Ghosts of war

   Paul pulled the potato plant and some dirt feel into the ground, with a beautiful soft noise. The potatoes had grown decently big and so had the rest of the food he had grown in the back garden. From there, he could not see anyone else, only the shadow formed by the house and the hills that created several ups and downs that got to the sea itself. But the sea was very far and in this inland territory only the cold wind that remained from the past winter swept the land, as if washing away any impurities in this world.

 He pulled a basket, put the potatoes inside with other fresh products, and took it inside the house. There he washed them carefully, cut off the parts that didn’t have any use and then started cooking. Adam got there just in time with meat from the market on the other side of the valley. He seemed tired so Paul told him to sit down and relax as he finished preparing dinner. Outside, the sun had already left the sky and the night was dark and silent except for the snoring of Adam who had fallen asleep in the couch.

 Paul wasn’t in a hurry with dinner, especially because he had to prepare everything enough time to kill all the bacteria and because the meat was thick and took some time to cook. When he was finally done, Paul went to Adam and softly kissed his forehead. As if it had happened in a fairy tale, Adam opened his eyes and smiled because of the kiss and because of the fabulous smell invading the small house.

 They sat down to eat some delicious steamed vegetables with thick slices of fried meat and a side of mash potatoes that tasted different from the one they had known in their childhood but it was still good. As he always did, Adam grabbed one of Paul’s hands, his left one, and kept on eating like that all night. It was something he had started doing when they first moved there and it was just a way to ensure they would never be separated. Adam was extremely serious about it and once they had a fight over that, because Paul had told him that he couldn’t eat properly like that. That night, they didn’t sleep together.

 But this time it was different. When dinner was done, Adam helped Paul wash the dishes and went to bed at the same time. They took off their clothes; each one tired of their day, and just hugged to sleep. But differently than all other nights, a horrible sound woke them up in the middle of the night. It was a sound coming from a machine and there were not many machines in this region. They felt the ground shake, which was what woke them up, and the horrible sound of a plane going over the valley. They had heard planes before but this one different, much worse, as if the plane was a horrible beast of some kind. They held each other after the sound had finished, thinking of what it could mean.

 The next day in town, Adam talked to many villagers and even to some fisherman that travelled daily to the coast and the port to sell their products. Apparently most people had heard the same thing and everyone had been awaken by it.  The first thing they said was that the country was neutral, at least officially, and that they didn’t allow one of the factions to use their territory to do nothing. So either the plane came all the way from one of the continents or their government had just betrayed the neutrality that had been their main characteristic for so long.

 The truth was that no one really saw where the plane came from or where did it go but it was flying really low. The following days some more things happened: many witnesses saw red lights, balls of fire, over the ocean but very far at the same time. It was like a weird light show and there was a sound with it but because of he distance it was hard to say what it was. Then some farmers found tank tracks in their fields but they had never heard any of them passing around. Actually, the army didn’t even have tanks or planes or anything.

 Adam decided they should keep living their normal lives, not minding a lot about these events. Or at least that’s what he told Paul. But at nights he would often wake up sweating from nightmares involving tortures and lights like the ones over the ocean and Paul would ask what was wrong and Adam wouldn’t say. They fought over it a couple of times but mostly they just held each other and tried to be supportive and close, because anything could happen.

 The explanation to everything was written in pieces of paper that had been distributed all over the country. Their nation had accepted the use of several bases by one of the factions and they would use the country to fight a battle against the other faction, to finally crush them for good. Their land would not be caught under fire, only been use as a previous layover for every plane, boat and other war vehicle, even tanks that did target practice in a wasteland north of the valley. That explained the explosions many people had heard.

  So the war had never ended and it was apparently on an important stage, on a decisive point that made even change the face of the world. This secretly excited Adam because even after so many years away from the fight, he was still eager to fight for what he believed and for what he had done so much so many years ago. But Paul just didn’t address the subject. The only thing he said was that if they all wanted to keep on killing themselves, it was fine by him but he didn’t wanted nothing to do with any of that. He didn’t want the war to come to the village and that was it.

