenly no signal again appears a popular speaker and apologizes for cutting emissions, he says because of technical problems.
His words relieve stress and as fools remain attentive to what is said.
Sigo watching television without seeing it, I do not pay attention to what the speaker says, what ?, strange glitches.
Do all strings with technical problems ?, I do not believe it and say nothing to no worse fears the two women .
The child, Tony ?, Pedrito or call him Tony, is nestled against his mother and still talk but her face shows no tension I had a few hours ago.
I leave the room and turned on the radio, a station will be read as It is happening, I think, I'm lucky and it is.
Achievement capture a pirate station where they are saying that the army has taken all television and radio, want to control what is broadcast so that people not be alarmed more than that's it.
The slogan is "do not panic" with adverse news.
They are not aware that severing the information people alarm more.
There are riots and demonstrations in several European cities.
In Paris and London have repressed hardness mass demonstrations and there are hundreds of detainees and several deaths.
People want to know what is happening and that his government is taking measures to address the problem. Nothing is easier than ordering measures to tackle the problem, but what ?. I can not think, I'm a retired 65 who barely can take care of my wife and take my house, which I know to tackle problems of this global nature if not can not even afford my own.
I prejubilé of my job in a bank with 52 years. After three years and believe prejubilarme tasks free Maria was diagnosed with "multiple sclerosis" so I took the reins of the house and started to care.
Earlier she had cared for me and my three daughters. He had done with love and total dedication.
The debt of love to her was huge, priceless, besides, who would care for her better than me ?. I think no one, and she just accepted that it was I who by herself and the house was done.
My daughters were no longer with us, had their own life, and Mary did not want to involve them at all on our own problems.
resumed reality of what is happening and keep thinking about my affairs that did not interest anyone.
Not to do, go out and buy more batteries ?, even a stove will be necessary if the power goes out, and candles, matches, and alcohol or gas for cooking if I can not use the kitchen.
You need to make a list of what more needed to stay and endure in the house as long as possible.
Medications also, I have to go through the pharmacy before they happen to control drugs.
Mary does not take almost anything, a drug that relieves their pain, it is a "fluoxetine" antidepressant but I have to have doctor's prescription.
Did they ask you now with this situation ?, I hope not, but I have another box to spend nearly thirty days.
In my case I need painkillers, who does not ?, alcohol, some desifectante, think think, I tell myself. Make a list sooner everything you need and get out there before it's too late.
I to calm down and think coolly. And the child ?, you need a kid that age ?. I do not remember his age if his mother told me so, appears six years, but I do not know, I have to ask Gloria, she will tell me what the poor need.
Any soothing ?. But as a small child does not take painkillers, tell me stupid, think, think and do not lose your head, see if the painkillers will need yourself.
It would be unusual, two years ago I had a dreadful depression, thought she would not leave.
I left, keep taking the medication you take Maria, the "fluoxetine" generic that for years was marketed under the name "Prozac", even books were written about it.
Who cares about that now, Emiliano, come back in and let you stories.
Chapter 6
has been several days since I left for the last time on the street.
I have not had dire need to leave the house to get something we need, and I doubt you could find anything longer than necessary.
We have food for nearly a month if we administer. I have frozen some vegetable dishes on the issue of the vitamins and do not know if freezing vegetables vitamin C or other remain in them.
There is no apparent lack of this vitamin in us and perhaps soon the symptoms of this deficiency appear.
We have no fruit, no fresh produce and they may soon begin gum problems and other undesirable symptoms associated with a lack of vitamin C.
The last thing I did was buy a generator and fuel to supply rationed to the maximum power cuts becoming more numerous.
When the power goes out we were totally disoriented, put the group for ensuring that the frozen refrigerator are not lost, just now, and to boil water or cook food to the little Peter.
You start to say something, he speaks to his mother and Gatufo, my wife and I now do not go into his world of silence.
There are fights and killings in the streets. The authority has virtually disappeared, the police and Civil Guard have been fed without resigning incentive to repress and keep order.
How many would wonder that so if there is anything ?. ¿Suppress, shoot, hold to the people who fed and hopeless to make a living out ?. No, they have said, in addition to serving us wages if no where to spend them.
Do not go to work, garbage and waste flood the streets with what the atmosphere is unbreathable. Rats and vermin of all kinds abound everywhere so that it becomes very difficult to walk without being attacked by them.
Nobody trusts anyone, we are all potential enemies in the streets and who had a gun carries it to defend or to attack and rob who neglect or made shot.
I assume that some still go to their essential work, no light from time to time, water continues to flow from the tap at certain times, there are times when even television that works to put programs back or give any statement.
local news are also given mostly calm and is recommended, it is not out if it is not strictly necessary, and pray again and again not to participate in any protest or demonstration as no longer guarantee individual rights of anyone. Start being the only army patrolling the streets and do not walk punches. When there are riots or attacks, just shoot and go collecting and piling the dead one knows where.
A lot of people have left the city of Madrid, have left their homes northbound waiting to get somewhere where reigns order and especially where there they have completely disappeared trees.
In large mountain ranges in Europe, in the North, in Canada or Russia remain forested areas where it has not completely collapsed the entire tree forest and the life has some normalcy.
These areas are heavily guarded, do not allow the entry of strangers who invade their land and can not make everyone who has left your home, your city or even your nation aspiring to occupy a place safe from the disaster.
The more you listen to the radio and more news how are you come to my knowledge, the greater my disappointment.
I do not see a solution to this disaster nor can we leave the house.
What do ?, I wonder again and again, but do not want to betray or bring my concerns to my wife, Gloria or the kid.
What has to happen will happen, why would you disturb them or throw them fear in the body ?. I see no object, so shut up and dissimulation.
A Gatufo can not bring discouragement, even though the poor kitty is sad when my perceived me sad and worried.
Nothing on me or the situation will go unnoticed by my cat, and is not as playful as used before.
I go out of my reverie, I'm being called and not the first time.
Cuca (pet name) tells me that they will give an official statement in ten minutes, they have said they are requested are very attentive and serve to spread the news to family, friends, or neighbors, it is very important to keep in mind.
I fear the worst, and I confirm my suspicions when the president flanked by military commanders and the police show up.
It addresses the Spanish in a short speech and informed us that in accordance with the emergency cabinet formed in Brussels, throughout the European Union, starting tomorrow is established "curfew" for all territories of the Union.
It will be in force from twelve o'clock until six in the morning, only people who must work at night or accomplish tasks required will have a special pass to circulate and must ask today in their companies and agencies.
for the sake It is made of all adds, and to the extraordinary situation, some of the constituent rights of citizens are suspended until we have full control of what is happening. The announcement will create the panic that was not unleashed. My projects surtirme of the most necessary for survival becomes more difficult. Today I have to leave if I want to bring something I need.
I leave now, I tell Cuca and Gloria, I'll buy a few things before they run out.
I grab my bank cards, a handful of bills, my shoulder, what a gun, I think ?. Not for now, do not be exaggerated, in addition to gun, a knife?
You do not have anything and are incapable of using it.
Have you gone mad ?. and
desist, and go quickly without waiting for the elevator that always lingers or I can pinched.
People are leaving their homes, they want to grab anything before it runs out, have thought the same as me and nobody will attend reasons.
No one in the bank tellers in the area, cashiers do not provide any money and some are broken.
I have to make do with the cash if I find something to buy.
Riots in every supermarket controlled by the army. Nobody line up and all want to enter at once, grabbing whatever they can without pay, no time or employees.
Shots are heard, the air hope, and in view of the panorama I turn to some of the pharmacies that caught me close .
Two, three, closed up tight.
At last I see one that is light and some people waiting outside.
