Gods & Monsters

-       I tell you what. Fuck you!

 Alfie stood up and left, not waiting to be dismissed. He just wasn’t into doing this anymore, this work, this stupid pretending act that he had begun two years ago. Yeah, he loved being a photographer. But that didn’t meant he had no voice of his own or a clear opinion of the world. Of course, she had a point on thinking he wouldn’t mind doing anything she asked: the other photographer’s were just as simple-minded and shallow as she was. They would ever stand up to their beliefs, if they had any that is. They were just empty heads, filled with glamour and sparkles.

 Yolanda stood up right when she saw Alfie walking her away. She didn’t need a word from him, she knew her friend to well to need any statement. He only smiled at her and she answered by pointing at her phone and saying in a low register “Later”. He nodded, walked to the staircase and, moments after, walked down the street. The good thing was that his contract was about to expire, so he wasn’t really losing anything new. He was just appalled that someone would ask him the same things over and over and would not even look at his proposals.

 As he walked to the bus stop, Alfie went through it all in his head: he had woken up that morning very happy because he knew this was the day one of his proposals was finally going to end up being actually done. Normally, someone else’s idea was chosen but this time, his boss had told him it was going to be one of his ideas that would be chosen as the other photographers had all had a shot at it. And Alfie was not mediocre at all, he was a person that loved detail and accuracy so every proposal was just on the spot, with every single information needed to make a proper photo shoot for the brand that needed their work.

 So he just went crazy with ideas and chose three that he thought were best suited for the product. The first idea was just about the makeup related to the product. He had investigated the colors he wanted and the faces he wanted to portray. The second idea was all about the dresses, explosions of color and imagination that he knew would attract a lot of people to watch the publicity.  The last one, however, was the most daring but the one he loves the most. It involved a group of four people. All stark naked and with different body proportions and personal styles. All the proposals had something in common though: he wanted to work with real people.

 As he took a seat on the bus, he looked around. Those were the people he had wanted to use for every single one of his ideas: real folk. Just everyone and anyone. Old or young, fat or skinny, tall or short, black or white… It didn’t matter. He needed real people.

 But no. He got angry, remembering the meeting he had just come out from. Apparently the company had decided not to accept any of his idea because they were “too radical”. At first, he asked his boss to define that because he didn’t found anything radical about his work. If anything, he thought it was real and true to his ideals. And then came the real argument: the women that was his boss told him that the owners of the product had not asked for ideals but for their product to be well promoted.

 As calmly as he could, Alfie asked if he needed to apply other ideas but she said they had already gone with a shelved proposal by a photographer called Harry. But his name wasn’t Harry. It was Percival. But he had decided to call himself Harry because he told everyone he looked like Prince Harry. Of course he didn’t but no one told him that because he was one of those star photographers. Everyone wanted to work with him, he knew everyone, and he always had ideas that people would qualify as “marvelous” or “genius” but that were rather stupid in Alfie’s eyes.

 Harry, or Percival, would always make the same photo-shoots: a bunch of “perfect” male and female models, all in underwear and disguised as angles or something like that. Or maybe just shirtless and doing that stupid “duck face” Alfie hated so much when taking pictures. His ideas were what the boss said was “what the people wanted”. If people wanted to stare at perfect faces all the time, Alfie thought, they would just watch porn 24/7. And even porn had different types of bodies and faces, for everyone.

 He laughed alone on the bus at the memory of an idea he had had when beginning in the firm: he had made a whole proposal using porn actors to promote condoms. And he had looked for all kinds of actors and actresses who ere actually thrilled with the idea. But his company, and actually all other companies he tried to sell the idea to, were not interested in showing people that were not attractive enough “for the camera”. The good thing was the Association of Adult Films had contacted him and he finally did the shooting, as he wanted. The money was great but the audience wasn’t that big: the pictures were only used in sex bars and discos.

 Alfie, nevertheless, was proud of that work. It had been his only real job, the only one he had done that showed his potential and his urge to do something new with photography. But when he came back to his job, he realized that just wasn’t his real life. Everyday he would shoot pictures of mediocre TV stars and local movie people. Maybe some professional models, who had great stories but not much deepness in their minds and souls. The number of interesting models he had worked with was certainly very low.

 Yolanda, who worked as an assistant, knew very well who Alfie intended to be as a photographer. She had worked there for several years and told him, right away, he should be doing something more with his skills. But Alfie needed the money and decided to sacrifice his ideals for it, because he needed experience first to be considered good. That, for them both, was a stupid thing. Some people have had many jobs but that doesn’t mean they’re good, it just means they’re better at being annoying.

 Alfie stepped down of the bus and walked home. Before he entered his place, he stopped by a bakery and bought something to eat later. When paying, the young man realized he needed to check his financial condition because he needed to pay rent and having quit, he wasn’t going to collect unemployment. The moment he got home, he pulled out his laptop from the backpack he had went with to the meeting and started to check for jobs. But after a few hours, he realized it was a waste of time. Nothing.

 The phone then rang. It was Yolanda.

-       Hey

-       How are you?

-       Guess everyone knows by now, right.

