Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta road. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta road. Mostrar todas las entradas

sábado, 5 de diciembre de 2015

Payback

   Jean was on highway six and she was doing great time. The road went through the mountains, using tunnels and bridges, to a place with a much nicer climate and where she could finally relax from an exhausting week. Work as a nurse could be very heavy and opportunities to have a few days for herself were pretty scarce. So she decided to grab the car and ask her parents for the keys of the summerhouse they had on that region.

 She had not been there for several years, since she had started her career, and her parents were not big fans of going to a house were the weather was warm but there was no ocean or anything to look forward to. There was a pool though and Jean knew she would have to clean it thoroughly before making use of it. Her parents now owned an apartment by the ocean, so this house had been deserted for quite some time. The plan had always been to sell but no one really seemed interested.

 Driving was making her back hurt a bit, so she decided to turn up the radio and sing along, in order to male a distraction from her pain. She would sing clumsily after the lyrics were sung but it worked as it made her laugh and enjoy the trip. On every curve, she would stop singing, instead humming the lyrics and looking at the dark road. It was the end of the afternoon and she had been driving for about an hour. She was only about thirty minutes away from her exit went the unthinkable happened: another car rammed her.

 The hit from the back make her bob like one of those taxi dolls but her arms kept straight and the car didn’t move so much. She tried to look who had done it. For a second, she thought that maybe someone was having problems and it had just been and accident. But some minutes later it happened again and in a curve. Jean’s heart felt right in her mouth and she decided it was best to speed up in order to loose that insane driver.

 She gained velocity quickly and in a couple of minutes she had lost the car, a red car that seemed to old to be still in circulation. Jean noticed the exit was nearby and was trying not to miss it when a police car appeared out of nowhere and she was asked to park further ahead. She stopped the car on a restaurant just off her exit. Stepping out of the car, she fixed her hair and waited for the police officer to come and talk to her.

 With that air of superiority many policemen have, he told her she had gone above the limit some kilometers ago and that she had violated the top speed she could be driving on the highway. Jean answered that it was all fine but that they should also give a ticket to the owner of the red car that rammed her twice. She went to the back of her car and showed him the marks of both attacks. The man checked it closely, then grabbed his radio and alerted other patrols to be on the lookout for the red car.

 After he had given the ticket to Jean, she was able to go. Her parent’s house was just fifteen minutes down the road on a small plateau between two mountains. The place in itself was very nice but it was obvious people always wanted more and better things so they were all selling these all old houses in favor of newer, more modern ones in places not very far from there.

 Jean stopped the car on the entrance and used the keys to release the lock on the main entrance. She opened the door manually (it wasn’t a electric one) and then drove the car into the lot. She stopped the car just by the pool, closed the door and then took out the only suitcase she had brought along.

The place was very dark and moist, the humidity was incredible. She turned on the lights and was amazed at how much work she had to do that night. She only had three full days for herself there and she was to clean to leave everything as it was. So after leaving her suitcase in her parent’s old bedroom, she decided to grab all the cleaning products available and start scrubbing the floor, mopping them, dust the furniture, vacuum and a number of other thing she would have forgotten to do if she hadn’t been a nurse.

 She had gotten there around seven and now it was almost eleven and her stomach asked her for food. In the house there was nothing to eat, as they had always disconnected the refrigerator before leaving, in order not to let any electric appliances on the long periods of time they were not there. She had forgotten all about eating when she had grabbed the car, so she went outside and decided to head down the road, where she remembered some stores were located.

 They were small family-owned stores, the kind that sells things kids would like on a road trip. No meat or anything raw. No lunches or any form of cooked meals or even microwave meals. Thankfully it was open and the lady that tended to it remembered her. They had a nice conversation as Jean grabbed some yogurts, orange juice, milk, cereal, bread, ham and butter. She also grabbed some candy and a big bottle of soda. The lady asked her if she wanted help to carry all that to her house but Jean refused and told her she could manage.

 After dropping the soda bottle five times, she finally arrived to her house and ate a pathetic sandwich before feeling to tired to go on. She feel asleep in no time.

 The following day, she put on her swimsuit and ran to the pull, only to realize she hadn’t cleaned that. Someone, according to her parents, took care of it when they were not around but still there were many leaves. She grabbed that long pole they use to catch leaves and she started doing so, sweating like crazy, feeling more and more humid by the minute. As she was halfway through the job, she heard a car coming. She wasn’t expecting anyone so she didn’t looked up to see that it was the red car coming slowly down the road. It stopped a few meters away, far from her sight.

