Her war

  Alicia had just taken the lives of at least ten men. But she didn't care. She had learned not to care much when it came to do what she had to do. The past had taken the lives of many people she had loved, some way or another. Who cared if even more people were killed now? The world wasn’t one to care no more. And she, Alicia Hall, wasn’t one to feel sorry anymore. She just didn’t care.

 The fight had happened just outside of the many quarantine zones. This one encircled the whole city formerly known as Panama City. As many knew, even then, Panama had been a worthy ally to the Statian cause. So much that, during the attempt of the Confederation to take the south part of the continent, they built a parallel city on the other side of the Panama Canal to ensure their troops were properly supported. They had even built a large nuclear energy complex to feed both cities with electricity.

 But no one predicted a surprise attack; done by the Southies (slang termed the Statians used to call the people living on the other side of the canal) but covered up by the Statians, calling it a “failure” of the energy station. There was an explosion and everyone got evacuated. Many people died, though but no one ever knew about any of them. The place was rapidly turned into an exclusion zone for airplanes and the whole city was barricaded and put into quarantine. The people living beyond it were left to their deeds. In other words, they were left to die to the radiation.

 That had happened almost thirty years ago. The world today was very different: the war had ravaged entire regions. Food was hard to come by and countries were not as important as they had been before. The Statians had been reduced to a mountain range and many others had done the same. Technology existed, of course, but had been improved. All innovation had stopped. Anyway, people were more worried about feeding their families than about anything else.

 Alicia herself remembered her parents and brother often. It was true that she cried every night, thinking of them. She would always remember the day she had been taken from her home by a group of Righties. Righties were people that still believed in the superiority of one race or one group of people. They were loads, as people in fear always trust the wrong folk. They ravaged towns, raped women and killed innocent people, thinking they were Vikings of sorts. They also kidnapped women to be sold as sexual slaves and that’s what had happened to Alicia.

 But she had escaped. After an awful trip across the ocean, she had been sold in New Africa, the center of the Statians country. Strangely enough, the city was located by the sea. It was the commercial center of the country. Nevertheless, most of those folk lived inland, scared of invasion. Alicia then became the slave of a renowned politician and lived in his state for two years. Then, a storm broke out and there was fighting between the Statians. She took her chance and escaped the compound, unseen.

 But the day after, when she got up to a high hill, she realized they were following her. So began a journey of many days, even months, chasing through wilderness of all types to escape her captors. Eventually, they let her flee thinking she would die in the wild but Alicia was better than that. She learned to hunt and gather fruits in the forest. The young woman had even found useful things in more deserted cities: clothing, weapons, water bottles and food.

 The food was the best, by far. People everywhere were starving and there she was, having a whole city for herself, where she could pick up anything she wanted to eat. For example, Alicia had never had a spoonful of ice cream. The first time she had some, she laughed like a little girl and ate a whole bucket of it, tasting of vanilla. The stomachache that followed was awful but she thought it wasn’t a high price to pay for such a delicious treat.

 It was in that deserted city when she first killed. A group of men in military clothes walked in the center of the city and she saw them as they dragged two women along. The women looked foreign, like Alicia. She realized they were slaved. Rage ran through her veins and in that moment, she decided to do something bold. Without giving them the chance to say a word, Alicia penetrated their camp at night and killed the four men, with a couple of knives she had grabbed from a department store.

 When she was finished, the women escaped screaming like mad, looking at her as if she had done something horrible. But she knew she was right. All those men, all those people that thought were better just because they were of some color or lived somewhere, all of them, they had to pay. So, in her time in the city, she killed no less than a hundred men. She had trained herself, alone, to use every single weapon she found. Alicia had a small flat on the top of a small building and, in a case where she kept guns, knives, axes, arrows, grenades and other instruments to kill.

 But it was after some time that she realized she had to move on. Someone would get wise and would come to hunt her. And she didn’t want to give none of those people the satisfaction to do so. So, after gathering her things, she did a tour of various stores to replenish her stash of food and ammo, as well as some technology devices. These didn’t really worked well but she needed a GPS in order to know where to run.