-       Kinda, yeah. She’s not as pissed as I would’ve thought.

-       Good for her.

-       What are you doing now?

-       Looking for a new job.

 Yolanda giggled. That annoyed Alfie but she had her reasons.

-       I need you to call the following number. – Said Yolanda.

 Alfie noted the number and his friend told him he had to ask for Peter Hurt. He was a teacher in a university and he often needed assistants and so on so maybe he would have something, at lest temporary, for Alfie.

 The young man called Peter and they decided to meet that same afternoon. When they did, Alfie realized he was, what he called, a real photographer. He had done everything: fashion, publicity, journalism, art… But he had decided his thing was teaching. He told Alfie it was a miracle he had called because he really needed a replacement right now. To Alfie’s stunned face, Peter explained he had received a great offer abroad to do a series of shoots all over the World for a prestigious magazine. So he needed someone to teach class for a year in his behalf.

 Alfie had apparently lost his ability to speak. Teaching, he thought, was a very good answer to the question “What the fuck I’m I going to do now?” He asked Peter if he needed references and so on and Peter laughed in his face. He explained Yolanda had called earlier and told him all about Alfie, his current situation and talent. Yolanda had even sent a few proposals she had on digital format. Peter showed those to Alfie and he realized Yolanda must’ve taken the files he had left for his boss.

-       The job is yours if you want it. Of course, I can help you with some of these ideas and you could use the university studios for them. I think these ideas would make a killer exhibition.

 Alfie took the job, still a bit surprised. In one day he had lost a job and got another one. And he had Yolanda to thank. But also, he knew he owe it all to his ideals and being true to himself.

 Going back home he realized he would never have to do a stupid shooting anymore. No more gods and monsters of fashion for him. It would only be about real people, the ones that mattered and wanted to recognize themselves in the subtle art of photography.

Soñar cuesta mucho

   Lo más posible es que no haya manera de sentirse verdaderamente tranquilo en ningún lado, por completo. La vida jamás será una experiencia completa si lo que se busca es realizarse a través de sueños ajenos y no se persiguen los propios, por peligrosos, ridículos o insignificantes que sean. Y la verdad es que sí existen sueños tontos pero jamás para quien los sueña y, al fin al cabo, esa es la opinión más importante.

 Hay sueños grandes, difíciles de realizar y hay quienes adoran tener estos y toman como una aventura o un reto, el hecho de confrontar este tipo de duelo con el destino. Claro que el destino, como tal, es apenas una sombra o un humo sin cuerpo que flota siempre por delante nuestro. Su principal característica es ser siempre cambiante y, seguido, el resultado de nuestras elecciones conscientes. Está claro que hay factores externos que no se pueden prever pero todo se ajusta rápidamente en relación al ser humano.

 En todo caso, los sueños están para ser perseguidos. Se quiere ser astronauta o un músico o cantante famoso? Pues no hay más opción sino intentar. Como? Trazando el camino y yendo paso por paso. No todo el mundo tiene que hacer todos los pasos y hay veces que hay que repetir algunos o pasar por otros que nunca habían sido contemplados. En ese momento entra el factor llamado "paciencia". La gente seguido piensa que se trata todo de perseverancia pero eso no es verdad. Los ejemplos abundan para dejar en claro que no es necesario matarse en el trabajo sino hacerlo y esperar a ver que pasa.

 Esta ultima declaración puede ser un tanto molesta para algunos, más que todo para quienes hacen esos esfuerzos sobrehumanos para lograr algún tipo de ascenso o de consideración. Aunque sí es verdad que un esfuerzo especial es apreciado, la constancia siempre es más apreciada, sobretodo si se relaciona con paciencia y organización. Las personas solo premian el esfuerzo cuando el premio no vale tanto la pena y se trata de "contentar" a alguien por un tiempo hasta que olvide el esfuerzo que hizo. La clave: combinar cualidades, sean las que sean que tenga la persona (tu o usted).

 Todo el mundo tiene cualidades. Es decir, todo el mundo es bueno en algo pero no todo el mundo es bueno en algo que paga o vale la pena. Por ejemplo muchos narcotraficantes son muy buenos en lo que hacen pero esa no es una cualidad bien vista por la sociedad en general. Pero no se puede discutir que estos hombres y mujeres, y muchos otros en otras circunstancias, tienen cualidades así estas no sean de la clase que todo quisiéramos tener.

 El caso es saber para que se es bueno. Pintando, escribiendo, bailando, haciendo cálculos, organizando, limpiando, comiendo,… En fin, tantas cualidades que puede haber. Por eso es importante conocerse a si mismo, tarea que puede tomar muchos años o solo algunos meses, dependiendo de la complejidad de cada persona.

 Es innegable que hay cantidad de maneras de ser y de ver la vida. Por lo tanto, hay gente más simple que otra y eso no tiene nada de malo, es simplemente como son las cosas. Ser simple tiene muchas ventajas y una que otra desventaja: es una vida más alegre y menos preocupante aunque siempre poco trascendental. Una persona simple podrá sonreír con facilidad durante toda su vida. Una persona compleja, solo lo hará en determinadas ocasiones.

