The wind on L

   The wind roared and roared. It seemed like it carried the voices of thousands of people long deceased, as if it all of them had decided that life on planet L should be eradicated. For thousands of years, the elders had gathered every single piece of mysticism and mythology, every tale and story told by a grandmother or a priest. And in many of those tales the wind played a very important role. It was always a destructive force, a very awful power of nature that menaced everything on its path, specially the sensible civilization that had grown on L. Despite their advancements in many fields, they still hadn’t been able to put an end to the never-ending problem of the wind. Besides, they knew that doing anything against it would cause consequences and who knew what those might be.

 Planet L was mostly water, so the wind didn’t really have obstacles that would stop it, like mountain ranges. On L, the only obstacles were caves dug underground by centuries of people trying to find a solution for their awful problem. They had also tried to build walls but that had failed fast. The only way to properly survive was underground, below the few continental masses of the planet. The cities below were small and very damp, but the people had adapted fast and did not care anymore. They had also developed a great sense of hearing and of sight, meaning they could navigate the caves without fear of getting lost or hurt by falling or something like that.

 Their way of living was the main reason no one in that area of the galaxy knew of their existence. Funny enough, many creatures of the universe knew planet L. Pirates, bounty hunters and warriors met there sometimes to exchange prisoners, goods or just to kill each other off in very bloody battles. Almost all alien creatures could withstand the wind easily, at least in some regions. And they liked that it made a cover for them, in case authorities followed them from other systems. But the inhabitants of L had no idea this had been going on for a long time. Their personal belief was that no one on the galaxy would be interested in landing in such a nightmare of a planet.

 One day, however, something rather different happened. Two ships entered L at very high speed, breaking the sound barrier several times. One was after the other and, from time to time, it fired on it. They had cannons mounted everywhere so one could only think they were bounty hunters or assassins. The ship being attacked caught fire but kept fleeing into some more shots mad it crash into one of the largest islands of the windy world. The ship that went down exploded and the other one just left, its crew thinking that all life inside of the downed ship would soon be dead, if it already wasn’t. It was a matter of time.

 Below, the people of a city had felt the tremor of the ship crashing into the ground. They had been scared for a moment, but then remembered that the weather report had clarified that a very strong storm was going to take place outside, so it was better to stay at home and close all doors, just in case the wind breached the main entrance. That was almost impossible as the main entrance was made from an incredibly strong type of metal they had found when building the caves, but these people preferred to play it safe, specially when from their houses they could hear the moaning of the wind and the voices of all creatures that had died out there in it. For the young ones, the wind was a monster to avoid. For the older ones, it was the difference between life and death and the thing that kept them there, at home.

 As they all ran to their houses and took shelter from the sound of the wind, in the downed ship its pilot was struggling to get out of there fast. The other members of its crew had been killed and he was the only one capable to transport their precious cargo back to their home planet. The treasure was on a small chest he grabbed with bloodied hands. He put it on a bag, which in turn he put on his back. He checked conditions outside but couldn’t wait for the computer to calculate anything. Partly because it had been damaged in the crash but also because there was gasoline leaking all over the place. He didn’t have time to wait so he just put on a suit and went outside. The wind knocked him off at first but then he managed to sink his feet into the ground and at least walk slowly.

 The storm was too strong but he managed to walk away from the ship a few meters just before it exploded. He was pushed away, landing on a puddle of mud and dirty water. The strength of the explosion caused him to lose his balance and stability for a while. He even bled from one if his ears but he could still hear fine, or so its seemed at least in the middle of the storm. He had nowhere to go now so we just stood up and slowly walked away from the wreckage. He turned around to see his ship one last time and a small tear slid down his face. He had lived in that ship for years, but now he had to move on and try to get someone to pick him up there. His suit had a communications device but the wind wouldn’t let it work.