 Adam didn’t told Paul but he started to have meetings with many people from the region and they were already discussing if they should also join the fight and how would they do it and why. They had the tremendous chance that the authorities were so busy these days that a meeting in a farm wasn’t important enough for them to attend and tear apart. They would have done it but now the government was using all the resources it had to make their “guests” feel at home. Everyone knew the situation was a disguised invasion and that their country had kneeled without even the chance of fighting.

 Paul kept to himself. He started concentrating only in his garden and in fishing in the lake nearby and doing all these things to make his home the best part of the world. He would share with some villagers his discoveries about how diets could be better so to keep everyone strong during the winter and during the summer too. And what he started to do was to take long walks, always when Adam was about to come back from his meeting in town. He knew he would want to tell someone about it and he just didn’t want to hear about it. He’d rather have their neighbors or their dog help Adam with that.

 Their relationship became very tense and that was very strange for both of them as they had never been in such tension. They had been living together for over three years now, year in which they had build a home together and had found the other to be that person they wanted in their lives forever. They had been through hell and back to get to that valley and have everything that they enjoyed in their daily lives. They had fought together and suffered together and now it was supposed to be a time of peace for them, even if the world was falling apart.

 But the sense of responsibility in Adam was too strong. So one day he followed Paul to the lake, where he went to take a walk and get away from everything, and tried to talk to him. He told Paul, almost yelling, that he needed to go back to the fight because he felt he had to finish what he started, he had to make the west faction pay for what they had done back home, for what they had allowed to happen to them and to the world. They were destroying everything everyone held dear and the world would never be the same if someone didn’t stop them.

 Paul answered that he didn’t wanted the world to go back to what it was. He didn’t want the past because he hated it. He reminded Adam than in that glorious past they would have been hanged if they dared to live together, in that past people were also deprived of everything and lacked so much. Fighting for revenge wouldn’t change anything, no matter who won or how they won. Everything was always going to be the same, war or not.

 For a whole week they didn’t talk to each other and Adam even chose to sleep in the couch. But they loved each other. They couldn’t do that for long because it tore them apart slowly. The war raged on and they were trapped in the middle of the fire, not knowing what to do or where to go.

Thoughts by the beach

   As I woke up, I felt the soft caress of the sun on my back and feet. I also felt it all over my body: my arms, my thighs, my neck. It was just the best way to wake up and to remember what is great about the holidays and the world. Work and work and work. Who even likes doing that? I doubt anyone does. People should learn have to live for their work; their work should revolve around them. That obsession for perfecting things for someone else, I will never understand. What is so great about being a slave? Why are so many people proud of that? They parade around parties and life declaring to anyone that will listen how much they love their work and how much they do for it. To me, that always sounds pathetic, even if their work is actually great.

 As I turn over and feel the sun on my chest, tummy and legs, and most importantly on my face, I realize that I’m not one of those people. I mean. I don’t even have a job. No one has ever given me the chance to prove my worth as an employee and that will probably never happen as I’m a writer and the game there is a little bit different, although I guess I’ll have to be nice to my editor and my publisher, once I’m finally in that situation. No, I’d rather not think about that right now. Why would I ruin such a beautiful day by torturing myself again with the same thing again? It wouldn’t make sense and I’m simply not interested on feeling like crap just for the sake of it. I have felt like that before and I have to say that I’m not a fan.

 I sit down on the sand and look at the ocean, hearing the beautiful sound it makes. I don’t hear the children playing ball or the youngsters with their music and loud conversation, I only hear the ocean and its beautiful sound that makes any soul become calm. It is nice to think about all the people that have sat where I’m seating and have wondered about life, just as I do. This beach has to have a very big history of tourists and locals that span many years. Many some woman waited for her husband to come back home here. Or maybe, two men realized they loved each other right here. Or maybe a little girl discovered the beauty of the night sky and grew older loving the stars and constellations.

 To me, the world is always amazing by itself, but some people make it a little bit more special. Not every person has that gift, though. Some people actually make some places even less special than before, which is something pretty difficult to make unless you’re a really shitty person. But the world is filled with them. To be honest, I do think the world has more good people than bad people. But it also has more dumb people than clever people. And I don’t only mean according to education, because sometimes a man can be really smart without going to school and another man holding a doctorate can be the biggest moron you have ever seen. Because knowledge and intelligence are two very different things.