 Y esto que tiene que ver con los sueños, se preguntarán ustedes? Pues fácil: gente simple, sueños simples. Esa suele ser la regla aunque, claramente, siempre hay excepciones. La gente simple tiene sueños que son fáciles de realizar y que están a su alcance. De hecho, ahí recae la inteligencia de los personas sencillas: saben que deben plantearse retos que sean capaces de afrontar y no ponerse frente a cosas que saben que simplemente nunca van a lograr.

 La gente más compleja tiene sueños que, en muchas circunstancias, jamás serán realmente cumplidos. Por ejemplo, son ideas tan vagas y poco exactas que su realización no es tan factible como plantearse jugar futbol un buen día de sol en un parque. Una persona compleja se plantea retos que, en si mismos, contienen otros retos y pruebas difíciles lo que hace que el tiempo sea un factor de gran importancia para estas personas.

 Aunque siendo honestos, el tiempo es siempre importante, para todos. Al fin y al cabo somos seres humanos y eso quiere decir que tenemos una vida que tiene un final. Todos los sueños que tengamos toman y, a la vez, no toman en cuenta, el hecho de que todos tendremos que morir alguna vez. Otra cosa difícil es cuando queremos ser inmortales, imprimiendo nuestro ser en objetos o sueños corpóreos. Esto es realizable pero requiere tiempo, paciencia, y esfuerzo, todo al mismo tiempo. Y aún con todo eso, puede que no se realice. Vivimos en un mundo que se alimenta del pasado pero no de los pequeños elementos sino de los grandes e importantes.

 Ahora bien, antes hablábamos de sueños importante y sueños poco importantes. Por ejemplo, ir a comer a un restaurante de renombre puede ser un sueño. Es importante? Muy probablemente, no lo sea. Ya que las probabilidades de que algo así cambie una vida son bastante pocas. Pero poder realizar una línea de productos para el cabello y venderlos en tiendas, eso es un sueño importante, grande, porque involucra a más de una persona y porque tiene consecuencias serias sobre la persona que trata de lograr que ese sueño se convierta en realidad.

 Eso sí, repetimos, la importancia de cada sueño solo puede ser determinada seriamente por la persona que lo quiere realizar. Lo que los demás piensen es interesante pero de ninguna manera importante a la hora de realizar un sueño. Eso a menos que la persona en cuestión sea fácilmente sugestionada por los demás. En ese caso los sueños a realizar siempre serán los de otros y la persona vivirá una vida vacía.

 De hecho, y debemos confrontar esta realidad, la gran mayoría de los millones que vivimos en el mundo nunca veremos realizados nuestros grandes sueños. Porque? Por una pequeña palabra llamada “prioridades”. Digamos que nuestro gran sueño sea ser un arquitecto renombrado. Pero si además de realizar ese sueño tenemos que cuidar a nuestros hijos, a nuestros padres, cuidarnos de los demás, poner comida en la mesa, divertirnos, disfrutar y en fin, es muy probable que el tiempo no alcance para ser quienes siempre hemos querido ser.

 Y con esto entramos en el último punto y, ciertamente, el más importante. Los sueños están para ser realizados o para ser soñados, para tener metas? Es una gran duda del ser humano. Porque? Pues bien, porque no somos seres que vivan para siempre y al tener una vida finita, sabemos que hay cosas que jamás podremos realizar o ver realizadas. El hombre siempre ha querido explorar el espacio pero cuantos de nosotros veremos al hombre en Marte? Pocos de los que vivimos hoy, probablemente.

El problema es que hoy en día los sueños han sido idealizados. Son casi como un producto a la venta, como el software que uno compra para editar fotografías. Tiene el software pero eso no quiere decir que sepas como editar las fotografías. Eso se aprende por aparte, sea por uno mismo o de alguien más. Lo mismo sucede hoy en día con los sueños: cogemos los sueños que nos venden y tratamos de realizarlos para nosotros.

 Quiero ser esbelto, tener buen culo, tetas, pene y abdomen. Ese es un sueño que se le vende a todo el mundo hoy en día y muchos lo compran. Es su sueño propio? Muchos dirán que sí. Porque? Porque el ser humano se apena de su propia estupidez. Todos sabemos cuando estamos siendo ridículos o cuando estamos haciendo algo mal. Lo sentimos lo percibimos pero eso no quiere decir que nos detengamos. Acaso cuantos dejan de ir al gimnasio porque se dan cuenta de que eso simplemente no es lo que quieren para si mismos?

 El problema con los sueños es que los contaminamos con las mentiras que nos rodean y, peor, con las que nos decimos a nosotros mismos. Hoy en día todo es tan fácil y tan rápido que ya no nos molestamos en pensar. Los sueños se han prostituido pero podemos todavía anhelar, querer. Podemos desear todavía desde lo más profundo de nuestros corazones, aprendiendo a hablar con nosotros mismos. Hoy en día le reclamamos al mundo pero nos odiamos a nosotros mismos al crear ese mundo. La solución es sencilla. Al fin y al cabo, soñar cuesta pero no mucho.

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.