Hostilities have ended

   From the hospital, we could see the city burning. Several fires had been lit up by the crowd. It was an expression of happiness and revolt, of fury and a desire for the future. The people out in the streets were happy that such a long war had finally ended, after so many had been assassinated and others just disappeared as if they had walked into another dimension. Everyone knew they had probably been killed by the government and then buried somewhere far, but people didn’t want to think that. They would have years for that.

 We saw it all from afar, behind a glass that protected us from the outside, in a building that had been designed by and for our enemies. However, we needed care and when our group was finally able to enter the city, we were able to secure that hospital and its resources for own. Of course, the patients that had been left there were tended too by the doctors and the nurses of our team, but some of them were placed under “house arrest”, as many were involved with the military and the horrors of war.

 I decided to leave Mark, who was very tired, and just wander around the hospital. I thought I could hear someone talking about what had happened in the city or maybe some other information. There were many screens all around the hospital but none of them worked. Television had being suspended almost a year ago, as the prior government thought it was a misuse of money and electricity. They removed all permissions to broadcast and forbid anyone from broadcasting anything in any way.

 Even with the success of the rebels, television would take its time to return after such a long period of silence. It would take a long time to get the country running smoothly, if that was at all possible. Everyone had things to do and they all seemed to be much more important than television or things that people in general missed from the older times, before everything had gone to hell. I missed candy for example, but sugar had not been used to make candy in at least five years, by government decree.

 I walked all over the hospital, checking out every abandoned ward and every silent corridor. The place was sunk in a blue haze and the fact that the day was getting brighter did not improve the general mood. When I finally got to the reception, the lady tending to the only active phone line seemed to be on the verge of collapsing. I was afraid to ask her anything but when she saw me she just signaled me to go closer and she then handed me a paper. I read the only few lines that were written on it: “Call General Ford. Urgent.” And then a number underneath it.

 She had no chance to explain the message and I didn’t have the need to have it explained. After all, we knew exactly that our time in the hospital was going to be short. I was kind of sad for Mark, even thinking about how to tell him the news. When I got to the room, he was up. He smiled at me like he always did and I just got closer and kissed him softly. He smelled a bit bad because of the long way we had to go through to get to the hospital. I was sure I smelt exactly the same or even worse. But who cares?

 I then told him about General Ford and he understood it all in a second. We look towards the window, were smoke from one of the fires had grown pretty big and was almost covering half the city. It was obvious they were still burning things. That place was our destination. So I helped Mark with his clothes and into the shower. He insisted I should join him, so I did. We had a nice little time together, as we had never been able to have. It was so nice and incredible; I wanted to stay there forever.

 That wasn’t an option. We dressed up in new clothes that we had found in a closet, in the room across the hall. They were a little bit big on me and short on him, so we laughed for a while. It felt so good to be able to laugh, to have your ribs hurt because of happiness and not because of violence. We finished preparing and I helped him walk down to the reception. Once there, the woman in the reception was still busy but used her hands again to point at a couple of crutches I hadn’t seen there before. She was good.

 Mark went out first, followed by me. The surroundings looked safe, so we entered the car we had used to get there, a stolen piece of property. I turned it on and in a short moment we were already on the main road towards the city center. Through the windows, we could see some of the fires that were burning. There were no stores in flames, no residential buildings. Only government offices where people had entered to burn every single record in existence. It was a way to say we had to start over.

 No one out there seemed dangerous, but they did stop doing their things as we passed by because there were not too many cars being driven around the city at that time. Only the rebels, the winning faction, were operating any kind of vehicle. That kind of scared me. Mark must have thought the same thing because he just put a hand on my thigh and pressed gently. I was so lucky to have him there. For a while, I had no idea if I would ever go back to that city, the place where I had been born. After so much, it was pretty much a surprise to be there, as if nothing had happened.

 We finally got to the main fire, the one from where a huge plume of smoke was rising to the sky and across the city. It was the presidential palace that used to be white and was now some shade of grey. A large amount of people were gathered there, some staring and others carrying stuff to throw to the main pyre. We stopped the car and got out, in order for them to know it was us and no one else. Yet, no one really noticed us. It was only when we got real close, that a few guards stopped us.