No tumult as in supermarkets, wonder and I say if, dispatched even without a prescription.
When I'm at the counter I ask everything you can think of, the young man who served me told me that only one container of each drug per person. No more than yourself solidarity, tells me.
OK, young, but is an ongoing chronic treatment. I need at least two or three boxes of "fluoxetine" and also anti inflammatory, I tell my wife suffers from "multiple sclerosis", well sir, but do not abuse.
I fluoxetine gives three containers, two of the anti-inflammatory, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, bandages, painkillers two or three, and nothing else, is enough
said.
Pay what you ask without thinking and go quickly lest they repent.
Has it gotten out and begin to aggregate a large number of people in the door.
Luckily, I think, have been on time thank God.
Now to find a hardware store or shop around for one euro.
You're past are held Chinese community. I hope that some are open stocks last.
I'm journeying from one store to another, all are no stocks and some even looted, do memory and remember a small located in a passage very little traveled.
It is open, and immediately go in and go quickly grabbing everything I get it.
There are too many items, but took a flashlight, several containers of batteries, a tool, large nails and a big hammer, matches, candles, disposable containers, garbage bags, and finally a large stock of everything what occurs to me as I see in the middle shelves empty since.
Buy a canvas bag and introduce all bought into it.
I also bought an ax and a machete, there were just two, without thinking I gripped them and take them hanging from my belt when I leave the store. Hardly nothing left, several buyers were doing what I, taking everything almost.
A good step and alert I go back to my house.
They're knocking on the door, not if you go see who it is, I do not expect anybody and I have no mood for visitors.
They insist more forcefully and hear you call me, Emiliano opens, we are. Please open and call back with his knuckles.
I open immediately, are not expected friends, live above us and did not know they were here.
Gatufo is not hidden, you would have realized that knows them.
Fidel, Maria, as you are ?, Pass, fast cross over, do not like having the door open. Less now.
I thought you were not here, that happened ?, were not in the beach?
Do not answer if you ask me.
What is happening ?, Emiliano you have any idea ?. We were at my daughter back before then Mary was not well.
portended something, you know who is half witch.
that not tell you, we've run out of trees, a rare disease or a virus that nobody knows has done that go plummeting in a short space of time. There is not one, and that can not happen.
Evil is worldwide, and no provision for any alternative to catastrophe.
And the consequences, which can be Emiliano ?, he asks Mary.
I imagine very, very bad in reality.
Since the world is habitable, the trees have been there, with all sorts of needy of them animals.
Now they leave, they collapse and die, can be the announcement of a not habitable for any living earth, which the fall of the forests could be the first vine step eradicate animal life.
Optimistic are not to say, I answer again she is not going to be so black, I am sure that a solution will be.
Hopefully you have loved right, but no vegetation, no life, no rain, no water, no food, everything will end in a short period of time.
It is my opinion, quite pessimistic and without much discretion, but I think this world we knew it is already very little.
And our grandchildren will happen to them ?, is now the one who asks me.
I do not know Fidel, you know we do not have grandchildren, our daughters did not want to become mothers.
At the moment I am glad, and is not I see no future for them in such parched as the earth.
It Emilliano, stop, your words cause me chills and I'd rather not think about any of what you're suggesting.
Just as well, we go to the room that you have to introduce a friend and her son.
I'm dripping with sweat, it is illogical as this ending September, but it seems that the summer begins again, passing day it is much hotter.
The idea comes immediately, is it that the absence of trees raises temperature of the planet ?, and if so, to what degree will go ?. raising temperatures
further problem in that thinking.
Chapter 7
has been several days since I left for the last time on the street.
I have not had dire need leaving the house to get something we need, and I doubt I could find nothing than necessary.
We have food for nearly a month if we manage. I have frozen some vegetable dishes on the issue of the vitamins and do not know if freezing vegetables vitamin C or other remain in them.
There is no apparent lack of this vitamin in us and perhaps soon the symptoms of this deficiency appear.
We have no fruit, no fresh produce and they may soon begin gum problems and other undesirable symptoms associated with a lack of vitamin C.
The last thing I did was buy a generator and fuel to supply rationed to the maximum power cuts becoming more numerous.
When the power goes out we were totally disoriented, put the group for ensuring that the frozen refrigerator are not lost, just now, and to boil water or cook food to the little Peter.
You start to say something, he speaks to his mother and Gatufo, my wife and I now do not go into his world of silence.
There are fights and killings in the streets. The authority has virtually disappeared, the police and Civil Guard have been fed without resigning incentive to repress and keep order.
How many would wonder that so if there is anything ?. ¿Suppress, shoot, hold to the people who fed and hopeless to make a living out ?. No, they have said, in addition to serving us wages if no where to spend them.
Do not go to work, garbage and waste flood the streets with what the atmosphere is unbreathable. Rats and vermin of all kinds abound everywhere so that it becomes very difficult to walk without being attacked by them.
Nobody trusts anyone, we are all potential enemies in the streets and who had a gun carries it to defend or to attack and rob who neglect or made shot.
I assume that some still go to their essential work, no light from time to time, water continues to flow from the tap at certain times, there are times when even television that works to put programs back or give any statement.
local news are also given mostly calm and is recommended, it is not out if it is not strictly necessary, and pray again and again not to participate in any protest or demonstration as no longer guarantee individual rights of anyone. Start being the only army patrolling the streets and do not walk punches. When there are riots or attacks, just shoot and go collecting and piling the dead one knows where.
A lot of people have left the city of Madrid, have left their homes northbound waiting to get somewhere where reigns order and especially where there they have completely disappeared trees.
In large mountain ranges in Europe, in the North, in Canada or Russia remain forested areas where it has not completely collapsed the entire tree forest and the life has some normalcy.
These areas are heavily guarded, do not allow the entry of strangers who invade their land and can not make everyone who has left your home, your city or even your nation aspiring to occupy a place safe from the disaster.
The more you listen to the radio and more news how are you come to my knowledge, the greater my disappointment.
I do not see a solution to this disaster nor can we leave the house.
What do ?, I wonder again and again, but do not want to betray or bring my concerns to my wife, Gloria or the kid.
What has to happen will happen, why would you disturb them or throw them fear in the body ?. I see no object, so shut up and dissimulation.
A Gatufo can not bring discouragement, even though the poor kitty is sad when my perceived me sad and worried.
Nothing on me or the situation will go unnoticed by my cat, and is not used as playful as before.
We can almost breathe healthy air hardly enters into our lungs.
As the days go by the atmosphere surrounding territories treeless has lost oxygen and the deaths of living weakened or patients have increased to the limit.
With little electricity emits almost no television, only manifest crisis cabinet in Brussels are read, which seek to reassure the public with absurd statements calling for calm as everything was going to be fixed soon.
Neither they believe such a thing is no hope when the air we breathe is exhausted.
The termination will not be, hunger, wars, because the sun goes out, or a multitude of nuclear explosions.
The end of living things on earth shall be for lack of trees.
According to experts, an unknown and sudden virus has attacked the entire global forest, just close to the South or North Pole territories have escaped the catastrophe. say
Lands as Canada, Finland, Russia and Norway have escaped losing their forests.
Something similar happens in southern Argentina and Chile, it is known.
Maybe the cold virus in these latitudes has stopped, and trees are those areas which generate little oxygen breathing is becoming us.
It gives to all, the trees produce less than they consume living things and widespread slaughter of thousands of millions will be necessary to balance the equation.
How many living creatures will need to They die for the balance ?. Nobody knows, it is possible that only one in a hundred, or a thousand, can survive.
The army has gathered all had oxygen tanks in hospitals and industries.
They are providing the children and people who think will be necessary for our species survive the debacle.