 She wanted bad to go back to her country but she knew that was even more dangerous than facing a buck load of army men. She would have to penetrate the Statians territory and then, somehow, board a boat back the other side. No, that was a stupid idea, filled with things that might go wrong. Instead, after looking on a paper map, she decided that her best choice was to go south, through the old border and beyond.

 At the border, precisely, she met friends for the first time. They were indigenous peoples. Alicia had never seen people so beautifully dressed, not after the devastation of the war. But the indigenous women she met told her, in signs that they wanted to preserve what was theirs. War had torn them apart but they trusted that everything would get better. Alicia wasn’t as optimistic but shared a couple of days with them before continuing south.

 It took her months to cross through jungles and devastated cities. It was incredible to see how many people had survived the war, hiding in forests and going back to the lives lived by their ancestors. They were casual hunters and some had even started to grow food again. Many volcanoes made the soil a good friend but many people ran scared when rain came of when the wind blew to strongly. They talked about La Mancha, some sort of explosion that hey had seen and had destroyed, even more than war, the land were they lived.

La Mancha was no other than the horrible stain floating over the nuclear power plant that had being blown up by the Southies. Alicia heard of the story many times, by many people, on her way to the canal. But she noticed something else too: the more she traveled, the more Statians she saw. Some of them were taken as refugees by the locals but others were in occupation of small territories.

 After crossing lake Nicaragua, Alicia was arrested by one of these Statians. The man called himself a general and said they were retaking these territories “in order to protect them, as only us have the intelligence and power to do so”. They had killed several locals and threatened to turn Alice into a slave, again. But this time she knew better. She faked compliance and started giving them all a private show but when she was almost naked, Alicia took a gun from the general and killed him. Everything turned into chaos but the locals and Alicia prevailed.

 In the midst of the fighting, Alicia realized women where also members of the Statian army. They were not many, but they were there. She realized she had no compassion for them either, thinking of how low they had gotten. They were no different than the men. Alicia realized her struggle was not again the Statians alone; it was against every person that wanted others to do as they said.

 After the skirmish, the young fighter crossed more mountains and forest until she got to the exclusion zone. It was there where she killed ten more army men. She went through several papers they were carrying and realized they had been set to check the plant and retrieve something from it. Dead as they were now, they weren’t going to finish nothing and, hopefully, it would take some time before the Statians knew what had happened to them.

 Alicia then reflected on her being there and realized something: she was alive. She inhaled and exhaled several times and then stood still, as if waiting for something to happen. Nothing. Somehow, she could breath. Was that why those men were there? Then, she heard something she had only heard from afar and in television: a helicopter. It appeared just above her, flew a bit further ahead and landed softly. From the machine came out a gorgeous women, tanned and with short black hair. She neared Alicia and she was surprised by her question.

-       Are you all right?

 The young woman nodded. The woman told her to come with her. She took Alicia’s hand and they both walked towards the helicopter. Once inside, the machine started roaring again and rose above the trees and old buildings. Alicia didn’t say a word but saw the woman besides her give her a smile.

-       My name is Rosa. You might refer us as Southies…

 But Alicia was fainting. Unknown to her, one of the soldier’s bullets had gone straight into her right lung. The last thing she saw, before falling asleep, was Rosa pulling out  a needle from a case and yelling at her. But Alicia couldn’t her a word. She was pretty tired and just let herself go.

Hate

   They all hate him. I know I do. He acts all perfect and many people around here think he is just that: perfect. I bet he hide so many thinks beneath those stupid smiles and acts of kindness. No human person is like that; we all act of cowardice or shame but never just because we are good. We just want to be it so bad we go to great lengths to transform in those idiotic beings that just spit positivity.

 He’s a fake. I just know it. He gave everyone a present on his floor last Christmas and even organized a party for them, dressed as Santa Claus. And people danced around him like dogs under the hypnosis of a really good trainer. It was disgusting how they looked, as if they were in the presence of God himself or at least one of the many saints. And he even acts the part, always helping and doing and being all over the place.

 Was he fat as a kid? Or did his parents maybe hate him? No, of course not. That wouldn’t have happened to him. People said that he would speak of his childhood often, remembering how it was all easier. Ha! Easier than now, when almost every single idiot in this office building treats him like his a deity? I doubt it. He must have been one of those insufferable jocks, full of himself, with everyone cheering around just because he looked like some guy from a magazine.