 Mark started explaining who we were but he was interrupted by a scream of joy. Sophia was there and she ran straight for Mark. She was obviously happy to see him alive and I have to confess I couldn’t blame her for being so excited. After all, she had been promised to him in marriage for a couple of years before the war. However, the wedding was never performed because of all the fighting and the fact that her family wanted her to be safe, somewhere very remote. So she had no idea who he really was.

 I smiled at her and she smiled back. She had no idea I knew her from a photograph he had in his wallet, she had no idea who I was. But that wasn’t important. The guards left and, before I could ask for anything, General Ford walked straight to us and pointed to a building on the other side of the square where the presidential palace was located. People applauded when they saw the general, a woman that looked so strong was the cause the government had finally fallen and they were free again.

 We entered the other building and then a room that was very nicely arranged. There was no food or anything, only other people that had fought the war with us. We all knew each other, because we had met in the battlefield, in the camps where they had interred us and in the mountains we had to hide for so long. Mark hugged half the people there and I waved and smiled a lot, more than in any other occasion in my life. It was nice, after all, to see them there. It was like having a family again.

 General Ford informed us about our particulars, our real families. Some of them had died, others like mine had fled the country and a few had somehow survived the ordeal. It was a sad, solemn moment but we were thankful to her. It was then she invited us to take part in the first televised event of the new era. We were a bit surprised by the proposal but she gave us no time to say anything. Apparently, she was going to be the first one to use the airwaves again to properly announce the end of hostilities. A television camera was brought and several microphones. I just took Mark’s hand and thought it could never get worse than the war.

Rainfall

Rain falls. That's what it does. But it doesn't do it always in the same way. Sometimes, rain feels almost extraterrestrial, as it fell not from the sky, but from some awful place, far in space. Other times, you would think it comes from a land made of candy, created for children or for people that love a nice piece of heaven in their mouths. Wherever it comes from, rain is one of those things that makes us feel truly alive, specially when it rolls down our faces and bodies.

Rain is water but it can also burn when the body it touches is not pure, full of guilt and all those pathetic human feelings that fester inside brain and heart. Water cannot wash way all of our evil. It's not acid, even when it feels like it. Some cannot feel all of its properties. There are people that could swim for hours and never feel clean, not truly. Hot or cold, the liquid is not enough to wash away everything that is wrong with the human soul, and humankind in general. People won't be saved.

Rain won't do It and nothing else will. On other worlds, it rains gasoline and diamonds. So we all have that in common: things will Jeep falling on our heads, no matter what we think about the universe. The brain might have an understanding of how mostly everything works but when we're all dead, that won't matter. Water will still be water and gasoline will keep falling from the sky unto someone else's head. And it won't matter if we were here, if we attempted to understand this place or not.

Rain won't care. Nothing will. Because we don't want to understand that se are all here for a little while. We were given some seconds on the clock of existence and that time will run out. No matter how much we try, we won't be here forever and our existence will leave no trace. No wonder or creation made by our hands will remain to tell our story. This scares us more than we want to admit, but that's how it works, no Gods in question. One moment we are here, the next we're not.

Rain, however, will stay. Until the very end.

The last scene

-       Cut! That’s a wrap, people.

 Every single person on set relaxed their muscles. The shooting had been going on for three months, and they were simply exhausted. Besides, being in such a fantastic place was too good and perfect to be there only working. It was a large forest, almost like the ones in fairy tales, with perfect pine trees and rocks of all forms and shapes.

 The shooting had been going on among some of these trees, in an area where they grew a little bit more separated from each other than in the rest of the forest. The trailers and camp in general was located not very far, around a large lake that was almost perfectly round. The sound of birds and other animals came from the farthest places; it was as if you could hear forever.

 The lead actress, a beautiful young woman by the name of Samantha Hart, was the first one to return to her trailer. She was accompanied by the costumer designer, some makeup people and her personal assistant. She had to remove every single thing belonging to the movie in order to be able to rest in peace for the first time in several days. It wasn’t strange that all actors were wearing heavy makeup to conceal the traces of their lack of sleeping time.

 Otto Fröm was the name of the director, a big man, tall and fat with a beard that covered half his face. Although he was a very nice person as a friend and when the cameras were not working, he was ruthless when making a film. He had a vision for every single thing, for every single frame of the movie, and he wasn’t going to compromise that for anything in the world. He just wouldn’t.