But I ask you, who decides who and why ?. We know nothing about the matter, only remains for us to wait and cease altogether in our business to consume less oxygen as possible.
We are suffocating without remedy, it is only a matter of time, and despair or despondency takes its toll on the entire human species.
At home our discouragement can not be concealed. The continuous small whimpers, coughs during most of the day and seems an asthmatic child when she had never been before.
His mother is desperate and we said it is willing to go north for your child to get better.
I try to discourage because I think we have very little chance to come alive, but I have no arguments to desist, because here they can expect ?.
To die millions of people to the atmosphere breathable for survivors ?.
no sense when his child has symptoms of utter exhaustion and asthma is preying on his lungs.
By the age maybe my wife and I need less oxygen our lungs no longer have the capacity of a young and our bodies do not need much worn consumption the vital air to survive.
Are you still thinking to go away ?, I ask her.
Yes, I have no choice. I can not witness inactive as life is leaving my child, I must do something, whatever.
Although it costs us both life I try.
I can not say anything to comfort you, I do not think that staying here you can expect to survive.
If my wife could walk and we were somewhat younger we would go we with you as well, as we can not go with you.
I understand, and do not worry about us, we have a chance if we go early, before the rout is general and million people begin to move towards northern Europe and Russia.
We may have to walk thousands of kilometers or find some living means of transport can go dodging the obstacles.
I'll see what I can do to facilitate you long journey. I'll contact some of my young friends to see if you can one go. We will have to find a horse or mule that can do the walk with you.
It will be very hard to find, and cost a lot of money tells me.
It's just in a few days the money will be worthless assuming now worth something, which I doubt , you will pay with gold or jewelry, I guess.
You do not have to, since'll manage us.
I want to do, and make possible so that you get to a place where you may survive.
Thank you, we can never forget you. If my son and myself we survive will be thanks to your help
Chapter 8
On a trip to Germany two years ago, I met a young man who was with us accompanying their parents.
I had a chance to talk long and followed with when their parents had gone to settle some affairs to the Consulate of Spain.
Our affection was instantaneous despite the age difference. I found a sensible and mature person, considering that he was not yet twenty-five.
The fact of traveling with their elders on a tour for seniors almost meant for me it was safe to proceed, without any complex about not being among boys his age.
We have a deep and sincere friendship although we have not seen too many times.
I'm thinking about the possible companion Gloria and her son on the journey of survival that project done soon.
The plans of the do not know, you may already have left with their parents in search of opportunities elsewhere with sobrevivir.Tengo to go home as the communications are rare and almost impossible to use the web, without electricity or phone line most times.
It is a risky and dangerous journey through the city.
There's a curfew with what I have to leave very early and return home before dark.
I try again and again to use mobile, impossible, no cover or just does not ring when I call. I have no idea what happened with connections or phone companies.
I doubt women tell them something, but how do I justify my departure out of the house ?. Perhaps the best is tell the truth but certainly is going to oppose my departure.
I do not approach it again, it's pitch dark and we made some dinner. Before going to bed I mentioned it to the two. My wife is silent and reflect, Gloria immediately tells me no, you do not you go out looking for someone to travel with me, I can manage on my own.
You have no chance, I replied to him.
If this friend is willing to travel at your own risk, or only with their parents, is sure to take with them.
And I have to find out if it is, if they have already left, or unwilling to leave their home and will stay in Madrid.
My loving wife looks at me and says, do what you must do but think about us and be very careful. We'll be waiting.
With this is enough for me, she approves of my decision even if it hurts deeply to be left alone.
For her others, the people you love are always first, then last she is. She has always been so, and has acted in this way.
Now you want your friend and the little travel insurance, it will hurt a lot to go but think only what is best for them.
Just feels to me, loves me more than anything in the world but understand that I will consider it my duty and she will not hinder or inconvenience.
Inwardly I thank him for it, although previously knew which would be his answer, however much it hurt him.
In that environment tense and painful we go to sleep waiting for a new day lead us to a different situation, and waking all has been the result of a bad dream, or a nightmare.
It's not a nightmare or a bad dream, I am walking on the street in agony, I go to the house of my young friend no hope of finding it. The stench is terrible, I go out into the street the putrefaction around me everywhere. Thousands of tons of garbage are piled to anywhere you look. The trees Fallen are dumping pasture systematic destruction of all the wood that was the trunk and branches. The leaves have disappeared, have become blackish dust that is everywhere. The vision is obscene, millions of tiny larvae, worms and other microorganisms abound in the trunks and branches broken off which in turn will undoing in stinking heaps reports gray and are still hindering the pace. The final process seems to be pure rotting and filthy dust accumulated by thousands of tonnes. Everything is gray, dull, not no transparency in the room. The view is limited by a few tens of meters without appearing to sunlight achieved through the barrier of dust suspended. Lots of reports forms lie accumulated on the ground. I approach to see what they are and horrible smell me away. I do not want back, I see that's not what I'm imagining, and again I approached one of them. The worst is confirmed. They are dead people piled in the middle of the street bodies. The army has been collecting and hoarding, so ?. I'm watching bonfires are perceived as different in the gray light of dawn tremendous. They are burning the bodies when the piles are huge. By the spread of fire some buildings that surround the fires are blackened and some burned. And the people who inhabited them, where they are ?. evicted or killed also, of course, but I assume that hundreds of thousands have been leaving the city killed or died while trying to escape under cover of night. Many swell piles I'm spotting, this step is not necessary that asphyxia account all of us. The soldiers will incessantly circulating equipped with masks and armed with rifles with bayonets, bows and big knives hanging from their belts. Now I mean the absence of shots that I attributed to that there were no riots or revolts. No, there is no gunshots, no one can run, given a silent and effective death. I notice more and see that the ground is pasty in a mixture report dust, debris and blood. The blood is mixed with everything and form a mass that is forming capricious and reports resecting the garbage accumulated forms. It is frightening to imagine that they have become the streets of the big city. At night the hell breaks loose in the form of summary executions of anyone who circulates without special transit permit, or at least is what I assume, although it may be that these permissions are already exist. If they exist, who has them and that are issued ? I wonder. Reports figures are emerging from the buildings, which in silence and dragging some belongings walk in silence, no one knows where or how intentions. All I can imagine, fleeing risking that night they caught exposed and pass part of the piles of dead are piled everywhere waiting to be incinerated. There is no compassion I think, night falls and anyone caught outside houses is executed without mercy, when not allowed to pass. I am imagining, but It is what happens when I see dozens of bodies piled one hundred or two hundred meters. The vision of my environment is horrible, but the unspeakable plague assaulted my senses almost impossible to imagine anything other than follow, step after another, do not ask, do not talk, do not think. One more step, and another, do not look, do not think, continue your way until you reach your destination and you achieve into a safe haven, if it already exists somewhere. My home is sure yet, I think, but for how long ?. The fatigue comes over me, I will fall from time to time, and will be the end of everything. The idea tempts me, let yourself go, lie down on the floor and wait I tell me your final. Everything will be easier as well, will end your worries, put an end to this endless nightmare that leads nowhere. I dropped it, I dropped the idea is attractive and I'm about to lean against a wall and slide down to the ground when a tiny form walking clutching the hand of another bigger form invades my view. It is a small dragged almost by the hand of his mother or father, no way of knowing. The memory of small living at home fills my mind and prevents me down right there. You must go, I say, do not give up, it would be unforgivable to do it. They still have a chance, you do not. And let you die when the time comes and you are home. The idea of home, of my bed, lie down and wait for the end I come as a balm that relieves fatigue. But even the hope of providing an opportunity for salvation to Gloria and her little makes me move my feet, one after another, another step, and so gradually after hours of walking I spot the house I want. There will be someone in it or anything this effort has not been for nothing. I am stupid, I repeat again and again, as you have committed an error of this nature.