 I always try to get away from people like that. All they do is treat people like the stupidest of pets, making them do, as he wants. He doesn’t even have to ask, which is even more revolting. They just do it, as if getting the reward of his smile was more than enough to feed their children or pay their bills. I’ve heard them, women and children worshipping him in the elevator, talking about how kind and sensitive he is.

 People will believe anything if they want to, even if it kills them. They’re not smart enough to feel, to sense. I laugh in my head overtime they organized that annoying secret valentines game. They always try to pull me into that and, once, I almost agreed to do it. At the end of the day, I’m not much more smart than they are and I do work here with them. But then they spoke of how that stupid fuck was organizing it all. So I just said no and left for my house.

 Days after that I ran into him. He smiled to me! As I was a friend or one of his dogs. I just got out of the elevator and went to the bathroom, as I had no need to stand more than a minute in the presence of that cheeky smug smile, expecting me and anyone else to do the same. I want him to know that we’re not all enthralled by his physical appearance and his effort to be liked by everyone.

 He wants us all to like him? Then he should behave like any other of us, just work and shut the fuck up. We don’t wanna know about his colorful life full of beauty, and style and drama that’s only dramatic to him. Of course, he has been employee of the month so many times, no one even asks anymore about the picture they take when you win. They even said he asked fro the pictures to be removed, as he didn’t want to be disliked.

 Funny he said that, if he did say that is. Because I don’t dislike him. I don’t. Don’t ever get me wrong there. I hate him. I fully and truly hate his guts. I hate his smile, I hate those pictures of everyone’s holidays they put up once on the company’s Facebook page. Of course he was on a beach somewhere half around the world, tanned and his body ridiculously fit and lean. It was obvious that he was perfect in every fucking sense. And I hate that.

You may calm me resented or that I envy him. Maybe, I would not know if that is so. What I do know is that a fucking hate that guy and everything he stands for. He makes people feel less than they are and then he just greets them and think that will make everybody feel better because, like the Pope, he stretches the hand of all those less fortunate. And those poor devils do think that they are his friends just because he smiles at them or because they hear one of his stupid little stories.

 I’ve gone to the doctor, the shrink that is. Believe me, I’m not happy thinking about that guy every day in the office. So I went to see one of those doctors and he says I’m obsessive and I’m looking to deep into it. He tells me I should just leave it at that and live for myself. But I can, I have explained to him. How can I have time for my own when I have to go to that damn floor everyday and hear him make one of his lectures to people.

 That doctor doesn’t know I feel ill, sick to my stomach every time I hear that man’s voice. Many people say you can’t really hate, that it takes something really strong to feel that for someone. I tell you, I didn’t take a lot for me to feel what I feel. And it is hate, and I hate that feeling too. I have a life, not much but I do have it and I don’t want to spend it thinking of some male model that parades around.

 He hypnotized me once, that doctor. I thought the idea was stupid but I let him do it, as I wanted peace for once on my mind. He said, after I woke up or however you name it, that I have dangerous tendencies towards criminal behavior and that I have deep problems rooted in my brain. Fuck, what an idiot that doctor is. I could have told him that myself, awake and for a cheaper price. Of course, I never went back to see him. I don’t need people charging me for telling me the obvious.

 I want to kill him. That’s what the doc meant. And I have thought of it many times, carefully. I do it before I go to sleep or when I daydream at work. Some days ago he came to my corner and asked me for some papers. I wanted to throw up, right there. Sick isn’t it? Then, as I reached for the papers without saying a single word, I imagined punching him to his death. How beautiful would he look like with blood all over his face?

 This is not good. I know killing is a bad thing, that’s obvious. But what can I do? Every single time I see him, that strange rush invades my whole body and makes me feel like I could really do it. You know? I’ve thought several ways to do it, all of them fun to me. Of course I don’t share this with anyone. People would overreact and say I’m mass murderer or some shit like that. And the truth is I just want HIM dead. I know if I do it, I wouldn’t do it again. No need to.

 The day after he asked me for those papers, I decided I would follow him to his house. Why? Easy: before he dies I want him to tell me what lies beneath that entire perfect surface. Because, as you know, I don’t believe for a second all of those nice little details about his life and how he loves everyone and so on. I know there must be something really rotten below all that beauty. There always is. No one is perfect in this world and, the better the cover, the nastier the secrets.