 Jean finally looked at the pool: it was clean enough and she just wanted to swim. So she did, for several hours. After that, she decided to lay down in a plastic deck chair and just dry away the water of the pool. It was right then when the two men driving in the red car entered the house and she didn’t heard a thing. They hid behind lush plants and behind her car. She had closed her eyes, tired again from all the exercise. One of the men was holding a knife, the other a gun. This last one raised his hand.

 A shot was heard all over the road and many neighbors looked up and down the street for the source. But they could only see a red car parked there.

 And also, a patrol car.

 The policeman, not the same one that had stopped Jean on the road, had shot first, wounding the one that was holding a gun on the side. He fell to the ground by the pool and his pain had made him drop the gun into the water. The other one was still holding the knife and was pretty agile, grabbing Jean by the neck and trying to suffocate her with his skinny arm.

 She fought back but he was stronger and much more crazy. The policeman was pointing at him but the knife was already too close to the skin and Jean decided to do the only thing she could thing of doing: she bit the arm of her attacker, that got distracted for a second. The policeman got the message and shot two times, both to the chest.

 In a matter of minutes, neighbors had called the police and ambulances. Both men were alive, one on much worse condition that the other. Paramedics also attended Jean, as she was coughing too much and she had a deep cut on her neck.

 She went back home that day, on the ambulance. She would ask someone to go down there and grab her car for her. She only wanted to be home. Jean thought of the men every second of the short trip, their faces mad with anger, the weapons and the feeling when she had heard the gunshot and then the man grabbed her. She felt so helpless and useless. They cured her wounds in a hospital and then released her, late at night.

 Once home, she sat on her bed stroking her neck wound and remembering where she had seen those men before. They were family members of a woman that had recently died in her care. Her husband had attacked her and those men were her sons. Jean remembered they wanted her cured instantly, like by magic and they pressured the doctor not to mention their father in the report. But he did. And Jean was too slow the day the woman went into cardiac arrest and died. She had not believed their word, as the woman had been fine just hours before.


 Jean couldn’t fall asleep anymore. And traveling to relax was definitively out of the question.

jueves, 15 de octubre de 2015

Venice

   As she walked, careful always to land on one of the many steps set for the tourists not to fall into the floodwater, she thought of the whole thing as very funny. Well, it wasn’t really funny if you thought about it, but there was some humor in seeing a bunch of people that looked like tourists (flip flops, maps, binoculars and big backpacks included), crossing a large square at five in the morning, all in their version of a pajama. To the native, the people from Venice, Jean knew all of he situation looked funny as hell. I mean, they had been staying in a hotel that wasn’t very good and now the hotel was slowly decaying into the lagoon. That was the part that wasn’t so funny and maybe the one that worried the neighbors and the people in general more.

 Jean tried to stop smiling like a fool and asked her brother Peter to take her hand, as they finally reached the other end of the square and waited behind a long line of people to continue their journey through Venice. It was a late tour of a city that Jean hadn’t particularly loved. She had noticed how many lovers and people who adored romance could see all the beauty of the place but she had founded boring after only two days. And she had to stay there with her brother for a week until their parents arrived to Europe. They would meet them somewhere and share a city, most likely Paris, and then go back home. Jean at least thought the midnight tour to the replacement hotel was the best thing that had happened in a while.

 Her brother wasn’t of the same mind. He was very worried about people that were older that them and had to be at the end of the line, being helped by the people from the hotel. He was one of those people that care about everyone but himself, which is always seen as a very good thing but his sister thought it was his worst trait. He cared about others so much he wasn’t able to see when his own family or even himself was on trouble. For a time, he had been in a very difficult financial situation but he had failed to address it as he was using the few bucks he made to help a poor family. His family had to intervene because he was about to lose it all because of his kindhearted nature.

 When most people had finally crossed the square, the people from the hotel indicated with lights the way they should follow to get to the replacement hotel. Apparently, according to a map Jean had, the place was crossing the side of Venice they were on. So they started walking and thought it wouldn’t be long until they had a bed to sleep in, as the city wasn’t so big. They thought, initially, that the city would be asleep and quiet as the roamed around, but the truth was just the opposite. They could her people talking in Italian very fast, some people going around the streets and disappearing with ease. Something was wrong, they could all feet it. Maybe the news about their hotel had spread.