 I’ve known my fair share of guys that are just full of knowledge but almost entirely non-intelligent. And no, there’s no relation to stereotypes that people have because there’s always someone that breaks the stereotype. But there other that are walking proof of them, like a photographer who wears sunglasses and a long coat or a stupid blonde. Those are proofs of stereotypes. But, of course, there are many exceptions to all those “rules” and it’s not difficult to find them. People are just not that simple to categorize because they have a way of always surprising you with what they do. Have you ever felt that, that completely confusion sense of aw in front of someone you had no idea existed?

 The sand feels really nice on the feet, especially after walking so much from home to the beach. I touch it with my hands too and realize the grains are very soft, which feels even better on the body. A game of volleyball has started very near and the kids that were playing with a ball are now running around the beach with a kite on their hands. It’s funny to me how some parents have everything their kid might need on their car or, in the case of mother’s, in their purse. It’s like a magic trick although, it saddens me because they bring so many things and it makes me wonder if the reason for it is that they don’t really know what their kids like. Parents have always been oblivious to tings like that but now more than ever.

 I’m not saying that parents before were amazing because they weren’t always or all of them. But isn’t it more and more common to see a couple just ignoring their kids instead of hearing them and seeing what their opinion is of the world? Isn’t that interesting to everyone: to hear what a child, a person that hasn’t been here long, has to say about the world? Of course, kids are biased because they learn by looking and by repetition, not much difference to birds. The difference is that many kids, if raised right, have the gift of doubt from an early age. I don’t think I’m going to have any children, but if I ever do I hope they are inquisitive at all times, doubting everything and asking questions when they feel like it.

 I’d rather have that than some kids that only drool and cry, a reflection on bad parenting I guess. Oh, there they are. It’s those gym guys that always come to the beach to play volleyball after they have been working out in front of everyone. To me, that’s some funny shit. And sorry if I offend you by saying that but, honesty is paramount. People get so obsessed and fixated on something that it can become their whole lives. I mean, yes, the guys are very hot and sexy and attractive but they’re not interesting or at least they don’t look like it. Another stereotype I guess. Yeah, there’s the ball and they have started playing, like clockwork. And I noticed I’m not the only one watching.

 But that makes me turn my head and face the ocean again, which seems a little bit darker that before. I look up and see a big gray cloud, hovering just parallel to the beach. But my head it’s still with the boys playing volleyball. I instantly cover myself by pressing my legs against my chest and by “hugging” my legs. As I put my chin on one of my knees, I realize what it is about those guys that I don’t like. Well, I already know but it is awful to be reminded that I have a way of feeling less than them. Society had made them the model and not me and when I walk around without a shirt the sight is not as… pleasant, I guess. They make me feel like shit and I’m sure I’m not the only one. It’s not their fault but the fault of the media that created ridiculous standards to match our ridiculous society.

  The gray cloud moves very slowly, as a lion deciding whether to launch itself towards the wildebeest or wait there for a better catch. Because of the cloud, the climate has gone colder and the sun cannot be felt anymore. I guess that for me the day is over, so I grab my backpack, put my towel inside and stand up. As I put my backpack on, I glance one last time to the see. That big mass of water has so many secrets and no matter how much I stare at it, it won’t reveal any of them. I guess that’s one of the many things that amaze me about coming to the beach and just appreciating the natural aspect of it instead of looking at people.

 I turn around and walk slowly towards the showers, which are located by the sidewalk made of concrete. There I clean my feet and my whole body from many grains of sad that may have taken residence anywhere on my body. I clean my waist by putting my hand just below my bathing trunks and then I see it. Or rather, him. One of the guys playing volleyball hit the ball too hard and sends it close to where I’m standing. The guy that comes to pick it up, instead of taking the ball, has decided to stare at me as I clean myself. Once we have eye contact, he takes the ball and returns to the game. I do not move as quickly. I move aside and dry myself with the towel and, as I do, I look towards the guys.