 He left too for his trailer, to check the footage of the day with his two assistants and the director of the second unit that had arrived that very morning. He had been in charge of shooting some scenes very far, by the coast. They went into the trailer and kept working. For Fröm there was no resting or peace until he finished his movie. He wasn’t interested in what the production or distribution companies said. He always sent one of his assistants to speak on his behalf and his answer to everything was “When the movie’s done”.

 Samantha had already taken everything from her: the beautiful jewels, the amazing costume and even the tons of makeup that made her look beautiful. Not that she wasn’t beautiful on her own right but she was human and she had many flaws. As a matter of fact, she spent several minutes in front of the mirror, looking at herself. She particularly hated the freckles that seemed to occupy most of her face. She would have loved to remove them but that wasn’t possible so she had learned how to conceal them with makeup.

 When every single person had left her, she lay down for a while in her bed and stared at the ceiling of that tiny space. Another movie had passed by and now she was technically unemployed again. Well, only for a couple of weeks until she had to travel to Peru and begin the production of a new film, a historical depiction of the Inca Empire. She got up and looked herself in the mirror: she would have to dye her hair and let it grow longer. Maybe they would force her to use contact lenses because she had never heard of Incas having blue eyes.

 In the woods, however, people were still working. They were the gaffers and electricians that had to pick it all up, every cable, light and accessory used in the production of the film. Noah was one of them, a man aged thirty-five, very strong although not very tall. He had been working in the business for the last ten years and knew every trick and technique to help the director of photography to do his job.

 That man had already left following the director, who Noah thought was too obsessed with perfection. In his experience, he knew some things have better results if they just happen or if they are improvised. As he gathered several lights boxes, he realized this Fröm guy had not let any of the actors improvise the scenes. This was very particular as most of the action scenes Noah had been in, the actors had had the necessity to improvise because they felt fear of the situation, even if they knew it wasn’t actually threatening.

 In his trailer, Fröm consulted every single detail of the scenes done that very day. Although he had made the actors repeat the last scene at least ten times, and it was a very long scene, he felt the ones that had been done lacked something. He asked the director of photography but him, being a rather older gentleman, thought it was all perfect and that postproduction may help him have a more shocking scene.

 But Fröm, who was a purist, didn’t really like all the beautiful things promised by the visual effects people. If he could, he would avoid them at all costs but the production company had already paid them to be on the lookout once Fröm delivered his rushes to them. He asked his assistants if he could shoot the scene again but they told him that most of the materials used had already being removed from the forest and that it would be very costly to put them up again for one scene.

 The crew organized a small gathering that night, on the beach of the circular lake, in order to celebrate the end of the shooting. The director was absent and the lead actress appeared only very late at night, when most of the people had already gone to bed. They had no way of drinking alcohol so the party was all about eating the food they hadn’t eaten for the last few days, as well as several bottles of water and soft drinks. The producer that was present didn’t object and actually offered to put on some music from her trailer, were she had a computer with good speakers.

 Of course, the amount of noise that could be done was not very high. Amongst them was a man from the government that had to ensure the preservation of the site during the shooting. He agreed to the celebration but made them promise that the music won’t be very loud and that they would finish it all by midnight. That wasn’t an impediment to have fun for a few hours, eat a lot and celebrate the end of another day of work.

 Seeing she had arrived to late to the party, Samantha sat down with the makeup people and started chatting amicably with them. She felt closer to them than anyone else on set as she spent a lot of time in their quarters. Same with the costume designer and her assistants but that woman was always so busy that she didn’t seem to have fun doing her work nor realizing that she could relax once in a while.

 They spoke about their families and the beauty of the place. The lake looked now like a large tar pit, in the blackness of the night. Eventually they all went to their respective “dormitories” and had the best night of sleep for weeks.

The following day, a helicopter arrived to start transporting equipment back to the nearest city but the director surprised them by announcing that no one was leaving until they had done the last scene one more time. Every single person was annoyed and most workers refused, threatening to get their unions involved in the matter. But the man had received an authorization from the production company that made them stay another day.

 Setting up everything took four hours and the proper shooting of the last scene last almost that same amount of time. But this time, one the director had yelled “It’s a wrap now, for good”, they start dismantling everything so fast that in an hour every single prop and accessory was put away and on the helicopter.

 Samantha left with Fröm on the first helicopter and Noah had to wait almost until dusk to be able to leave. When in the air he looked one last time to the forest and the lake and smiled. It was always fun to enjoy work, even if he had no rest for months or his boss was a jerk. He loved it all.