Do not you think?
There is no doubt that you are overtaken by events, you from thinking, it seems incredible that makes years were a good chess player.
Not for less. Took two hours stalking the door of the apartment of my friend, hoping someone enters or exits to sneak in, and no one has appeared in it or tried to open it from outside.
The building appears to be dead, no movement, no light, How could I be light, stupid ?, nobody in or out and I thought idiot like contact Miguel. By calling a bell that sounds ?. No phone line, no electricity, I can not knock on his door as two iron gates prevent access. Someone has to open up and use the key to enter the building. I've been here two hours, it is almost dusk, not if my friend or your family are at home or have left, is almost night and very early curfew prevented from being on the street.
What do ?.
die stupid, my name again.
You are about to lose their lives unnecessarily, you've made a mistake in the round, how you leave your house without informing you go ?, to be alert to franquearte step.
You thought you were going to get, you called with the intercom, you would open or not depending on whether they were at home or were already gone.
And electricity ?, pestle, where do you let the electricity to operate the goalkeeper ?.
Calm down and think, I say, you get nothing insulting.
Think, think, that you can do to save your life.
Find a shelter before it's too late. You stay in without moving or murmur, and expect to spend the night.
Tomorrow you'll see what you do.
A refuge where ?, think, I think.
It makes me light in a flash, find a subway exit .
There is a close, and although trains do not work for some time, maybe you can enter the tunnel and take shelter in. That said and done, I sit, I'll avoiding obstacles and stamping all kinds of bugs and filth. Not attend to the sounds they make my boots on the ground, better not see what my feet trample.
I try not to sneak because if I fall and not get up. There are piles of charred bodies here and there, the smell is a physical barrier that prevents me from walking or breathing. I have a terrible pain in the throat and lungs. I'm swallowing the smoke, dust, filth in the air, and hardly I grok enough oxygen to move.
Each step I needed a strong will not knock me down and let me die on, swallowing filth or suffocate directly with indescribable mud flooded the streets.
I am facing the subway.
Thank God, I think, is open but a lot of semi tronchados bodies prevent almost access.
I must trample and climb over them to get in.
They are rotting and full of worms that run through my hands and arms when I grabbed some body. But I must contain nausea and disgust that stirs my guts. The fear of staying out makes climb the mountain of bodies and lower crawling on it.
When I'm down I shake my clothes, hands and feet ensuring that all vermin fall to the ground.
It's dark, the light from outside is shrinking and bodies prevent obstructing the entrance between the slightest hint of clarity.
Ando about ten meters clinging to the walls like a blind man stumbling over bodies and objects that do not see, until finally bend right into another hallway. Stumble and fall headlong into a soft mass that seems to move at my weight.
Be careful fuck, I said a hoarse voice from the dark, you have fallen on me.
Chapter 9
Sorry, sorry, I see nothing.
You'll get used to the dark and you can make out shapes and obstacles.
Who are you ?. Why have you come to this hell of death ?.
I have to spend the night outside my house, I came for a friend and can not enter the building. Not whether or not you, then logically the intercom not
working and no one enters or leaves through the portal.
Are you crazy coming out of your house, the street is a place of death, theft, murder and pain. I tell you I've been surviving several days and have seen it all.
My house burned when they made a bonfire with hundreds of rotting bodies and had to leave to escape.
He lived alone, was studying in Madrid when all this started, my family live south of the Pyrenees and have no means to go with them.
I'm stuck in this damn city and I can think of a way to escape.
On the day I'm going across town to the north, when night approaches seek a mouth Metro and I dug into it expecting again light to keep going.
I want out of here somehow.
My name's Louis, I have twenty-three, and what's your name.
I am Emiliano, since passage of sixty-five, I'm retired and I enjoyed writing in one ?, which blog.¿En original blog and not know anyone who did.
Here you have one, took almost three years to do so.
And that is your blog if I may ask?
From a whole little, my thoughts, experiences, my family, my cat "Gatufo" sometimes politics or history, and so am from topic to topic, write the first thing that comes to mind and desembucho out of my body and my mind, concerns or feelings that go through my head.
Majo, because if you survive this and things are back to their'll normally have a lot of experiences to relate.
Ha ha, will be good to read you once you pass all this chaos . Luis, I love you think so, you say "when all this is over," do you really think will happen ?.
Yes, I think, man has been in worse circumstances. Have you heard of the bubonic plague ?.
Yeah right, who not settled almost half of the population in Europe and Asia.
Notes Emiliano, it will remain alive and the strongest or the most prepared.
Two-thirds or more of the population will disappear, it is a necessary cleaning all the rot that had become men.
The nature, the earth is defended well, and it's okay to do it.
Sooner or later it had to happen something like that.
It's dark night Luis sleeps not, it is impossible to sleep in the dark completely immersed in a nauseating stench, with bugs that run through my body and I try to swat away.
My hands are burning, wet crush as many bugs I'd rather not imagine, and tide smell that is not mitigated even for a second.
shouts, orders, complaints, races and finally a scream mowed by a spooky splash and thud of a body collapses are heard.
It is impossible to sleep surrounded by nightmare like, fearing that at some point we discover crouched and dipped between the amalgam of bodies, objects, vermin and other creatures that proliferate everywhere.
If they come soldiers we do the dead so we have smeared with all sorts of debris, blood, dirt, dust and bugs crushed against our body.
After waking hours and deep arcades, my mind wanders with childhood memories recollected never before.
Images of Spain forty flood my Recreation thoughts and I in them.
++++
I grew up in an austere postwar world where we lacked everything.
Spain was a poor country, hungry, repressive, where individual or collective liberties had been uprooted or cut short after a long civil war that pitted brother against brother, neighbors, family, friends and ended up with more than one million deaths in battle and beyond, killed, massacred, buried anonymously mind by both sides in contention.
A large repression by the victors and the dictatorship that tens of thousands of lives.
There was no right to strike, assembly, association, and of course the political parties.
The "secret" police, the secret as it was called, asked documentation anywhere , especially when he was traveling by train or bus since the control was thorough and strict.
The shortage was extreme, to the point that ration cards were issued for chords commodities with the number of members of the same family.
It would the store when news came that a product had arrived, oil, potatoes, sugar, flour, salt, or any other vital supplies to survive.
The meat was a luxury item, sparse, and the fish did not come to be considered as food for the fleet was gone.
Two girls and a boy who was the boy's mother, that was my family as a child, and although there were not too pampering, and spend really bad, little was who received more love.
Change my position I ache all over and think of those small, myself and my two sisters, then in reality it had no bearing on those little, they not found out anything, lived the life lived by always conducive kids to play and mischief.
++++
leave my half-sleep startled by a light, driving back the darkness around us.
Someone dragging their feet carrying a flashlight
and glean something from the dead piled up at the entrance of the tunnel, there are several and are moving bodies, drag the recorded curses and shouts of joy are heard when they find something.
They're digging through the pile of corpses and entertain in horrendous acts that try to guess.
They pluck gold rings, cut fingers or arms, tear chains neck, rummage among the belongings scattered on the ground and heard curses, screams, curses, lasting about half an hour.
Gold, gold is the precious metal ranging looking corpse after corpse, and no scruple to plunder the dead.
Luis is awake, listening to her breathing, and terrified as I am not move a muscle in my body, I'm petrified and the awful pain I feel makes me try to accommodate me better, terror paralyzes me.
It's endless, when will this torture I wonder .
Orders were heard, and finally the glow away with muffled voices that speak of gotten loot.
Luis is on guard, I noticed tense next to me, ready for any emergency.
