No end

   As everyone celebrated on the streets and in their homes, Veronica wandered through the rubble trying to feel as happy as most people around her were. But it wasn’t possible or at least it was very hard to do so. Even smiling felt like a chore, like something you would do only to please people but not because you really felt it inside. There was a feeling of incompletion around, as if all the sacrifices of the war had not been enough to end every single type of hostility that many people harbored against one another.

 As she walked the streets, some lit and others not so much, she realized that the world after the war would be in chaos. Yes, everyone was cheering and celebrating right now, probably drinking stolen articles and launching fireworks that had been banned for so long. But after all of that happiness, a moment of truth and reflection would have to come and the atrocities of war would have to be addressed. For example, not everyone was on the same side, the winning side. Some people were not celebrating.

 Well, some of them were but just because they had to survive and keep on living. It was widely assumed that trials, of sorts, would emerge from the victorious side, condemning the losing side to many years in jail, banishment from the country or even death. Even if the maximum penalty had ever been enforced legally in the country, many of the victors would want the vanquished to be treated just as them treated others during the war. There were lots of executions, on the streets even.

 Veronica was actually just passing a street she knew very well, not only because it used to be a prime shopping spot before the war, but because many people were forced to stand in front of the former storefronts in order to be killed with guns. It was horrible to think about those moments, the images that would never going to leave anyone’s mind. That could never be overlooked, the fact that a large amount of the people now alive had killed at least one person over the last seven years.

 Everyone’s hands were tainted with blood; there wasn’t a single innocent, not even the children. They were used so many times to lure the kindness out of people, that all of their innocence had vanished. Many children were now celebrating the end of the war, just like adults. And the ones that were too small were orphans or just dead. Every single person had done something horrible during the war and now they chose not to remember that because it was a clear image of how disgusting and vile a human could get. So many atrocities in such a relatively short period of time.

 Veronica reached the gates of the Compound just as the night was darkest. She had to use a pocket lantern she had found days earlier, in order to go inside and check out the place for herself. The prison or camp or however you may call it, had been liberated only a few months before the end of the war but it looked as if it had happened many years ago. The place was covered in ash and debris, and the gates, doors and windows had been torn apart or had simply disappeared from sight.

 She walked from the entrance to a large yard area were she knew people had been selected. You see, not everyone was imprisoned in the same place. They had categories and each category had their own building in the premises of the Compound. The differences between each building were in the treatment given by the jailers. For example, former members of state entities and such would receive a better treatment there than homosexuals or blacks. Just the same as it had happened so many years ago, elsewhere.

 The Compound had surprisingly not been built by the losing side, as one would think. It had been built by the so-called winners, by the so-called heroes of the war. In some parts of the country, people were already designing statues for them to be put in every single park, in every single town. They had been the ones fighting for justice and freedom but they clearly didn’t respect their enemies’ rights at all. They were just as vile and vengeful as all the other people. They were not different.

 Veronica walked through the large yard in order to get to the only building that had been kind of spared by the last bombs the “enemy” had dropped from the sky. That was how the prison got its freedom. It hadn’t been an act of kindness. It was just the result of the last desperate attack from the would-be losers of the war. They had sent the few planes they still had and just bombarded the jail were their family members and friends had been imprisoned. They believed it was better to be dead that a prisoner.

 So pride made them act on that last move. And they succeed in destroying the prison and liberating some of their people from it. But only days later they would realize their days were counted and that their fate had already been sealed, well before the attack on the Compound. Veronica saw on the floor of the building some bone fragments, as well as fabric that used to be made into uniforms for the prisoners. There were also several metal plates and bowls, and a large assortment of cutlery. Maybe the prisoners had staged a mutiny as the bombs lit everything on fire.

 After a short time, she decided to leave the Compound through “the back door”, which was actually a large gap in the tall wall of the complex. She didn’t want to stay there too long in case the “winners” were patrolling the premises looking for someone to practice shooting with. She adjusted her backpack and walked on, towards very dark park covered with grand beautiful trees. The place was covered in shadows but even that way it felt like somewhere one would feel at ease.

 The park was one of the largest in the city and it was used to process many of the prisoners of the Compound. But apparently cold heads prevailed and no one ever really destroyed it on purpose or tore the trees down. Some of them had received damage from the bombs that were dropped in the nearby prison, but the building between the two sites had prevented the fire to really destroy the last green place in the city. It had been a miracle that most people were ignoring in that precise moment.

 Veronica walked along the central path of the park, hearing her steps on the stone and the wind blowing through the tree leaves. Everything felt so peaceful, and she was very glad to be there but even then she felt all of that could not be forever. She knew things were going to be bad for a while and she was alone and no one could just come and be with her. Her family had died during the war and those were not times of real friendship, just of convenient relationships that no one knew how long they would last.