 In the city below, as he tried to use the device, a red light appeared in one of the consoles that checked security all over the city. The computer had detected the device that the stranded alien was using out there. But there was no one there to see it. Everyone had been ordered to their homes due to the storm, to their fear of a wind that just couldn’t get inside their city. However, there was a lonely native of L who happened to be a priest. Secretly, he left his door opened when a storm happened, as he loved the sound of the voices. He thought he could hear in the wind what his ancestors wanted for all of them.

 That priest was the only creature that heard the destruction of the ship outside and he knew, right away, that that sound had nothing to do with the storm. He ran to the metallic door that separated the city from the outside world but just stood there, as if it was going to open magically. Of course, it didn’t and he didn’t dare to open it by himself. Doing so would mean the death penalty, by precisely stepping outside and never coming back. The rules of their civilization were pretty clear and even it moment, when his desire to see what was outside was so big in his heart, even then he just couldn’t do anything. He just stood there by the door, waiting for one more sound to make him do something crazy or at least let him know they weren’t alone.

 Outside, the stranded one was walking clumsily, falling over very often, and almost going insane due to the voices that he could now hear very clearly around him. He didn’t have a clue of what they said, but he had a feeling it wasn’t anything good. Finally his device began beeping and he thought that some ship was en route to save him. But that wasn’t it. It had detected an energy source ahead, which might lead to life or at least to a shelter. Going more and more crazy by the minute, he walked in that suit as fast as he could, careful not to drop his bag with the small chest inside. He had a massive headache and he knew he was bleeding but he just kept on going.

 Then, the priest heard a sound on the door. It had been a subtle, soft sound but he knew he had heard it… Again! It was as if someone was trying to know but didn’t have the strength to do it. As one of the few that dared to listen to his planet, the priest knew this time the death penalty was worth it. Even if there was nothing there when the door opened, he knew something else had happened and that was good enough for him. He then ran to the control panel and entered a password that had never been used. The door moaned, as everything turned to lift it over the priest’s head. The wind entered from the outside like a plague but he felt something else enter so he closed the door instantly.

 When the metallic door had fallen into its place, the priest turned around and saw the stranded alien lying on the cave’s floor. He was bleeding or at least that was what it looked like. Their blood was yellow and his was green. His breath was slowing down. The priest dragged the body to his house and there checked the alien. It was risky, but he took off the helmet. He waited but nothing happened so he got to work and cured him as well as he could. He removed him from the suit and put the bag with the chest on a chair nearby. For days, no one knew there was an alien in that house and they wouldn’t think twice about the bag on the chair.

 As it happened, that bag carried the most important object in the universe. And it was a coincidence, a very happy one to be precise, that it had landed in that forgotten part of the universe as many hands wanted that thing but only one person could manage to handle it. And that person was not very far now.

Stranger tour

   I had just met him but I didn’t want to walk around a whole new city without someone to tell me what was what. You see, I had arrived in Barcelona only recently and I’m one those people that understands things better when someone else is explaining. I get lost easily when I’m all by myself but I learn rather fast, which has always helped me get through things. Anyhow, I was having my first cup of coffee today and this guy was just really nice and I just asked him if he could show me the city. I know, he could have been a serial killer or something. Actually, it would have been worst if he had just said no but he was very nice and gave me his number, asking me to send him a message at night to see what he could do for me and my request.

 I did write to him from my phone and he answered rather quickly. He explained that he wasn’t from Barcelona either and that he understood how nervous I was for being in a new city so he proposed to go out the following weekend and show me the places that he thought would help me get to know the city. The weekend was only two days away so the wait was very short. He came to my place, where I had recently moved. I offered him a cup of coffee but he said he would rather start right away. He seemed very serious and not in the mood to talk, so I didn’t say a word. We just walked a few blocks until we got to a subway station. There was a map where he explained me where everything was: downtown, Montjuic, the industrial areas, the beaches, the mountains and the bars and discos.