 So I followed him down to the basement, because he’s one of few that comes work by car. And then it struck me: it doesn’t matter. His life, what he has or hasn’t done. I don’t give a fuck about that. What I really care about is the image he gives to the world. He might fuck children, kill whores or spread STD’s. I don’t care. I care about that fake smile he gives to everyone he meets. I want that finished.

 Yesterday, I almost went for it. I went to the bathroom to pee and he went in to and went for one of the stalls. We were alone. He was whistling. The rush came back and I knew that was the perfect moment. I could strangle him myself with my hands, seeing his soul leaving his body and his smile finally disappearing from his face. But when I decided to do it, another man came in and I just went out, breathing heavily as if I had been running.

 Then comes today. The guy announce to everyone, as if he was the president, that he will be leaving us to pursue other endeavors. I almost went crazy when I heard about it. But then, I relaxed. My life could get back to normal and I could make all these thoughts go away. Him leaving would be my cure. And the only person that would ever know about this all would be me because here, inside my head, there’s only me. And I’m thankful for that.

Wasteland

   They had been walking for at least two hours, without taking a break or dropping the rhythm of their movement. They were only four people, all dirty on the faces, their clothes a bit ragged, their shoes all broken. The group kept on walking until they reached a group of large rocks, enough for them to hide from anyone coming from any direction. Inside the rock group there was sort of a clearing and a soft surface. They finally stopped walking, dropping their bodies hard against the rock.

They were two men, both around thirty years old, a woman of the same age and a child about ten years old. They all rested, laying down like starfish on the hard surface. It was late in the afternoon, so the shadow made by the rocks was perfect to avoid being toasted by the sunlight. One the men opened a backpack he had being holding. He extracted a water bottle and took a sip. He gave it to the others, who drank hastily, as if thy knew they wouldn’t have the chance to drink any liquids again

No one spoke, maybe because they wanted to keep their few energies to use them on something more worth it or maybe because there was nothing to be talking about. The truth was both reasons were accurate. What could you say when you’ve seen so many people killed, when you’ve escaped death by nothing more than a few seconds? Nothing, that’s what. The group lay down and didn’t move until it was almost night. It was the two men who got out of the small clearing, into the terrain outside.

It was clear they were in a desert or at least near one. The rocky surface on which they stood was covered, in some parts, by a thin layer of sand and other bright particles. One of the men, the taller one, went to the edge of the rock formation and stared at the horizon: he couldn’t see any light except the first stars appearing on the sky. He sighed in relief as that meant no one had followed them. The reason was of no interest; as long as they were safe the reasons could wait to be known.

The other man, some centimeters shorter, climbed the rocks steadily but making a sort of a grin as he did it. It was clear he was in pain, as with each step he let some air out. When he reached the top of that smooth hill, he was suddenly victim of a cough attack, in part because of what he had seen. He hit his chest a bit to clear his throat as he raises his head and so a never-ending desert past the hill. It wasn’t far at all and seemed to be larger than any ocean that the man had ever seen. This was good and bad, as it was a safe escape route but only because they exchanged a few dangers for other ones.

He turned around and joined the taller man. As he neared him, he realized the other one was crying. He wasn’t bothering to swipe the tears out of his face. He just crouched in the spot and cried in silence, staring at the horizon, which was now pitch black. The shorter one kneeled besides him and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. Again, they didn’t say a word. This time too it was highly unnecessary to talk as everything they had gone through was beyond any word invented by men.

Some time afterwards, they penetrated the big boulders and found the woman and child sleeping. They looked at each other once and decided to join the others in the floor for a sleep. It took them almost an hour to feel the drowsy and to finally fall asleep. When they woke up the next morning, it seemed to be early still, as a cold wind blew over them. The shorter man stepped out of the boulders and took another look at their surroundings. Then, the first words spoken in that place for many years were heard:

Hunter! TO THE DESERT!

It took them only a couple of seconds to wake up and run out. They all stared at the horizon, were a cloud of dust could be seen, nearing the rocky hill they were standing in. It was clear their pursuers were still after them, restless. The shorter man turned around and walked uphill. They all followed fast. When they reached the top, they had to run down the other side. This had to be careful as many small rocks covered the hill. The woman actually fell and was helped up fast.