We do not speak, only whisper to comment, they are gone, and immediately I hear the rhythmic sound of his breathing.
It's incredible ease sleeping. In a second pass from wakefulness to sleep, yours to suit all wonderful youth.
Without realizing it back to remember my years as a child in Spain prostrated by the consequences of the civil war.
- - - -
hunger is going to However, with war, the Second World, and beyond.
Much worse when the war ended in Europe, I was told later, as Spain was isolated with an international blockade have tacitly supported the losers, German forces and their bloody dictator.
But for my sisters and myself, life seemed pleasant, we were kids to after all and did not know anything, at home there was almost nothing, no telephone, no washing machine, no fridge, no other appliances to help with household chores.
A radio, spare parts, few books inherited from our grandfather and nothing else.
Some old worn comic, pumpkin seeds and permanent hunger to kill.
We spent very cold, and we stifling in summer , like everyone, if we wanted to freshen up the jug and public fountain in front of our street.
They slept nap in the summer and play in the afternoon.
The street was our school.
We lived on the outskirts of Madrid, in the district of Tetuan Victoires, and we were privileged in relation to our neighbors, my father worked all day with two office jobs.
+++
'm falling into a restful sleep and memories of my childhood is left behind.
In some crazy way the shortages and misery now brings to mind another era of shortages experienced many years.
Chapter 11
The lack of oxygen is distressing, the heart races and I fear the most at any time suffer a heart attack.
My partner is much stronger and less accuses exhaustion I feel in my muscles and not feel my feet, my stiff legs like sticks doubt I continue to maintain for long.
We came out of the tunnel a few hours ago and it seems that we take the whole day walking.
The chaos is if anything greater than yesterday.
Neither care and stacking the corpses that proliferate everywhere.
Children, women and the elderly are scattered everywhere, they went armed with a few belongings as if to flee their homes.
There will left early and they could not walk more than a kilometer or two, collapsing exhausted, coughing, vomiting, bleeding from his nose and mouth until a sudden heart attack or stroke ends with their lives and their suffering.
I'll end up like them , I think, I can not continue.
The air is unbreathable and poisonous in the extreme. As a youth I was an expert swimmer who endured hours in the water doing laps of the pool or beach again and again.
I have never smoked, nor have I suffered severe colds, and perhaps this is the reason this has not already succumbed.
I do not perceive anything, only pain, I am plunged into an agonizing slumber that makes me want to die continually.
But it stops, it is force me to crawl almost as my feet refuse to give the lower step.
We are giving and not as not the feel, not the legs, just feel my lungs burn every breath that boost achievement within them. The heart pounds my chest as if to get out, I must be in compliance years within hours.
If I get home my hair will be grayed suddenly as if instead of spending two days hubuieran been out ten years.
That old me think, This is just nice, but keep walking. Keep walking hear the voice of my companion that almost takes me on wings or raises me above the obstacles that surround almost impossible.
I see people falling to the ground he no longer rises more. Those who walk behind them trample the hands or legs of the fallen, without any respect because they are imcapaces to surround the bodies there on the ground.
Some of these, trampling, falling fifty meters later turn being pisotedos by those who continue.
We touched down I think this can not get worse, and as long as they think something I'm very much mistaken.
In little more than an hour will be closed at night, for then we should have found a place to hide and go unnoticed uncontrolled patrols that swarm after curfew.
Soldier or not predators who kill anyone who caught, stolen, leaving him lying in the middle of the street bleeding.
What indoors nobody knows . It is certain that hundreds of thousands of people have died suffocated, starved or any other ailment.
Infinity will have ended their lives at the total lack of hope and lack of notilcias.
They are thoughts that go through my head out of desperation and extreme tiredness.
Luis is charging me, takes me almost in a twinkling in the total absence of forces that allow me to hold me by myself.
I was commissioned to monitor the windows or balconies of all the houses we are passing. At the slightest sign conducive to occupy one of them have to notify to examine our chances of getting into the housing.
The working middle class neighborhood is not as cautious when it comes to shielding hits. Sturdy doors, bars on the lower floors, alarms that do not work and little else.
Breaking down a door would be difficult if we have the assurance that no occupant inside. Had he could defend us, rightly thinking that we were outlaws. We do not want the situation worse than it is already.
Time passes and our relentless search for shelter is sterile. There is almost alive circulating in front or behind us. Nobody gets out of homes and those who left are almost all dead from suffocation or killed by others to steal their belongings.
The presence and strength of Luis has prevented anyone has tried to attack us, have looked at us with resentment or hatred when I has assisted with the mask but no one has dared more.
Not even the evil forces are attacking them, a betrayal or weaker if not for the strong and determined as my friend. Less yet when they see the uniform he wears, looking confused not understand how a soldier can walk among them helping an old man.
Wait, I say, I think I see something on that balcony far away.
He stops and poses me gently on a baco in the street, look there, he should.
There is little light and but recent dull rays of sun we see two kids who beckons us, we heard their voices as there are far away, but certainly is making gestures with his arms and hands.
What will happen, I said, it is extremely rare to see two kids making those gestures we approach them.
Stay here a minute, I'll get a little closer to them, to see if I hear what they say.
Chapter 12
Noise heard a voice calling me, someone or something is approaching me and spathe
chills run through my spine, I have spiky hair and my heart beats wildly.
The stench of decay and death produciéndome hits my nose deep
arcades uselessly shaking my body. No food or drink that can throw and spasms occur that I feel a sharp pain in the diaphragm.
At once a terrible headache awakens from its slumber and starts pounding my temples as if blood were to flow from them.
The time, I think, I was longing for dear headache that life has accompanied me.
I try to restrain myself and faced face being emitted groans requesting my help.
A kind of claw grasps my arm causing me almost hurt, I see that is hand quite dirty skeletal young woman to unimaginable limits. Its stench is awful, pulls back, and barely able to stand holding on to my arm.
Next to it is a small cryo, about four or five years, as it stinks. In a paroxysm of almost madness I imagine they are not living beings are zombies, have risen after spending several dead days and now demand my blood.
Help me, repeating "zombie" with and just a whisper and separating the hand of my arm He says the boy.
He is my son, he says, and I want you take him, you do take charge of the then I die.
I do not want my child to stay with the body of his mother and watch rots, expecting the same comoer die or nothing to drink.
I refuse to accept what I am seeing or hearing. It's too horrible to assimilate and my mind is closed to the last tragedy of the human being.
I still silent, unable to speak, she still speaks and explains that have survived hiding among the corpses piled in the streets. Two or three days ago they ran out of food, and she has been giving his son the last edible pieces he had left.
I'm dying, is, and you are the only person who can take my son away from me. Take it and try to survive this horror, please, you are my last hope. I'm already dead and I want to rest on the bench where you sit.
A woman largely gone, I think, I'm also in the past. Did not you see ?, I repeat softly to myself.
Callo, do not say anything, why ?, it is mired in fever and in no time will collapse like the thousands that right now what they're doing.
It's the end, I think there is no hope for humans or for your world. Probably not deserved it after all.
Achievement sit up, I grabbed the kid by the hand and let his dreadful mother take my place on the wooden bench.
She lies down immediately, close your eyes and breathe anxiously looking for a particle of oxygen.
Just like me, I can not go in an hour or two I'll caput like this poor young man that perhaps before was attractive and now is a real specter of death.
With relief I hear the footsteps of my friend who comes to us. He is intrigued by the scene and is sure to be accelerated their pace to see what was happening.
What happens, who is this child and the woman lying there on the bench ocupabas you, tell me, do you know her ?. I have been talking a moment ago.
He spoke it, I'm scared with his vision, no words to say anything.