 We entered the station and he bought my ticket, in order to show me how it all worked. That part was fun because I knew how the system worked, I had traveled from the airport in the metro. But I decided not to say anything because he seemed a little bit fed up with the whole concept of explaining all these menial things to an idiot from another country. We sat down side by side in the train but wouldn’t even look at each other. Maybe it was best if I just let him go and be miserable alone, because I didn’t wanted my own weekend to be spoiled. I would just walk around and people would help me. I had noticed people were very nice so maybe that was my real thing. I had no idea when or how I had decided to ask that from a stranger.

 The train stopped and he got out so I did the same. He walked rather fast so it was difficult to keep up with his pace. When we came out of the station, I realized I had been there before: it was the main square of the city called Plaza Cataluña. There were lots and lots of people everywhere but I decided not to be still for too long because my companion had already started walking away. I followed him to the Rambla, trying to get to where he was but it was impossible. After a while, I didn’t see him anymore. Fe up with the attitude, I just stopped and went back to the square. The climate was getting a bit colder.

 About fifteen minutes later, my phone rang. It was a call, not a message or a text. And it was him because I could see the name “Coffee guy” on the screen. I smiled because I didn’t even know his name and decided not to answer. But he tried two more times so I finally decided to pick it up. He asked me where I was and why I hadn’t followed him. I told him he seemed too distracted and too pissed off at something or someone and that I didn’t have time to waste so I thanked him for his help and just hung up. But he called again and asked again where I was. I told him I was at a bar, drinking a beer. He got to the bar and, again, didn’t say a word when he sat down beside me. He didn’t ask anything for himself and I just wasn’t in the mood to ask some stranger what was up with his life.

 Then, he started saying he had had a tough week. Apparently, he had been into a number of interviews for jobs he would have wanted to get but he got none of them. I told him that maybe he had been just awful in the interviews but he replied that he had been relaxed and charming and had answered everything rapidly and kindly. He just didn’t got why they wouldn’t pick him. I didn’t say anything else. I just sipped my beer and looked at all the glasses and things the barman had behind him. The coffee guy then told me to go on with the tour but I told him I had decided not to tour anything with someone whose name I didn’t even know. He then told me his name was Evan and that he needed to walk around or he would keep thinking about the jobs that didn’t happen.

 I just gulped down the beer, closed my jacket and walked outside, not saying a word to him. Evan decided to be nicer and started talking as we walked, explaining the history he knew about the place and his impressions when he had first come to the city. At first, I wasn’t talking at all but he was trying so hard I decided to give in and have a decent Saturday. We walked through the Gothic neighborhood and the historic center, we went by the zoo and Evan promised to take me soon and then we got to the first and most popular beach in the city, la Barceloneta. Not many people were there, possibly because the wind was now colder but some were reading or just playing around in the sand.

 We got back into the city, walking along a big avenue and seeing old buildings. I took pictures with my phone and Evan decided to surprise me by getting into some of the shots. We decided to have lunch in a fast-food place and there I had one of the best moments since I had left my home. He was very kind and shared his frustration for not getting any of the jobs. He told me was still getting a masters degree but that he wanted to be able to earn money and just have a living. He told me he lived some blocks away fro me and that he had thought that by going out with me he could forget his frustration.

I just told him I understood what was happening and that I had gone through the same thing over and over in the past. But finally someone silly enough had hired me and now I was working in that beautiful city. He laughed, saying I didn’t even know if it was beautiful but I told him it was love at first sight. He just laughed and told me that wasn’t totally out of the question and that he wanted me to fall in love harder so he decided to take me to the other beaches after lunch. The wind was very cold and the ocean had turned into a grey puddle but we just stood in a pier and watched the weather happen for at least a half hour.

 During our time there, we didn’t talked very much. I noticed he was sad again, all of a sudden, so I decided to let it go for the moment. We walked towards the nearest subway station and then he started talking to me about how hard it had been for him the first weeks. That was not because of the city but because he had never left his house before and he had a hard time not seeing his mother and father whenever he wanted or not having his sibling to have fun with. He was all alone and he told me he had remembered the feeling as we walked down the pier. He talked to them every day but it was not the same. You always miss family, he said. And I knew he was right.