 But it wasn’t about their hotel. At one turn, they heard a woman screaming at the top of their lungs from a building. Peter, savior to all, was about to run and save her but she was just an older woman being dramatic. Her building was fine and if she could scream like that there was nothing really bad going on. The explanation to her screaming came in the form of a gossip, which came from the back, where an older man had been hearing the radio since he had gotten out of the hotel. He wasn’t very good at Italian but he could easily understand from what he was hearing that other buildings in the city had started to sink like their hotel. When the news reached the front, people just stopped and some even fell to the floor, causing a small chaos when people got pushed and stepped on.

 But the people from the hotel ignored the news and just asked people to keep on walking. Eventually, they reached Campo de la Maddalena, a very small open space were they could feel a little less trapped and were people were able to just sit down on the floor and have something to drink and eat. The hotel people still weren’t talking about the news but they were talking amongst themselves and they looked very worried. Their hand gestures were enough to confirm the news. Then, screaming some more news, the older man told the crowd that tram and train service had been cut off and that the bridge to the mainland was only open to buses getting people out of the islands.

Some people checked their maps with haste and realized that the train station wasn’t that far away, and as the road ran alongside of the tracks, maybe they could be able to walk to the mainland or at least reach on of those buses. They formed a little committee and send a person to talk, which happened to be Peter as he was deeply concerned for everyone around him. He talked to the people from the hotel and tried to convince them to go to the train station or the bus station instead of the other hotel. They heard what he had to say but then explained they couldn’t do anything that wasn’t approved by the company. So they had to ask first.

 One of the staff, a very young man, called on his cellphone and started speaking a very fast Italian, trying to get as far from people as he could. Everyone could see him gesturing and trying to convey every thought in what he had to say but then he turned to everyone. He was one of those very pale people but now he seemed to look even paler. He hung up, walked towards the crowd and demanded their attention. He had received orders to get them to the replacement hotel as some areas of the city were beginning to flood, namely the train and bus stations. He had also received news that their hotel had fully collapsed into the water, as it was located just at the Grand Canal.

 People stood up to keep on walking but others thought it wasn’t a very good idea to stay. Their best chance, they said, was to get to the mainland by anyways possible. But it has to be explained that those who said that were young tourists, people that could walk and run if they needed to. Most of the people that wanted to do as the hotel said were older and they couldn’t afford to go hopping around without a real plan or a real way of doing nothing. Peter intervened, saying the most important thing for everyone was to be safe and that the elderly were first. Then a battle of voices ensued and Jean was bothered now by the fact her brother always needed to be a hero instead of trying to worry for his own.

 She was decided to leave that place. As people argued, she took a look at her map and realized it was all very near: the bus station was probably only fifteen minutes away, less if they made good time. So she decided that she would walk and try to get into one of the buses. Then, a very loud sound interrupted the voices and the thoughts. Something was doing a very haunting noise, like of something about to snap. Some people even felt the environment move a little, like shaking beneath their feet. Then, they knew something bad had happened because the sound was awful and it seemed like a thousand people screamed at the same time. Some people fled, others couldn’t. Jean grabbed Peter and ran.

 He fought her initially but then stopped opposing her and just looked over his shoulder from time to time. Some others were running, and then walking with them. They crossed a canal and noticed there were many bricks and pieces of walls and roofs floating on it. They reached the train station and were amazed to see it partially collapsed. That may have been the reason why the closed it, and not for just safety. They crossed the square in front of it, crossed another bridge and then reached the bus station. The place was full of people and they were all complaining. Apparently, there were no buses there to get to the mainland. Some policemen could be seen on the rooftop of a building, possible trying to control what couldn’t be controlled.

 For Jean, the response was simple and it got simpler when people started screaming because they started to fill the puddles of water grow larger beneath their feet.  Again, Jean grabbed her brother and pulled him through the crowd following the road. People were so scared they were barely moving, others had taken the route Jean had thought to be the only way out: just follow the road to the mainland. They started walking, being joined by many people, but they didn’t get too far as another one of those horrible sounds broke the chaos of the march towards the mainland. The sound, however, was much stronger now. People felt it inside, in their hearts and all other organs.