He has thrown there to rest and die. Me, he has entrusted to his son and asked me to stay away from this place. Do not want your child to look like dying and leaving him alone to follow the same fate.
Now we are four, says Luis, great if you continue adding smaller or parents can form a large family.
Four ?.
Sure, you do not think that I'll leave it lying there this woman ?.
I'd tell you to pick the small and me you'd let me near her, to rest or die, I can not anymore.
I know you can not get to my house and so I continue, if not me stay beside her and we would become company waiting for the end.
Shut up, old man, you're not going to die. Take care of the little, can you give your hand and walk two about eighty meters ?. We have to go to the house where you saw the children, I have been asked to come up, we opened the door.
I do not understand anything he says and I have already forces motivation to understand.
Luis opened his duffel bag, pulls out two oxygen masks I spend one I put on my face, the other puts the woman lying lifeless in the bank, then pulls another standing in the child's mouth. Finally he asked me mine and placed it on his face. Luckily, I think, is human and it seems the effort to help is making a dent.
Save the masks, the woman raises bank like a pen and places it on her shoulder. On the other carries the knapsack and starts the march to no where, ah, if the house.
He grabbed the boy by the hand and dragging will not weigh nearly as almost anything either. He looks downright malnourished and walks like a robot of small size.
A broken doll and blackened dirt and stinking of death. As I guess, sometimes self no smell, but my odor is safe as frightening as this things.
I'm in Hell I think, can not be worse than this that we are going through, my lungs burned. It seems that as pepper breath and cough nonstop insurance already was raw like that of everyone.
The poor child that I'm pulling refuses to walk and I can not charge you up because I lack the strength. Not even cries, pants, pants, coughing and gasping again.
Come on, come on, friends say there is very little Luis. ¿Friends ?, I know I'm just as the cryo not aware of anything and women are swooning over him.
We got to think building is on the portal and crushes button intercom logically not sound, the usual, however we see a girl of about ten or eleven years is perhaps curled up next to the door. He wears
an oxygen mask and incorporated around ourselves.
Open the door with difficulty and with a gentle push from my friend we crossed the entrance.
It has to raise the little that refuses to keep going and almost took dragging.
We follow the girl and begins the ordeal of climbing stairs throwing out livers.
She walks lightly, takes his mask, but we can not follow their path and after long breaks finally reached the ground where the house is. There are few stories we have raised, nor do I care, round the floor after passing the doorway I fall.
I crawl and shut the door. Immediately an oxygen mask covering my mouth and revives, crawling up beyond the door, I'm inside the house.
Someone put me on a couch, I'm exhausted and sleep, I'm out already in this world because I'm breathing without my lungs burned, but no, that is short and open my eyes focusing the room and the people occupying the chairs.
No woman is poor ragged woman nor her son, what I dreamed ?. It seems that I have not dreamed since my friend informs me that they are lying in another room with a good dose of oxygen in your lungs and some food in their stomachs.
Opposite I have the girl of ten years and another child who looks like her brother, You have five or six years and see them healthy. Pale but not too shabby.
As I hear they have lost their parents and grandfather, they are alone and want to leave the house.
Wait, wait, man. I do not hear anything, please start again I reply to Luis.
Let the child tell you about it, Emiliano, I replied Louis. Laura Better yet, give him a hand and take you know where to become aware of the situation.
Said and done, I sit up, take my hand and leads me to a room where three adults are lying in bed. Dead and well dead by their color and smell that fills the room.
The girl does not flinch, has seen and suffered too, has been alone with her little brother with this scenario at home.
We left immediately, I can not resist view of those bodies begin to decompose and she's telling me that they are their parents, and grandfather.
His parents decided to leave oxygen reserves for their children, his grandfather came expecting to bring more food also. Wanted to leave the house and the city soon.
The grandfather was a colonel who knew where to find supplies, masks, oxygen, weapons, and a plane that could guide them through Madrid and the rest of Spain, stopping in places where there is some kind of order, remains of a government, and soldiers who abide by the orders of their superiors.
My grandfather was delayed too, says the girl, and my parents decided to give us the masks they had previously received from the, my grandfather lay on the bed and they are there, still not moving.
The grandfather came very sick and not know what was wrong, told us to wait here protected, with more masks, we went out to the terrace and atrajeramos the attention of someone who could help us out of here. We wrote a paper to give the person to come up and will surely help us get out of here with supplies and masks that brought them.
He lay in bed coughing, spitting blood, and then fell asleep shortly .
My brother and I have left us alone, do not wake our parents are dead, we are very sad and we hope you could help
as my grandfather said.
Callo and listen to the girl, looks ready and confident strangers you just know, I wonder his cool to have facts that any other child had plunged him into silence and despair.
She did not, want to survive, is clear who has to save his brother, he feels responsible for the and that feeling gives maturity.
What old are you? I ask, and she says that eleven to twelve six months.
It is a small, skinny lass, but it may be their year for calm seems.
My brother has six, he tells me, before I asked .
Wonderful, I think we are already large family and am immediately to rest as I see a chair conducive to hold my weight.
Chapter 13
Again I have a family to look after, the idea makes its way into my brain and revives tired and past feelings.
I see my three little daughters waiting around me playing "feet to" overwhelms me and bygone happiness. Again I have a family to look after, the idea makes its way into my brain and revives tired and past feelings.
Three daughters of now there is nothing, no way to communicate with them as each went to a different place and away.
You are adult women with a life full of personal satisfaction. They chose their place of residence in accordance with their work and now fortunately for them not residing in Madrid.
All this time I confident that they are alive, safe, away from these huge megalopolis in which survival had become a hard labor.
The younger living in a capital city in Northern Europe, close to the forests that still stand providing the necessary oxygen that comes in dribs and drabs.
He was there because he did not like the work I was doing in Madrid and now works at a university Danish biologist.
You may have contracted to study the genetic phenomenon that destroys all flora and is safe with staff of biologists and other scientists engaged in unraveling the enigma that plagues our world.
Most left Madrid after marrying for similar reason. Or your child, or to herself, liked life in the big city and nearly twenty years ago changed its civic life by other more quiet on a sparsely populated island with scenery and stunning natural life.
Nothing is known of him occurred there, it is possible that this stinking pollution has not reached them and survive the general cataclysm of a disrespectful technological civilization with their environment.
Our other daughter, median, lost contact with us for some time, he chose to be away from everything what he remembered his past life with parents and sisters, but we know he is happy with work and life away from this huge city that never liked.
+++++++
buffeted me awake and I hear they call me awake my sleeping sailing and I realize that I'm not home.
I begin to remember the nightmare that has become my life and peered at the people around me.
Two small and almost adolescent, a young high , strong, determined, and an unknown woman watching me intently.
Who is this woman looking me boldly and some appreciation in his eyes ?.
can not be ragged and dirty woman that touched me when I was sitting in the wooden bench waiting for my new friend. Or if it is ?.
do not know how they have done but the dirt has disappeared from his face and changed his clothes by other impeccable. The foul smell is not around him and his appearance is that of a very thin, almost emaciated but attractive girl.
I pay attention to what they say.
Hi how are you ?. I am Lucia and I appreciate what you did for my son.
What have I done?
Nothing really drag with great effort by the hand and lead him here, where we are now, and where are we ?.
I'm waking up to reality, the place where I have been asleep, of bodies there in the bedroom, the great pain of my lungs, my need for breathing, eating, drinking, and especially my absolute desire to see my wife, hug, kiss , tell her I love more than anything in the world, and never part with him.
The desire to see her as soon as possible passage over all the shortcomings that plague my body and my spirit is opened.
When are we going ?, wonder and try to sit up unnecessarily, I fall on the couch again and despair floods me to feel an old body and worn that it no longer serves to almost nothing.