  After a transfer, I realized we where in a higher neighborhood. He told me that daylight was going to fade soon so he wanted my first tour day to end fantastically. So he just made me walk behind him through some steep streets until we got to a park. It was Park Güell and I had seen it in TV before. I had wanted to visit it and had no idea that’s where Evan was taking me. It was a nice walked inside the premises, taking a lot more pictures and now making Evan pose in some of them. We took very good pictures and he told me there was something else he could do for me. So we went up a road I had not seen before and he took my hand in order not to get lost, because the sun was setting and darkness was starting to settle.

 We finally got to the top where I was able to see the whole city in front of me. I could see downtown, I could see the neighborhood were I was living now and also some other features I hadn’t noticed before. The sunset’s light made it all look even more beautiful. We just stood there for several minutes until I noticed the artificial lights went on and the sun had totally disappeared. Then, as we came down the hill towards the park, I realized I was still holding Evan’s hand but he hadn’t noticed or maybe he didn’t care so we just kept it like that until we go to the subway station. He took me home and then I offered a cup of coffee again. He told me he was exhausted and wanted to rest his head but that maybe he would come for it soon enough.

 He left and I got in and I realize how good that day had been. I slept like a baby and was even more thrilled the next morning, when the doorbell woke me up early in the morning and it was him. He had decided he wanted coffee right then and I had decided I wanted him to come in too. That they, we held hand a lot. But that’s another story.

Enchanted forest

   The woods were covered in moss throughout the year. It was a very damp territory; every day rain fell, flooding the small brooks and the two larger rivers that drained all the water from the forest. The water then arrived, in a more gentle way, to many towns down the river. The people were grateful about it, as the only source of drinkable water was the river. There was no underground wells they could use and the closest mountain range, which wasn’t very close, was dry as a bone, not enough snow to fill a spoon.

 For centuries, people venerated the river as a god and concluded that if the water stopped flowing as it always used to, it meant that the god was angry. But there was another god that might be angry and that was the forest. They believe that it housed so much life that it had a life of it’s own. The few real explorers of the towns had come back from the woodlands with stories about a creature, always a different one, with an iridescent skin and bright white eyes. Sometimes it was a deer, a reindeer, an owl, an eagle and even a rabbit. People thought those were representations of the forest, guarding it from destruction and the hands of men in general. This explained why every man that attempted to fully explore the forest always ended up, mysteriously, at the edge of it, never really penetrating the land.

 As the towns grew and time passed, people began discussing the possibility of constructing a couple of barrages midway between the forest and the towns. But as soon as they began the construction, people died because of severe floods that happened unexpectedly. Once there was nothing else to be destroyed, the floods stop and everything went back to normal. The elders reminded the young about the spirits in the forests and told them to leave the river alone. No construction made by man would ever be able to harness anything coming out from the forest and that was where the water sprung out of the planet, so it was better to leave it alone.

 Time passed and people stopped trying to make them rich with the water. But then they started thinking about logging in the forest. After all, they had chopped off every other tree in the region, leaving large areas of land without a single tree standing up. The elders condemned this but no one really listened to them unless there was proof to be so scared and this time there wasn’t. They didn’t touch the woods, only the grasslands, until they had nothing else to burn in their factories and fireplaces. A group of young men travelled to the forest with axes and chainsaws, ready to bring the forest down, one tree at a time.

 When they arrived, they were excited and begun their work right then but when trying to chop off the trees, their machines didn’t work. They didn’t affect at all how the bark or even the leaves. It was as if the whole forest was made of metal or something much stronger. They tried every tree they could see but after a whole day they were exhausted. They decided to camp there that night and keep trying the next day. But there was no next day. The people that found them, botanists taking notes about the plant life of the region, said that they suspected the trees to have showered them in their sleep with a certain kind of spores that was deadly to human beings. They died in their sleep without even knowing it. Their families mourned them and, once more, people forbid themselves to go to that forest.