 Then, the ground just started to collapse and people just ran like crazy. Many died there, been trampled by other people that were as scared as them. Jean took Peter’s hand hard and they ran too, trying no to lose each other in the process. The sad thing was that the police had failed to tell people the bridge had collapsed in its middle part. So running was of no use. They had to find another way to live.

sábado, 1 de noviembre de 2014

The woods

No one dared take the road through the woods. Although much shorter than the others, people tried to avoid it if possible. It had been built almost a century ago but it was only widely used for a couple of years before the wood grew darker and thicker and much more dangerous.

So an alternative road, by the side of the mountain, was built to avoid the forest. That road had a lot of curves, cliffs, and almost doubled the other one in length. It wasn't uncommon that, on a harsh winter or on rainy days, the door got blocked by mud and rocks falling from the mountain. The two towns would then be disconnected and all trade or travels between the two had to be postponed.

On one of those bad days, Sammy, a young woman looking forward visiting her family in the other town, got with her car to the mountain road but soon realized it had been blocked by big boulders. She went back home and , sadly, sat by the television set and thought of her family.

It was going to be a surprise visit but now it couldn't be done. Although... She went to her studio and grabbed a map of the region. The map marked the mountain road as a primary road. Meanwhile, the one in the woods had only a few segments drawn as people had no idea of its current state.

Sammy knew the road wasn't good for cars, only for small vehicles, motorcycles or pedestrians. But none dared enter the woods. What she noticed was that if she got out in the middle of the day, she could get across the woods in less than 3 hours. The journey normally took seven hours and that was not an option now.

So the next day she decided to dress properly for a hard walk and got to the point where the woods started. It wasn't strange no one was around as she begin, walking by the old road, covered in dead leaves and puddles of mud.

With her she only had a backpack with clothes and food, her cellphone and the map folded inside. That was it. She wore hiking boots and a thick jacket and thermal pants. It had stopped raining in the morning but she knew she had to walk fast in order to get there soon.

The first hour was incredible easy. The road was plain and almost no rocks or trees where lying across it. She could almost imagine the old carriages and horses going through the woods.
However, the place was really creepy. She knew it was around midday, but the son could almost not be seen. The foliage was thick and the trees had grown in all sorts of shapes. Almost no flowers grew there and she heard no animals in the vicinity.

When half of the walking was done, she realized the road ended and two different paths began from there. At that point she got her map out and spread it on the ground. It was hard to make a choice but she thought the best option was the clearer path, the one in the left. The map seemed to confirm it. So she began to walk again.

After just a half hour, she was walking through trees. The path had finished a few steps ago and now she only saw thin trees with big treetops. She felt lost but knew that the only option was walking in a straight line. The forest had to end at some point and it was likely the town was not far from there.

But when she started walking a cracking sound stopped her. She gazed around but so nothing. As she but one foot in front of the other, the cracking sound came back. And again and again. So she turned around.

Nothing. She decided to walk faster. After a few minutes she arrived in a clearing and there was a cottage there, the kind a lumberjack makes. Now Sammy was petrified. No one had gone to the woods in almost a hundred years so why was there a house in the middle of it?

She was very curious about it but decided not to investigate further. She continued to walk but now she heard as if someone tap a window. She turned and so no one there.

Now she was almost running. Sammy was not an athlete so her feet where killing her already but she knew she had no time to waste.

After a while, the trees began to feel more and more separated and she could see the sun, pale and cold but bright enough to make her feel safe. She decided the town could not be very far so she walked with a smile towards the edge of the forest but then rain started falling. As if someone was pouring buckets and buckets of it.

Then the cracking sound again and, in the middle of the downpour, Sammy felt someone touched her shoulder. She screamed and ran for her life. She only stopped when she felt the day had gotten brighter.

She removed the hoodie of her jacket and realized the rain had stopped and that she had arrived at her destination. She could see the tree line. Sammy was on a hill and from there one could see the town. She smiled but then she heard a laugh and turned instinctively.

There, by the nearest tree, there was a small boy. He only smiled and waved at her. And Sammy waved at him. He turned his back to her and she did the same and each one parted.

Sammy got to her family's house but did not share the story with them. She invented some lie and kept the strange smile of the kid in the woods for herself.

martes, 28 de octubre de 2014

The Rain

There was no way of seeing anything in the downpour. It was as if the sky had been ripped apart and all the water from the clouds came rushing down, hitting rocks and houses, trees and mountains.