 The best thing to do, maybe, was to leave the country altogether. It was a difficult choice to make and also a hard thing to achieve, but Veronica had nothing else to loose. She was carrying everything she owned on the backpack: some pieces of clothing and a couple of objects she had rescued from her former house. She had also stolen some food from a ruined supermarket, but that was it. She could easily walk her way towards the border and attempt to cross it. Or maybe get into a boat and sail away.

 Whatever she did, she had to do it quietly and carefully, as she had no intent of driving attention onto herself. No one was looking for her specifically, but everything around there was going to become very unstable and she knew that’s when unlikely things tend to happen the most.

 She decided to leave the city that night, taking advantage of most people celebrating the end of the war. As they raised glasses, told jokes, remembered family and friends, Veronica would banish into the night and attempt to forever disappear from that other night, one that would never end.

Bad holiday

   It had always been a mystery to her why so many men ran to help her when she needed something. They always did that and she guessed it was due to her looks but she had never done a proper effort to look good. She thought that made her a bit of a bitch, not realizing what she looked like. But the truth was she didn’t care and she sometimes thought the attention could get to be very annoying. In that moment, it was good because she had to come down from the boat to the beach, so she appreciates the two guys that helped her. She could have spared the looks that were more accurate for wolves than for men, but she didn’t say anything. She just kept on walking, her small purse on one hand and her hat in the other. They had been on an excursion near the island, watching the reef.

 Mia was having a holiday alone, far away from anyone she knew. She had always dreamed of visiting the French Polynesia so she had used practically all of her saving to come. The excursions and the food and most things were included in the price so she didn’t have to worry. The thing was she always made money even if she wasn’t doing anything. That’s because she had invented this kitchen utensil that many people were using now, so every month they paid her a part of the winnings and it was good money. She had made the invention one night, not drunk but almost. She always told another version of the story because it wasn’t really glamorous to talk about how much she vomited that night. So she changed the story to a simpler one and people loved her.

 Thanks to them, she was there: walking slowly through the beach, feeling the soft granules of sand on her feet. The sand her wasn’t coarse and annoying like in other beaches and Mia liked that because she had always loved the ocean but had rarely found places to fully enjoy it. When she was young, she used to love to pack all of her toys and the do a castle and make all her toys live there. Her parents and brother would help and it would be one of the best days of her life. But those trips were just a memory now. She thought she could ask her parents and brother to come with her to the beach one day, but they would probably say no. After all, they all had different lives now.

 She had to stop walking, as a tall-bronzed man blocked her path. She smiled at him and kept walking, passing by his right. The man had a stupid face and thought Mia would fall for him as soon as she had seen him in his swimwear but Mia hadn’t even notice. She didn’t wanted to talk to Hugo, who was one of the entertainers of the hotel and been asking her for a drink since she had arrived there. He was relentless and always asked for the same thing, during breakfast, lunch and dinner and in between too. It wasn’t that he was ugly or something because he was what most people would call “perfect”. But she just wasn’t interested.

 The truth was Mia had a lot on her mind. Many thought it was because of a man and that offended her deeply. When people thought she was just a thing to be used by someone else, she just got furious and, it a really bad mood, she would answer back and not in the best way possible. Mia knew she could be pretty destructive if she wanted so she was training herself to be more at ease, not to snap so easily. So when people thought she looked sad because of a man, she just smiled and moved on, not even acknowledging someone had talked. The truth was that she hadn’t been with a man in quite some time, not sexually nor sentimentally. She just felt she wasn’t ready for that and that it wasn’t really her priority in life but explaining that to so many people would have been exhausting.

 So every time Hugo came to her, she had said no. She would have said yes just to do something different, but she knew Hugo would take it as a triumph and would emphasize that aspect of the whole thing whenever they found themselves outside. And as the hotel was on a small island, she really didn’t wanted to be the one everyone looked and talked about. Soon, she realized she didn’t even need to say yes. The day after the excursion, she woke up later than usual, just wanting to use that day to be on the beach and read or something. She didn’t want to think, just rest a lot, as she suddenly felt extremely tired. As if she had pulled a truck in her dreams, with her teeth.

 She showered fast, put on her bikini and went down to the beach with some fruit she had grabbed from the breakfast buffet the previous morning. She put it in her purse along with a book and her cellphone, where she had tons of games if she ever got extremely bored like in that moment. Mia noticed something was wrong the moment she passed through the reception and did what she always like to do: greet the staff there. She waved her hand but no one responded, one woman even looking at her as if she had done the worst thing possible. She continued to the beach, wondering why the reaction but then she noticed more and more people stared at her and talked, not even interested in covering their mouths.