 Due to the lack of wood and the difficulties having a way to harness energy from nature, most towns in the course of both rivers began decaying rapidly. Many factories closed, almost putting an end to industry. Many local businesses closed too due to the lack of resources to fill their shelves and make their products. And finally, people had begun migrating somewhere else, where there might be enough jobs and hope for a better future for all the kids who had grown in the good times of the region.

 But some thought they had left too soon, that they had given up too easily. And they said that because one day, without people ever noticing it before, trees started to grow where men had chopped them all off. Some creatures, animals and plants, had come back to the plains. Besides that, people started feeling the wind blowing a bit stronger, coming from the forest. That made no sense but it was what it was.

Slowly, some towns began flourishing again, this time calculating every move they made to survive. The new trees where taken care of for some years, until they where good to chop down. And they only chopped down one section of the trees corresponding to each town. They created a schedule on how and when to chop each area of trees and that seemed to work because in no time life had been brought back to the plains, and no plants or animals were being harmed.

 The scientist among them realized the wind’s strength was ideal to be harnessed. Somehow, they had never thought of it, thinking only water could be strong enough to give them the power they needed. So they started building windmills and other structures to harness the power of the wind and it worked. The wind generated power not only for the mills, where they could make flour to make bread, but also to illuminate the dark streets of the towns and the homes where people spent most of their time. The lighting of several squares and public buildings was always an event but with time, the people saw this as normal. Some of the windmills were eventually replaced with higher and more powerful turbines, which gave energy to the whole region. People now lived much better than before and the belief that it was all because of the forest was stronger than ever. Small shrines where built near the turbines, to thank the god and spirits.

 Nevertheless, some people had grown even more curious than before about the secrets of the forest. Some many times, groups went into the forest trying to discover its secrets but, yet again, they always ended up coming out of the woodland instead of really penetrating the area. That was until a men and his wife, both scientists trying to uncover the mysterious properties of the forest, arrived and attempted to get to the core of the place. Their first couple of attempts ended up in failure as everyone else’s. For the third time, they had come with their child, who had learned to walk recently. As they had no one to leave him with, they had decided to bring him along and show him the animal and the smells of the forest.

 But one day, the day the father attempted to enter the forest, the child went after him, without her mother noticing. When she did it was too late and when her husband came back, they started to worry. The man said it wouldn’t’ be long until he came out of the forest but nothing happened. It was already afternoon and the kid was nowhere to be found. So they entered the forest together looking for their son and, this time, their attempt was successful. The trees grew larger and closer together deeper in the forest. The couple held hands as they walked and yelled the name of their son. But he didn’t hear them or he couldn’t answer then. They knew what had happened to the loggers who had come and ended up dead. They were very afraid for their son and how he might be.

 After hours of walking, they finally reached a clearing, where moss was very green and very damp. They were close to the source of the rivers but they weren’t thinking about that at all. They screamed their child’s name and started yelling and crying. They didn’t care anymore about the water or the wind or anything about that place. They only wanted their son to come back to them.

 Suddenly, they saw a light beyond the trees and they decided to follow it. They walked with difficulty through trees and branches and roots but finally got to a smaller clearing. The lights they had seen where the eyes of a wolf that appeared to be almost invisible. They couldn’t be sure the creature was looking at them but it was strange how it stood there, still. He finally moved and revealed their son, sleeping on the mossy floor. The parents got closer and took him in their arms and woke him up by kissing him and touching him, checking he was fine. The creature looked at them all that time, until they stood up. Then, the wolf jumped towards the trees and they saw the lights disappear.

 As it had happened many times in the past, they just had to walk aimlessly to get out of the forest. It was fast and they didn’t care about anything that had happened inside there. They had their son back and that was all that mattered. When they went back home, they wrote a book about the forest, claiming the spirit story was true and that there was no real way to explore the forest if all you wanted was to unveil its secrets. The forest only opened itself to people looking for help because nature was caring, like a mother. Men, however, were not as caring most of the time so it was shut out from that place and it would remain shut out for many generations to come.

 The forest’s secrets were many but not for the eyes of men.