Quiet, relax, you're going to eat and drink to regain your strength, we have oxygen left over to purify our lungs.
How do you think you've been able to sleep for several hours?
If it were not for the oxygen grandfather of these children brought to them, we'd all be dead already.
He was very sick when she saw her dead son meeting his daughter chose to leave, I leave a letter you can then read, is very descriptive of chaos and gives clues to escape this city.
I'm reading a letter from a stranger she lies dead lying on a bed in a strange apartment.
This led a person or persons of goodwill and calls on them to take charge of their grandchildren and try to save a dying world.
"Who can read this letter I beg you take care of my two grandchildren and try to save with them .
Here there is no hope, by the cabinet of the government crisis does not exist. They have abandoned their positions and fled with their families trying to reach the North.
From Brussels they have suggested doing and form a central government in northern Europe try to coordinate the exodus of tens of thousands of Europeans who leave their countries and They are trying to reach forested areas as.
No food or oxygen masks for all, not even for one in a thousand citizens.
dead have hundreds of millions of refugees in their homes or in the middle of the streets.
Nothing can done to remedy or alleviate the suffering of these people.
The world we knew is over. Hopefully a new resurgence of the human being more conscious of respecting the environment in which it lives.
Perhaps the planet's population is reduced to a few million or even less than human beings.
My hope is that you who read this letter you can survive and lead to my two grandchildren with you so that you are part of both survivors.
left ten tens masks and oxygen containers, with enough food to survive at least a month.
I also made a map of the places you will be able to go for shelter or help.
I hope they keep working.
I'm military and biologist, was part of the Cabinet crisis in this country, to be waste I come home from my son too late, and I find dead.
They had made reservations to their children with the hope that I acudiera to rescue them.
I can not stand this hell I'm also sentenced to a cancer that will end my life in a very small amount of time.
I can not save them.
To those who read this letter I beg you save my grandchildren, they like another small may be the hope of a new world. "
I'm excited and terrified by what he describes this man who has left his last hope in the hands of strangers.
The world we knew is sentenced. No government, no order, no hope for those who stay in this country.
I suspected, but not to this degree, I'm dreaming a nightmare that never ends.
Saving children ask, how ?. He has made plans with indications of places to go on a theoretical exodus northward, and wonder if you will be someone there or is just a hope that has already gone.
Come, come, you must leave me says my partner . All are ready to leave the house as soon as possible.
We will go first to you, collect them all and set course for the North trying to save our lives.
's yours, I think, but shut up and sit up straight away.
I have fed, have rested, I breathed fresh air, I keep doing it and it seems that I have regained some of my strength.
In short time I'll be watching and embracing my dear wife, it is all I want right now.
Chapter 14
With three bodies inside the house is unimaginable spend the night sleeping soundly, as has happened, as have my other colleagues. Fatigue is devastating and sleep is inevitable and very well come.
We have tried to take turns, worse than good for anything or anyone watching us from a nasty surprise.
There has been the silence is sepulchral, just a tremendous shriek breaks death when some of those who escape are covered at night viciously hunted and exterminated at the time.
What is the purpose and murder who is sentenced ?.
Stealing ?. ¿
why ?, I wonder if almost nothing has value in a hellish world that destroys itself and every being that breathes.
It is dawning and we are ready to leave the house.
We masks, weapons, costumes and provisions charged in three carts.
They weigh like lead and have dropped danto drifter the risk of broken stairs and scatter all its contents down the steps.
Despite the din nobody came rushing out doors closed and silent. There seems to be nobody within the story or its occupants lay dead and hopeless.
The air is unbreathable I think, I do not dare to check covered my nose and mouth for a comfortable mask that gives me life.
We all carry with their respective deposits of vital oxygen.
Accelerating the pace hoping to get home in a couple of hours at most.
The environment is unrecognizable and can barely get my bearings. Giving away fallen trees and decaying like the piles of corpses and scattered everywhere. Bodies
Walk not detain you, do not look, try not to slip on that infamous dirt covering the ground, saying our friend will drag the car more heavy and takes two brothers hooked his other arm.
The young woman unbelievably recovered drags another car aided by her son.
I dragged the lightest but for me I is loaded with lead.
We are already coming, my heart jumps overjoyed thinking embrace my wife. I do not want to think that they may not have survived.
A voice tells me that it is impossible to live find, but do not listen, the hope still lives and allows me to keep moving my legs.
My neighborhood at the end.
What I see and I treading, not prevents me think I'm close to home, my home like ET I would say, my heart races as the distance is shortened.
I look forward with all my might hug and kiss my wife, but fear grips me when I think of the few opportunities there of finding her alive.
What ?, girl must have gone with her son without waiting ?. When I weigh I find that their chances are nil. Impossible to cross the city without dying in the attempt.
Never the neighborhood was nice and clean, but I can not tell the difference with those who have gone through.
All are filthy and uninhabitable.
The dirt and dust covers everything, bodies piled everywhere, crushed cars hinder the passage like rotten trunks and branches of trees.
Countless rats proliferate among the dead, the dead mostly chewed by their peers and moving between them.
It is disgusting and fascinating to see such a sight, it is not a horror film, it's your neighborhood, it's your world, is the reality of an environment that is dying.
The man has no place, other species struggle to survive and the food is not going to miss.
Nor will lack oxygen because once exterminated large mammals, including humans, the remaining air will be enough to insects and vermin thousands scamper before my eyes.
We step on cockroaches for hundreds, others go up by the legs and reach our face.
hands busy we can not shake them off off.
At this point no longer matter to me, I always were disgusting and frightening, but now everything is more horrifying than any living insect that crawls down my face or legs.
They did not even have the strength to chase them away if he could do .
I commented, we can only reach the end of this street you are on the right, another left turn and we face the blocks where my house is.
Great, in few minutes we will be there, I respond Luis walking freely dragging the heavy cart full of food and weapons.
As manages the walking that way to me is a mystery. Sort obstacles with astonishing agility, raising almost on edge creatures leading hand in his other hand.
We heard voices and noises of footsteps muffled by the shapeless mass covering the ground.
They are renegades whispers, we have to hide, but where ?. There's no hiding from view, just stick to the front and hopefully not turn the street continuing straight.
If tuck the street where we are, almost at the corner, we see no remedy.
I stretched a gun to which I look astonishment. It is the first time I have a gun in his hand.
Aim and shoot firm, he says, it is easy, I removed the safety. Just pull the trigger as enfiles the weapon at the subject you want to demolish.
They approach, not many, three or four noise and conversation lead. They laugh and brag about their exploits. They have paid a couple who wore masks and supplies. They have rope for several days due to fat booty in his possession. It seems that satisfied enjoying the pain of others.
Where this has come bunch of thugs who still sow terror among the survivors more poor.
Not even be renegade soldiers, wearing their uniforms torn dead after their owners and even some laughs about it , how smart they are confusing the staff thinks come to his aid.
They come and kill without firing a shot appropriating the belongings that interest them. Masks, oxygen cans, weapons and supplies. Money no longer serves you, just like jewelry or ornaments have value to them.
They are around the corner. The sound of a shot me off the stupor that overwhelms me. One of them jumps back impelled by the force of the bullet passing through it in the chest. Blood jumps in an uncontrollable jet dyeing the dirty green shirt and is lying on his back on the floor. Immediately another shot rings and the second man stumbles and falls flat on his face on the wall. Drain and knees stands still without uttering any exclamation.
Emiliano Shoot, I shout, and without hesitation pointed to closer and pull the trigger. A red rose blooms on the shoulder and turns on itself like a top until it collapses.
The other guy tries to pull a gun uselessly it rings fourth shot that shatters the front and driven is stamped with a collapsed tree on the sidewalk .