 He’s the tallest one playing, nice body and very cute smile as they play. Maybe I imagined him looking at me and he was really looking at someone or something else. But maybe not and that possibility is good enough for me. As I end the drying session and put on some thongs, I realize he’s looking my way again. And he decides to wave, saying “goodbye” I guess. I do the same and he smiles and let’s say I can die after having seen that smile. As I walk towards the metro station, I realize it had been a very good day for me. But it hasn’t ended yet as the night might come with more surprises. As I enter the station, the rain starts to pour. I knew I had to leave fast.

On the rubble

   At first, the sounds were like thunder. Once and again they repeated themselves, a little bit louder each minute that passed. People were hiding in their basements or in any other structures below ground but were still very close to the bombs. They normally fell for hours, at least two, and then they would stop for another two hours until they came back. It was particularly awful at night, because people had no electricity and they feared something worse could happen in the dark, even worse that a foreign force dropping bombs on their heads. They just stayed there and prayed, if they believed in something. If they didn’t, it was a lot harder to imagine a way to go back outside alive.

 Every single person, even children, now knew that the world had been crumbling down for at least fifty years but no one had really noticed. That was until, all of a sudden, the most powerful country in the powerful got very extremist and started killing their own. People around the world saw it happening and they couldn’t believe their eyes. But as many times before, they did nothing, as they were scared they would get a blockade or some sort of attack just because they wanted to defend the lives of so many that had been massacred. And what the TV showed was only the tip of a very bloody iceberg. If people had known, they wouldn’t have feared, they would have done something. But that didn’t happen and it was only two years after that that the war starter. Ironically, it had nothing to do with mass murders but with a fishing boat.

 Since that happened, the world had seen five awful years of fire, misery and death. People talked about safe havens around the world but they all sounded so perfect, so ideal, that the general population thought they were only a fantasy created by those who didn’t want to realize what their reality was. They were prisoners in their own country, having to eat whatever they could find and surviving as animals, as rats. Some escaped to the countryside but things were supposed to be worst there because of the open spaces and the use of more horrible weapons that one could ever imagine.  The country was dead.

 Besides, they had been cut off from the rest of the world, so heading to the borders was useless as they were all under surveillance. And the truth was that even beyond those fences, life was exactly the same. So why bother in running, escaping and hurting the shitty body one had only to be in a place where things were exactly the same or maybe worst? People survived and they openly welcomed death, but on their terms. No one died of old age anymore but it was the objective of many to die that way. Most people died in the streets, with a shot to the head and probably not even fired by enemies but by other hungry people.

 Rumors were always heard. People had begun a rumor, maybe based on the truth, that a group of rebels had been working before the invasion had happened. You see, before the country was attacked daily, there used to be what people call a “puppet government”. A crazy military man, as they all are, had formed an alliance with the extremist nation that attacked them. He sold the country to them in exchange of letting him live and rule. And they did let him do that but only for some years until he was killed and the occupation really began. It was during that time that several “terrorist” attacks took place. It was them, the rebels.

 But now, it seems, the rebels didn’t existed anymore. Apparently, the government killed them all and then the government itself was killed so nothing remained from the past. News came every so often, from people that had managed to salvage radios or television sets. They said they had heard other countries been taken or an uprising somewhere very far. But even if all those things were true, people knew that they weren’t enough. Those things were happening so far away that they would never get any help. They just knew how their lives would end and they didn’t want to do anything about it. Why change what is inevitable? They just waited for the end and that was it. No more believing in miracles, or in any fantasy about rebels and war on the other side of the world. They were dead and that was the only truth.

 People survived eating small rodents that they found among the rubble after the airplanes had stopped bombing. There was no building standing and it made no sense for them to keep bombing them but they did it anyway. Some people believed that they didn’t want to use real soldiers in order to keep in line people that were already scared and enslaved, in a way. Another rumor was that soon they would come and build factories and that all those people in the basements would be made to work there, making uniforms, guns, helmets and so on. It was the normal thing to do by any foreign oppressive power, or so said the elderly. But no one knew and no one cared enough to think about it.