Once they reached the sandy bottom of the hill, they started to run, straight to the heart of the desert. It was difficult to run on sand, as it didn’t allow them to progress a lot. Nevertheless, they did it as if their lives depended on it and, actually, that was precisely true. As they ran more and more into the desert, they were all thinking exactly the same: they knew the hunters had no intention of entering that place as they knew people always died in there, never coming out on any side of the gigantic sea of sand.

But that was precisely the advantage they thought they had over the hunters. They were too busy hunting easier targets and chasing someone through a desert was not really worth it if they thought the desert and its lack of everything could kill them faster than they could. So when an hour had passed and the small group was already exhausted, they looked back for a moment: the hunters were at the edge of the desert, on a jeep, and appeared to be thinking what to do. Then, they did something no one thought they would ever do: they got out a missile launcher and pointed in their direction. Now, it was the tall guy who yelled:

RUN! RUN!

And they did but the missile had already been launched. It hit the soft desert surface and blew sand everywhere, forming a small storm in the spot. They were all thrown forward, over some small dunes and hitting the sand hard. The jeep turned around and the hunters left, as the small group began to regroup. The short guy had been spared of any injury but as he ran to the tall one, he realized he had been lucky. The other man lied in the ground, panting. His right arm had been burned, from elbow to shoulder.

The kid was crying, not far. He looked good, not injured besides some scratches. But it was the woman that did not seem very well. She was panting too but wasn’t sitting or standing up. She coughed and the kid screamed. The short guy neared him and realized the woman was very badly injured: one arm and one leg were broken. Her face had been badly burned and, as they look at her, she stopped breathing. The kid had stopped his crying but resumed it once he realized what had happened. The thing here was she wasn’t his mother but had acted like one for many days.

The tall guy had crawled next to them, just as the other one had closed the woman’s eyes. Again, he spoke very softly, as if he didn’t want to disturb the woman’s peace.

We have to bury her beneath the sand. Vultures won’t be long.

And he was right because, as they excavated the sand and put the body in there, several shadows began to circle them from above. When they finished, the birds landed close by, as if they needed to verify if there was a dead body among them. They had covered her in a lot of sand and hoped no storm would uncover the body. They didn’t mind the birds as they started walking through the desert, now slower than before.

When night fell, they sat close from one another and tried to light a fire with a lighter and some paper they had on the backpack but they weren’t successful at all. The cold was awful and only the kid fell asleep fast, surely because he was so tired. The short man decided to clean the other’s wound with a bit of water and told him, whispering to his ear, that he would need to get the burnt skin scraped of to let new skin grow. He agreed and stood up instantly. The kid didn’t felt as they walked away, behind a dune. The short guy moistened the paper he had tried to set on fire and advised the tall guy to bite something. He took of a shoe and put it in his mouth.

The screams could have woken a whole town, or so it seemed. But no one was near to hear it. The kid woke up but didn’t move, deciding to stare at the stars and remembering his family and all that had happened before then. As he heard the disheartening screams, he realized he didn’t remember his mother nor is father or any other relatives. He felt he had been running for years but realized that couldn’t be true. He fell asleep realizing he heard nothing anymore and feeling alone and hopeless.

Behind the dune, the two men were hugging. The arm had been properly scraped and it bled a bit. The man held it high as he had his nose in the other man’s hair. Then, in a raspy and sad voice, he said:

What are we going to do? – He sighed. Tears filling his eyes – I’m tired…

The other one gave him a gentle kiss on the lips and cleaned his eyes of tears.

We’ll keep living. They won’t finish us. We’re not dead yet.

And then they hugged tighter and the pain on the man’s arm wasn’t as strong as the one in his heart and soul.

Underworld

   Lillian didn’t care and if she had cared before, she didn’t remember. She had lived so much, so many times and for so long that now she had been hardened, like the toughest diamond. Now, Lily was ruthless and perfect in her job, but not so much in her private life, which was largely nonexistent.

She did have a mother and a father but didn’t visit them as often as they would have wanted. She did so for one simple reason: she wanted them to be safe, not in the way of someone that would love to hurt her or make her do something against her current clients.