In an instant four bodies more swell the pile of dead.
I'm speechless and horrified. I have killed a human being without hesitation. First and last time, I think, but I am wrong and I will soon have the chance to check.
Chapter 15
I push my eyes longed terrace, my deck, and I see what's your name? I ask the woman who accompanies us.
I'm Lydia, and my son is Carlos, we owe life and I'm sure you'll find you love alive, waiting for you to come back every second of the day, do not give up now. You deserve to be rewarded for your good equal shares your friend Luis.
Thanks Lydia, God hears your words, I'll explode if we follow here at the house.
Come on, the last effort, which almost have come, he says my friend resuming the march .
We continue to sleepwalk and anguish opens new step in my chest.
The keys, scream, I repeat keys hands taking me where I tied waist travel wallet for years accompanied me on my travels. Score, I touch the edge of my waist, and if there is, I feel the hardness of keys waiting to be used immediately.
Wait, I say, I'll take them now.
Dont it happens, I says Luis. Wait till we're outside the door in the vestibule of the building. If you fall now be impossible to find them immersed in this shapeless mass of debris and filth that fills the pavement.
I retain my half walking forward and continue dragging down the middle of the street.
How right my friend, if my keys fell into this huge mess that is on the ground would be very difficult to find.
I'm coming, my God, I'm coming. She's good, she's alive and the rest too, I ask Lord, help me and give me the grace of seeing alive my dear wife.
I hope surrounding the site, everyone looks at me and I'm moving a few feet They refuse to take a step. I fear the worst and know the worst delay. Duration of this illusion, I think, let it last and slows everything you can open the door of your house, tell me a frightened voice.
I overcome temptation, may not be so cowardly, I tell you, open as soon as possible, certainly they need your help immediately.
Prompted by this idea hit me to the portal, but a hand stopped me in action to seek and take the keys.
Leave it to me, you're too upset, and saying Luis puts his hands on my shirt, unleashes buckle holding the portfolio of cloth to my body and carefully takes it to the dim light of day.
Slowly very quietly he unzips his wallet and puts his hand through the hole. The keys appear firmly clamped between his fingers. Examine the bunch and the first, without doubt, insert a lock on the portal. Hit rotates two turns and opens the door.
Go past tells us, your first is your home and you deserve it. We do this by stealth and without uttering a word. Once all gathered around him, hands me the keys to care which takes my hand, opens it, deposited the bunch against my palm and fingers firmly closed. Be careful, he says, they do not fall.
You go up alone, we expect here, your people do not want to see us panic. Leave everything here, take your time and if you need help, it is, call me. I will ascend immediately to your voice.
Dare you face the test my friend? he asks, and states.
All is well, you will find those who love perfectly, go sure.
I nudged toward the stairs and start to climb restraining my anguish and insane impatience to find what? I wonder, how all dead ?.
No, God, no, that is not the case. Do not let it.
I live in the second C, and gradually reached the landing of the first. I can not find anything but extremely dirty. No one, no person or animal body. Trip and fall noisily on the stairs. The thud is heard throughout the portal, Ay, puff, who exclaimed damage.
Immediately I hear the sound of a door opening and the second form is a furry throws against my leg. He grabs her as a long and sound miaauuu, miaaauuu, heard in my ears like music from heaven.
It's my cat, is Gatufo, I can not believe me. It has come as a thunderbolt to me when someone opened the door of my house to listen to my complaint.
Are you alive, you're alive, cry without being able to restrain and I go out driving up being Gatufo in my arms.
Dear, dear Gatufo is I live repeat over and over as tears and sobs stop not repeated outside my joyous soul.
Thank you, you are alive again cry like a madman crazy.
A great joy flooded my body galloping up without seeing where I put my feet.
I hear his voice, there is glory among so much pain, I called and flight through the door of my house without looking to see anyone. I run to her voice that keeps calling me non-stop.
Hello, I said hello my love. You're here with me, thank you, you're here.
I see her sitting in her chair and looks at me, smiles and spreads his arms to me. I fall to my knees and rested my head on his lap. I cry, cry like the child I'm on your breasts hosting me with warmth and tenderness. His arms around me and gently soothed me.
You're alive, I repeat incessantly, you're alive. Thank God, you're alive.
Of course I am, How could I be ?. I was waiting and could not fail to be present when you got back. What would you have thought of me if you find me ?, tells me joyful and point of irony that always round his words in compromising situations.
What did you expect ?, could not wait to leave without my dear.
I get up, over and kiss again, we finally melted into a deep, long kiss that is eternal. Hard all our lives and do not want to leave her, her lips, her face, her body, never.
How much I've missed the telling, just the desire to see you allowed me to survive the horror.
Calla, shut up and be still, tell me rinse my tears that continue to sprout.
Suddenly I realize people waiting below and I labored away from her.
I must warn them, I say, though I'm listening steps that target where we are.
I see Gloria, the small, and Who else ?. It is Michael, I can not believe, is Miguel ?, exclaimed.
Sure, my friend, who was going to be.
Did you think I would forget you?
And these people are ?, exclaims away and giving way to my other family quiet, dirty, defeated are filling my room with his presence.
We've forgotten, my friend tells me with a smile, and look forward around.
You're Cuca, his wife says, and comes forward to her taking her hand and kissed it.
Nice to meet you dear Cuca says, these are the guests that your husband has brought home. I hope you do not mind.
Stunned Cuca look at every one of the beings who shyly look at it.
Michael and Gloria look at them in turn with great surprise, who these may be asking, and moved by his curiosity beginning to quote their names to give to know.
It's just my emotion confused names and have to shut unable to speak.
The tears again flooded my eyes and slide endlessly down my face.
They are alive I think again and again, but I can not help thinking that a slip between so insidious that.
Alive yes, but for how long ?, but insidiously him away again resound in the depths of my head.
How long ?.
Chapter 16
The shape was not important, death was assured.
The worst thing was feeling that never see again my dear wife, not knowing if she was alive or dead, unable to tell her I'm here with you, I have returned, should never having left your side.
Now I have another view in my arms, kiss, cooing, I say again and again I love you for what I take me and put the oxygen mask with the damage that this causes in my lungs.
He is the same, I need to tell you all that I have lived, what I feel, now I never will turn away from it all is unnecessary as though she knows it and does not need me to tell you anything.
I have been told that Miguel came home, they could open on time, and with masks oxygen, water and food that had, nobody knows where, could survive all is you days until we returned us.
Actually I'm stunned, I do not understand what they say, just rest enjoying the fact that he returned and feel between mine .
They talk about marching, go north as the only chance to save themselves, I do not care, I just want to rest, see my lifelong companion. While still alive to take care never to leave her.
Her eyes show the joy he feels to me, she says nothing letting others speak.
And do not stop studying maps, driving projects to calculate how long it would last them for oxygen masks , food, water, their strength and so back again as rest you need.
Urge go say, and prepare packages and devise ways of transporting them.
On my wife did not say anything, she does not walk, it is permanently in his chair wheels as it has already forces to use her walker. His illness has advanced significantly and returns to incapacitate much more than before when he was in the house.
It is unimaginable to think of taking her down the street,
how and by whom ?. There has never willingly accepted that no charge with it and has chosen not to go to have to see me pushing his wheelchair.
In the end we bought a now useless because there is nowhere to charge your battery supply.
We have not talked about the possibility of leaving, but what she thinks and irrevocable decision is made.
They want us to leave at home, that I go away, to save my life and leave it to her to abandon a life running out.
It will not be like that but I prefer not to think about it, I abandon myself to happy to be back, rest on my bed time.
Sleeping next to my wife, thinking that my daughters are safe and rest.
Rest forever.
END