 A person’s day consisted of hearing the bombing all day, trying to sleep at least two hours and then go out of the hiding place in order to find food. That was it. There was no entertainment or time to be happy or joyful. Those things had died with the war. Any kid who laughed was severely spanked by their mother and learned, the hard way, that there was nothing to be happy about in this world. Some people moved around the city, trying to get more food and it sometimes worked. Some of the ponds and lakes still held water and some fish so it was only a question of how to get them. That would have been a nice way to spend an evening but these people saw it as a way to survive so there was nothing nice or good about it. It was just something they had to do.

 Suddenly, one day the bombing stopped altogether. It was not that they had decided to do less bombings; it was that they just stopped. People were scared then, more than ever. The invasion, the full scale one that they had feared for so long, was finally at their doorstep. Mothers decided to teach their children how to be obedient and how to lower their head before the foreigners. They wanted them to live, even if they had to be submissive and enslaved. Nothing could be worse than been a human rodent. They waited, and waited, and waited, but the invasion never came. They never saw a single soldier come their way but that didn’t make them calm down. Maybe they had decided to test a new weapon on them… Maybe they were going to be destroyed for good.

 But that never happened. A year after the bombings stopped, when the grass started to grow again, as the trees and crops, a battalion arrived to the ruined capital city. People were scared and ran away but they soon noticed those soldiers weren’t wearing the flag used by the extremists. They were wearing a white patch only which many remembered as a sign of peace. That week, five battalions arrived to help the people and teach them how to rebuild and feed themselves. The community was alive again and people, for the first time in many years, felt good about smiling and dreaming. The children were especially happy and their parents could finally have a calm heart.

 Many bodies were buried in huge mass graves. And it was then that they realized that their liberators were locals. Not all of them but many and they told them their story. Apparently, they were the ones called rebels back in the day and they had to flee the country before it went to shit. They said that many stayed behind but were killed. Those who remained hid in boats or planes bound for other parts of the world. Their stories were then so different and fantastic but they untied again at what they called the Big Battle. It had happened about a year ago and it had been the turning point for the war. The extremists were cut off of their resources and then their capital was taken. Their leader was hanged.

 That’s why the bombings had stopped. For all effects and purposes, the war was over. The rebels talked about the sacrifice that many had done in order to get their freedom back and that’s why now they wanted every country to stand up again and become a better version of themselves, to become something that people could look up to in the future. War had to be a thing of the past, something only mad men would think about and those mad men had to be put away, their freedom taken before they could take anyone else’s.

 The world had died but then, it’s heart started beating again. Will there be another chance? Will we survive again to our own demons and stupidity? Let’s hope this time it sticks.

Antares

   Aslana was reclined on her chair, barely looking at all the screens she had in front of her. She had been commissioned with surveying a barren part of the Cosmos no one really cared about. Neither did she, but it was her job and she complied. After the first hour, however, she had bored herself to death by watching the screens with practically nothing showing.

 That had not been the idea she had had when in college, trying to decide what to do next. Antares space station was hiring but becoming an actual astronaut also interested her. People saw them as adventurers and explorers and she wanted that, to feel that she was doing something special.

 She decided to become an astronaut and went to Star City, near Moscow, to become one. With at least fifty others, she trained hard for a whole year but at the end of the process only ten were finally chosen. It had been decided they were the only ones fit for space travel. Aslana was not chosen. Her performance on skill and intelligence tests was formidable but the physical demand of the career had proven a bit too much for her.

 However, her tutors had recommended her to the Science Academy of Moscow, who were about to open a new observatory orbiting Triton, near Neptune. The observatory was located, funny enough, on Space Station Antares. So she had wasted a whole year of her life to do almost exactly what she had thought of doing when coming out of college.

 And now, there was Aslana, sitting on her chair, legs up on the dashboard, looking at Triton through one of the many windows in the space station. Antares was home to about five hundred people and its builders were already trying to get the permission to build another wing to it and get five hundred more to come and live almost at the edge of the solar system.

 Aslana enjoyed it sometimes, and other times she hated it. She loved space and she hated people there. They got to be so annoying, judgemental and hypocritical. Well, there were some people that were very kind and lovable too but they weren't a vast majority.

 Suddenly, an alarm made Aslana fall from her chair. The sound had come from the dashboard, which she hadn't been looking. To be honest, she had fallen asleep for a couple of minutes, tired and bored at the same time.