 Mia adjusted her hat and her purse and kept on going until she reached the beach. She found a lonely spot for her to lay down her towel and sit down. She was about to lie down to close her eyes and just sleep if she could but she was interrupted by the sound of a quarrel. She turned her head and realized it was a man and his wife. They were arguing really loudly and pushing each other, every sentence been louder than the one before. It was beginning to be really annoying so Mia took some headphones from her purse and connected them to her phone. Music would be welcomed during such an event.

 Music wasn’t heard for long. The fight got louder and then she noticed the woman coming to where she was. For a moment, she thought the woman just wanted to walk down the beach in a rage, far away from her husband. But no, the woman stopped right there where Mia was and started talking. Mia removed her headphones only to catch the word “slut”. She stood up and asked the woman if she needed help with something and then the woman just slapped her and went away. It wasn’t that it hurt as much as it was about feeling like shit. Mia felt every eye on her and that was even weirder when she still felt the slap and she saw the husband not doing anything, just standing there like and idiot.

 She went back to her towel, still massaging her cheek. She turned her head around to see if someone was still looking and they weren’t but some were laughing and obviously describing what had happened. Mia then felt really bad and about to cry, mainly because she felt she was alone but she fought her need to cry and decided just to lay down there and try to sleep. She would go to her room after that and just ask for her lunch to be delivered there. She did manage to rest for a while until two people from the management came to speak with her. They woke her up in the rudest way possible and asked her, more like demanded her, to join them in their office in the act.

 Mia walked right behind them, her towel on one arm, her hat on one hand and her purse on her shoulder. She felt her sandals filled with sand but she hadn’t had time to properly clean them. They walked past the reception again and then arrived to a door that they opened with a key only available to the staff. There were several offices behind that door, all with now windows, like in a bunker. They reached an empty one and asked her to sit down. She was there, they said without delay, because a woman staying at the hotel had denounced her as a threat to the peace of the people there. Mia was about to say she was also a guest there but they kept on talking, saying how seriously they took these allegations, citing how conservative people of the region were.

 Suddenly, Mia had a flashback to dozens of women with no tops of and a boat they called the “orgy yacht”. But she didn’t say anything about that. She just bore with them, as they said all they had to say. Finally, she was able to speak and said that if they expelled her they would be sued, as everything that had been said about her was a lie, probably invented by a man that felt bad because she wouldn’t say yes. She asked them to provide proof that she was as they thought she was. If they did she would leave and if not she would stay the week, would she had paid for. They just looked at each other and let her go.

 Some people still looked at her as if she was insane and a pervert. Others tried to apologize but she just stood up and went away. People were always too fast to pass judgment but they never really thought before acting. Mia stayed there the week she had paid and then just disappeared, leaving very late at night and preferring to sleep at the airport. She wanted the holidays to be done as soon as possible.

On The Queen Victoria

All the guests and hosts in the Queen Victoria sat down to eat, just past sunset. The yacht was so big it had a decent sized dining room, enough for all twelve guests. As people sat down, they greeted Johann Ronson, the owner and part-time captain of the vessel. He was the magnate that had bought the boat and had invited his closest friends to wander the Egean Sea with him for a week.

The main course, served after a shrimp cocktail and a couple of glasses of champagne, was king crab. It was fresh and only served with a butter sauce and a special fork to eat it. Everyone enjoyed thoroughly. A lot of crab, of wine and champagne and a lot of conversation. Even millionaires would start talking a little bit too much after such a meal.

It was a certain English lady that spilled the fact that her husband had made many stupid investments over the years and now they had absolutely nothing. Those who weren’t as drunk as her had heard it perfectly and had made a mental note never to deal with the woman or her family again.

Late at night, everyone went to bed. They were all full and tired. Only the captain stayed behind in the dining room, drinking and coursing the day he had bought the boat. The reality was that he needed somewhere to go, to escape from all the responsibilities he had with his family and numerous investors in his company. He felt so much money didn’t gave him as much privilege as he would have wanted.

He felt asleep right there and, for a good time, the ship was silent, anchored near a rock formation were a large amount of seagulls nested. It wasn’t until the next day, early, when a scream woke everyone up.

It came from one of the rooms in the stern. As people got near, they could distinguish that the voice that screamed was the one of a woman. Actually, everyone knew who was screaming. They found her on the bed, looking at her side. The scene was simply too much for anyone.

The lady that had no inheritance finally fainted, just besides her husband who was covered in blood from legs to neck, where he had been cut with a knife or something.