Clients sounds funny though. No, Lily is not a prostitute nor an escort of any kind. Lily works in the security area so people who need her to do a job for them to be safer, look her up. She works more like a spy or secret agent but she has no relation with those organizations, as she knows they would be more than interested to question her about all the jobs she has taken care of.

That’s why, besides not being close to her family, she had decided not to have a family of her own or any romantic relationship with anyone. She knew her duties, the enemies and friends she had acquired with time, were all dangerous for her, let alone for people to close. She had committed that mistake once and was sure she wouldn’t let herself go, not again.

It had happened with a man. His name was Aaron and worked in his family company. At first, Lily was attracted to him because of his family’s power, which could bring her more clients and more interesting jobs, which always fascinated her. She actually met him during one of her duties and liked him right away.

Like her, Aaron enjoyed power and the luxuries of his privileged life but when they were alone, he was simply the kindest and cuddliest man she had ever known. Of course, she had sex many times but never a real boyfriend or partner but when she met him she thought that might some day change. What if she fell in love?

And she did. And he did too. There was no way in denying that when the two met, they felt like they were the only people in the world. It was as if the world stopped and everything was just ideal and perfect.

That was until she started receiving threats. Letters in which they advised her she had stepped out of a line she had traced herself. The person that sent them told her to be careful and to return to her duties and her single life, or she would be sorry. Love didn’t let her listen or take it seriously. She ignored it all and kept on seeing him. And then, more problems erupted, closer to home.

Aaron’s father had told him to stop seeing Lily. Amazingly it was not because she had a shady life or because she was driving Aaron away of the family company. No, the older southern gentlemen had decided long ago that no son of his, let alone the one that was meant to run the company in the future, would ever marry a black woman. Lily laughed at first but then, when looking at Aaron, she realized it was not a joke, a distasteful joke.

But they kept on seeing each other. Big mistake. Aaron was practically expelled from his family, left penniless and with no prospects of a new life. His father had been sure to let everyone in the region know that Aaron no longer represented him or the family. This devastated the young man but his love for Lily was stronger, and he felt he could fight anything in order to be with her, forever.

That didn’t last for long. A hit man, out of nowhere, shot Aaron twice in the head while going to meet Lily for dinner. She waited for him for hours and finally got a call from Aaron’s father. Telling her he had been killed and telling her never to get near his family again. He blamed her for his son’s death and Lily knew he was right.

She spent months trying to get to the killer, to know if he had been the one sending the letter or if someone had hired him. She didn’t get too far in the investigation. The person that had killed the love of her life had vanished. She only knew it had been one of her many enemies who had given the order and she tortured herself thinking it had been her fault he had died. Loving him had been a curse.

So now Lily tries never to be seen, to be the center of attention for anyone. She changed the way she looked, her haircut and the way she did her makeup. Everything to look less interesting, less attractive if you will. She was a beautiful, stunning young woman but that had proven to be more of a problem that something going on for her.

Although, she kept using her body to help her in certain moments, she tried to do everything disguised as what she was: a common woman trying to make a living in a world that had denied her everything. It is true she had gotten into it herself but now there was no way out and she knew it. Only dead she would stop being afraid, scared of her on shadow.

It deserves to be clarified that Lillian had never killed anyone. She sometimes thought to herself that maybe it was better if she had that ability, the cold blood needed to killed someone but she preferred the subtle moves: something in a drink that would make them sleep or knocking them out with one of her special moves. She knew a couple martial arts and considered she had developed a style of her own and no one could say she hadn’t.

Lily tried to work as often as she could. It didn’t matter if it required flying half around the world, sailing in a cruise or hopping on a train or a bus. She loved travelling and it was one of the few things she actually enjoyed of her work. Besides, the people that contacted her were always loaded with money, so she would always buy first class.

For other things she was less flamboyant, more secretive. But she just couldn’t get inside a plane and not seat in a beautiful wide chair in the first class area, with all those delicious meals and small details that made her so much more special than she was. Travelling that way made her feel as if the world gave her a small chance to feel like a real person, or at least the person she felt she had been born to be.

But when landing or getting of the bus, train or boat, she came back to reality, and saw there was no way it could be like that daily. If she had lived a life of excess and luxury, her enemies would have paid a thousand hit men to kill her and the bounty would have been enough to make them salivate like hungry dogs.