I live in a small cottage, on the outskirts of a small town in the highest mountains in the region. I love living here but sometimes it gets lonely. Although, to be honest, I don't really mind. Since George, my husband, died all those years ago, I have grown accustomed to being alone, only with Nancy as my companion. Nancy is a golden retriever and a present from George.

The day of the downpour, I had just come back from hunting with her and we were exhausted. I twas then when it started and it didn't seem to end. Actually, the rain went on all night and continued the next morning, with the same intensity.

After having lunch, I decided to check my computer for news about the storm, as I thought it was for sure related to a storm somewhere. Not a surprise, my internet feed was down and by sunset I had no electricity in the house. Nancy was restless as she hated complete darkness which is quite uncommon for a dog.

We sat by the fireplace to heat ourselves, she slept while I read. And then I heard someone knocking at the door. We were both startled and, for a moment, I thought I was imagining it. I relaxed my muscles but then I heard it again and I couldn't ignore it. Someone was outside and it seemed impossible but it was real. As I came close to the door, I realized that the town was not very near but the road was and maybe someone had an accident. So I opened.

On the other side there was a young boy, maybe ten years old. He was trembling from the cold, his clothes damped and about to collapse. I let him in and look for a towel, as Nancy helped him get close to the fire. After drying him a bit, I told him to take of his clothes in order to dry them by the fire.

As I waited outside the bathroom, I noticed a fragrance in the air, like flowers. Somehow, that reminded me of something but I had no clue what. The boy came out, covered in the towel, leaving his clothes in the sink.

He didn't spoke a word. He sat next to Nancy, by the fire and the dog seemed calm as the boy stroke her back. I twisted his clothes, leaving them a little less wet and then put them in a chair next to the fire. I didn't thought they would dry a lot but it was better than nothing.

I then asked the boy where were his parents and what had happened to him. But he just looked at me and said nothing. He was probably shocked or something. Maybe he was in a car accident and his family was on the road. I had to check. I put on my jacket, a hat, gloves, other pants and my boots. I told the boy to stay there but I never knew if he heard me.

Outside was awful. I had never witnessed a hurricane but I thought that storm must have been very similar. I couldn't see much so I decided not to head down to the road but rather to a an area that overlooked it from above. The rain was a pain in the ass but when I got there, I saw nothing. No people, no cars, nothing.

When I came back to my house, and it took time, I smelled again flowers and something else. When I got to the kitchen I realized it was the boy, cooking. Nancy stood by him as he dropped some vegetables into a big pot filled with water. He realized I was there and then he finally spoke.

 - I was hungry. Do you want some?

I nodded. He was cooking on my portable stove and I was frankly surprised he had poured my gasoline on it. After a few minutes the night fell and the boy served the soup. 

We sat by the fire and enjoyed our meal. Even Nancy had some and she loved it. To be honest, his cooking reminded me of my husband, as he always loved to use vegetables in his preparations. Not that he cooked much, but when he did it was all about mother nature and its gifts.

When we were finished, I asked the boy again about his parents and why he was alone in the rain. A thunder fell and I was startled, even more when he started speaking just after it.

 - You have always been scared of them.
 - How do you know that?

He raised his shoulders and grabbed the plates. After washing them, he came back and stroke Nancy again as she fell asleep.

I felt a bit nervous by then. The kid didn't seem too normal, he knew things and hadn't said a word about his family. Other kids would be terrified and would scream or cry or fight. But he just looked to the fire and stroke my dog. He seemed at peace.

Later, I told him it was bed time. He would sleep on the sofa, by the fire, and I would heat some water for me to sleep in my room. Nancy could stay with him. I gave him a think quilt my mother had made many years ago and he said another puzzling thing:

 - I've always loved this quilt.

I ignored this and put the quilt over him. When I did he grabbed my hand and looked at me to the eyes. This made me nervous but he pressed harder and then spoke:

 - You should do something with your life. Don't close yourself to the world. You have a lot to offer.

The only thing I could do was smile and not sleep. Not for the whole night. It was after 5 AM when I finally fell asleep. My last thought was: "Why am I not hearing the rain?".

I later realized the storm had stopped and that my guest, the little boy, had left in the morning. He had folded the quilt as George did and then I realized what had happened. I opened to the door and called for him, knowing it was useless.

My one true love had come to me and I didn't realize it. Although, he was right. I had come here to be away of everything, as life reminded me of him every second but that had been a wrong move from my part. That day, I decided to sell the cottage and move to the city, closer to my son and to his children.