 She sat down again, combed her hair with her fingers and started tapping and clicking and writing. The signal seemed to come from a quadrant of empty space. Of course, it was not actually empty but nothing really big seemed to be there. Yet, the alarm had been set off.

 She ran all the tests, to know if the signal was actually foreign in origin or a Earth signal bouncing between the stars. After a half hour, she could certify that the pulse, the call if you will, was from deep space. No human had traveled there. There was a science base in Haumea and that was it. That was the farthest place humans had gone from home. But this signal was from deep space and, somehow, it had reached Antares.

 Aslana aligned every dish available towards the quadrant from which the message was coming. The pulse got weak at some point and then strong again. It was like the people, if that word could be used, were having problems keeping up the strength of the pulse.

 When the woman activated the audio machine, she let a loud squeak come out from her mouth. The sound was awful, it was like if a thousand bees and wasps had suddenly entered the station. She screamed because of the volume, which was unusually high. She thought that, for sure, someone in the station might have been woken up by the sound.

 And that reminded her. She should report what was going on immediately. The machines were all recording the event but she needed to send a message to Earth, for them to check the message out. Very large telescopes had been built on the Moon, capable to trace the message more accurately that what little potential the Antares station had.

 - Moon base Tycho, this is Aslana Tromaterova. I'm in charge of the observatory for the night. I have    detected a pulse coming from this space. I'm sending the coordinates encrypted in this message.          Please check. I'm monitoring the event. All tests have been done. Waiting for instructions.

 She sent the message, which would take several hours to reach the Moon. Meanwhile, she started playing with her audio machine to clean up the noise she was hearing. Aslana moved every knob, button and switch and listened carefully. After a while, she thought she had heard something, like a mumbling. She did her best to clean the sound with the computer, but, of course, the distance had disrupted the signal and it wasn't coming clean.

 Then Aslana remembered a class she had received at Star City, when an old german professor had taught the everyone how to clean sound and video feeds coming or going from space stations. He said it would help tremendously on occasions of distress or emergency. One thing he had said was that sometimes video could help clean sound waves. The sound could be translated by a screen and then cleaned properly.

 So Aslana did just that. One of the many screens helped her accomplish something she thought would have been impossible due to the circumstances. After two hours on it, she had finally cleaned the pulse. And the woman was very nervous, unsettled.

 She had not thought of the signal to be dual, to be sound and video at the same time. But it was. Aslana realized she was the first person in History to see the face of an extraterrestrial, a being from another planet. They were different, true, but she could see humanity in them, in their eyes and behavior.

 There was some data being sent on the video feed too. It was on some other language but she could conclude, from the video and some of the statistics, very similar to human ones, that they were on a ship. And that this ship, was in deep trouble. Some of the creatures seemed to be controlling a fire and others ran in several directions.

 Then something happened that almost made her fall from the chair again: the creatures spoke towards the camera, probably asking for help. And Aslana cried, realizing they would die there in the middle of nowhere, only been heard by one human woman so far away.

 The woman cleaned her face and decided to do something useless: send a message. Judging from the distance between her and the quadrant they were calling from, Aslana knew all of them were already dead, probably for many years, maybe even hundreds of years. They had died alone, horribly. So she wanted to honor them by sending a message. She thought her words carefully and then sent the message, which she later sent towards Earth with all the data relating to the event.

 It was important to her to do this. She had been alone half her life and, with this gesture, useless maybe but sincere, she wanted to tell anyone hearing that they would never be alone, not while there were others around caring for their well being.

 When her shift ended, she spoke briefly with her boss and told him she was very tired but that all the data had been sent to Earth and was saved in the station's main hard drive. The boss granted her her wish and, as she laid down in bed, she realized she still had a life in front of her and that she could do whatever she wanted with it.

 - My name is Aslana. You will never know me and I will never know you. But I wanted you to know    you have a friend now and I hope I have one or many too. I'm a human and is probable you won't        understand what I'm saying. But I trust someday you will. And when you do, I want you to know        that we,  I, will always be here for you. We are now bound to each other and I will try my best to        keep this  promise. Sorry for your loss.