When meeting her clients, she knew that she was both hated and needed and that also made her feel great, much more special than any of them was. They might have been the ones to have the life she wanted but, in the moments they looked for her, it was Lillian who really made the difference. It was her who made things right for them, who made their lives livable.

She stole secrets and money, changed data and exchanged information. She infiltrated companies and made them stumble to the ground from inside. It required a lot of lies and deceit, a lot of disguises and fake smiles but she pulled it of easily, because she had always known that fake world of the riches was her own. She owned every single moment and always knew what to say.

When they finally realized something had happened or who she really was, Lily was already enjoying a glass of champagne in a transatlantic flight. And they wouldn’t trace her because that would mean admitting she had won, that a single woman had destroyed their lives or that they had been dishonest enough to hire someone to topple down the obstacles in their way.

Her enemies where born of those who felt they had been attacked for no reason, those people who would never admit defeat, not in business nor in a real war. So they where patient, as only people in the finance world can be. They waited for her to commit a mistake and she had already done that with Aaron.

Nowadays, they are still waiting for Lillian to do the wrong turn, to slap the wrong person, to take the wrong road. Some people only have revenge in their soul and when you have taken everything away from them, is it not understandable? They were desperate and that was the point that gave her the advantage.

She was not only beautiful and, in many ways, lethal. Lily was also bright and she was now waiting them to go over the line. She had nothing to lose, nothing to fear. But she had a special need to be victorious. And she often was.

A funeral

It’s always hard when someone dies, even if it’s your mother in law. In this case, she was a very special lady. From the moment we met until her death, I felt she didn’t like me. And I’m sure I was right.

She had always resented my hairstyle, then the way I dressed and, specially, my line of work. As it happens, I write for many magazines and newspapers about all of those starlets and music sensations you hear about everywhere. I do those bios about the kids that are beginning, discovered by the Internet somewhere in the middle of the world.

The woman didn’t like that. She thought it was a shallow job, unstable and not enough for her fragile daughter. The reality could not be further away from the truth. Amanda, my wife, wasn’t fragile or dependent of a man. When I met her, she was already working her ass off in a publicity agency and now she had created her own enterprise and was doing really well.

Amanda did not resent my job. She actually found it thrilling, as she was the first person to hear about the newest celebrity gossip. She always saw the most compromising pictures first and enjoyed, even more than I, when I had to meet some star to do an interview for some publication.

We had to travel in order to go to the old woman’s funeral. What was really special about that day was not the event as such. I mean, it was a funeral; they are all pretty similar except for some slight differences. This one’s different aspect was that I met Matthew. I saw him standing behind a tree, watching another funeral.

I saw Amanda talking to her sister and her cousins so I told her I had to go to the bathroom and then I went back to the tree, where I saw the young man staring at all those people in black. As I got near, I realized most of the assistants to that funeral were very clean cut, looking kind of military.

With care, I walked towards the young man and put a hand on his shoulder. He got scared but when he realized he didn’t know me, he pulled me aside and told me, with a sign, to shut up.

He gazed towards the funeral, again, as saw it all. I just stood there, watching with him. There was something really strange about the scene, a young person watching someone’s funeral from afar. Was he maybe a lover or even his murderer? Maybe I should have not gone after him but there I was. Amanda was probably missing me.

The ceremony we were looking at was finished. The guy was in tears, that he cleaned softly.

Who are you?
I write.

He nodded, as if he understood but I did not know what it was that he understood. He then asked for my phone, which I gave him for some reason, and then dialed a number. He saved it in and gave it back to me. He didn’t say anything else; he just left.

I went back to Amanda who asked me where I had been. I told her I would explain later, not really thinking about the lunch we were going to have at her sister’s house. I didn’t really pay attention to anything else that afternoon, nothing other than the number on my phone and the name of the guy.

I had always wanted to do something else with my career. Far from me to give my dead mother in law any reason to be right: I loved my job, it was fun, simple and easy to research. I also took pictures and did interviews. All was great and easy. But there was also a part of me that was a real journalist, interested in things that happened daily.

But when I took those chances, they would always be denied to me. So I kept to my celebs and music sensations of the moment. Until now.

The next day, I decided to call Matthew and meet him in a coffee shop. He told me he preferred it that way as crowded places made him more comfortable, less suspicious of anything. From our phone conversation, which was short, I noticed he was still sad. To be honest, I was scared he wouldn’t even show up.

But he did. It was difficult to start talking. We just asked for some coffee and stared, as if it was a date of sorts. I had experience with interviews but he seemed so sad and exhausted, that I had no idea how to start, so I just went for the only thing I knew about him.

What were you doing in the cemetery?

He started crying in silence and then he told me his reason to be watching a funeral. As it happens, it was not some unknown person’s funeral. They were burying a man that day, a man with whom he had lived the last five years.

He then asked what I thought about homosexuality and their rights and so on.  I felt the interview had changed its course but though it was better to answer, as it would make him trust me. So I told him I had no trouble with gay people. I told him about these two older ladies that lived in my building. They were very nice people, feeding my dog cookies every time we crossed them in the park.

He smiled with my silly anecdote, so I understood he was ok with me interviewing him. I asked him then to tell me more about the man that had died; he was besides his life partner.

He corrected me there: the man was not his “partner” but his husband. And his name was Paul. They had been married in Massachusetts, in a small affair than only involved his some friends, no family member for either side though. I asked him if the families opposed and he smiled again but this time it was a sarcastic way to say, “of course they didn’t”. Although his parents knew and were not firmly opposed, they didn’t really care. They didn’t speak that frequently so there was no reason for him to know if they were ok with it.

Paul’s family, on the other side, were more extreme and had no problem calling them every so often to insult them or recite some extract of the Bible. They had to change their phone number several times in order to stop the insults for a while.

I asked more about their life together and then he went back to his real smile, the one that felt authentic and heartfelt. He told me they had met in a party given by a common friend. They just met there and, initially, did not like each other. Matt confessed he thought Paul was too full of himself, attracting attention to him much too often.

But then they kept seeing each other in other parties and on the street, as they discovered they were practically neighbors. So, with time, they began really knowing each other. After five months or so, they formally began dating. Drying his tears, he told me it was the best time in his life. They did everything together but not in the senses of being annoying or intense but really like friends who happened to be in love.

Many people stopped talking to them, as they didn’t knew their friends were gay. They got new ones and stronger ties bounded them with old acquaintances. It was the day they moved in together when the harassing and insulting began. But they moved on together and started to live life like the couple they would become years later.

In a trip to China, Paul proposed to him, with a ring with a special message for him. Having being in a military school, Paul knew all about codes and signs so the engraving could only be read by someone knowing about the codes and he taught Matt how to read it. They married six months later, in a private ceremony, after which they traveled to Iceland for their honeymoon. It was just the best moment in both their lives.

Only two years after their marriage, Paul had a surfing accident. He was with friends as Matt had been unable to join them because of his work. He was the first person to get to the hospital but was asked to leave when family members started to arrive. They yelled at him and he wouldn’t do anything. Finally a nurse told him that it was best if he left. She promised to call him if something happened.

That wasn’t the case. It was only through the call of one of the guy’s that had been surfing with Paul that he learned of his death. He was devastated but was prevented to go to the hospital. The family was already doing the paperwork to do take the body so there was no need to go and fight endlessly. He was theirs now, in flesh at least.

Matt told he that had happened a week ago. He had not been invited to the funeral or the wake, and had no infiltrate the cemetery without anyone noticing him. He was planning to go back soon. When I heard this, I told him I could drive him. It was not likely that any family members would be there so it was the perfect time.

So later that afternoon we were standing in front of Paul’s grave and Matthew just kneeled and cried. He didn’t say anything, just cried and touched the tombstone. I put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it as his story had touched me deeply.

I thought of Amanda, the woman I loved. What if someone had tried to stop me from being with her? What if her mother had forbidden our relationship? She hated me but she let her daughter do what she wanted and, ultimately, she was happy for her.

So when I got home, I started writing an article about Matt and Paul. I was sure it would be of everyone’s interest because; don’t we always say love is always first? That love always conquers and is the goal in our lives? I was sure that was the case and when I kissed Amanda that night; I got sure she realized how happy she made me.