A couple of woman, helped by the staff of the boat, took Lady Emerson, the now poor and widowed woman, out of the room and into another one, until she woke up. When she did, she looked as if she had lost her mind, babbling nonsense and trembling uncontrollably.
The men passengers check Lord Emerson’s body, as the crew had been ordered by the captain to call the police but not to move the boat from its current location. He told them that if a crime, and that seemed to be the case, had been committed on board, they should call the police and wait right there to avoid the killer to escape.

But what was done had no way to be undone. They covered the body with a large blanket and waited for the police, who had been called on the radio. Lunch was served, as normal, but no one was really in the mood for sea bass. A dead body was only rooms away and it may prove insensitive to eat, as a murder had been committed.

The police finally arrived late in the afternoon. They had sent a translator with them and the inspector that had been sent with them was half American, so he had a way to talk to everyone in the boat.

The first thing they did was to get the body out of the yacht, as the smell was beginning to take a toll on the people in the nearest rooms. A young girl had already vomited profusely overboard, leaving the Greek waters a little bit more polluted than they were before.

The room were the crime was committing was closed and checked thoroughly all night. When it got too late, two officers were left there to protect the place from been contaminated. Before leaving, the inspector said he was sure he would find the murderer as he or she was still on the boat.

When he said that, everyone realized it was true. It was silly, but everyone had treated the murder as a natural death or something of sorts. But no, Lord Emerson had been killed when one of the passengers had slit his throat from behind, assuring he would not yell and no one would hear anything.

At breakfast, the next day, the Captain had to order the kitchen staff to serve everyone in their rooms, which was exceptionally annoying as breakfast was a buffet. So now, they had to go room by room to ask what people wanted and then bring it to them. In the kitchens there was also the discussion: “What if were serving the murderer”? To answer that, a boy who cleaned the bathroom only said “We’re all working for a killer right now”. Everyone laughed but it was certainly not funny.

The police came back during breakfast to commence the sweeping of the place of the crime and they found the sheets full of blood, the seal of a bottle of wine that had slipped beneath the bed and a stain near the back side of the bed, where there was a window.

When they finished, the captain was told his ship would be escorted back to Rhodes, where they had the equipment to do a full search on the yacht. Mr. Ronson was sad and even depressed but he had to accept if he wanted all of it to end soon. So by sunset, they were already in the island. To ensure the investigation, they were all put under “house arrest” in a hotel by the police station.

All the passengers were rich and had more interesting things to do than waiting for a murder investigation to finish. They had only reserved a week to travel to Greece to spend some time with old Ronson, because he was wealthier than any of them could ever be. If they ever ran into financial distress, it would be him who could be able to save them from it.

Ronson was known worldwide because of helping people that needed him: saving companies from bankruptcy, hiring the best lawyers, paying mortgages… The man was the savior of the rich, or so he was called in many economic magazines that praised and despised him, all at the same time.

The police told Mr. Ronson, that his boat was not going to be dismantled as the crime didn’t seemed planed or that structured but that they did need to search every single inch of it, as the be sure of what the investigation was pointing to.

So all the crew and passengers had to spend one more week in Rhodes, trapped in a fancy hotel, waiting for the results of the probe. The crew was especially happy as they didn’t have to work any more and they were the ones being treated to beautiful restaurants, an elegant swimming pool and all the drinks they could handle.

The wealthier guests almost always remained in their room, already trying to book flights or boats out of the damn island for the day they had been promised to be released. To be honest, they were looking forward more holidays and sunny locations, but away from all the fuss and annoying aspect of a murder.

The truth was none of them really cared about someone being killed just doors away from their rooms. They didn’t mind at all. What made them grind their gears, was the fact they couldn’t keep behaving as they always did and as what they were: rich spoiled brats who needed to be able to do whatever they wanted, even if they had no intention of doing anything.

Happily for them, not as much for the members of the crew, the boat was released on the promised date. However, they were all summoned to be present in the press conference were the murderer would be announced, as the evidence against that person was irrefutable.

The police babbled even more than most of the rich passenger of the yacht but, when it finally got to it, it was revealed Lady Emerson had been found guilty of the crime.

According to the police, it was found that only her could have been able to enter the room and kill him, as there were no traces of anyone else doing so, not the day of the murder or before. The stain found by the bed, was left there by Lady Emerson, as she opened the window to throw the murder weapon to the ocean. Of course, the weapon was nowhere to be found.

As for the seal of the bottle of wine, the police claimed they had found the bottle on a trashcan on the kitchens. Apparently, Lady Emerson had gotten her husband drunk before killing him with a knife and then, she went insane because of what she had done.

The inspector announced Lady Emerson would pay for her crime in the Attica prison for women, near Athens, and that she would do so in the psychiatric ward of the prison, for the next twenty years. He declared they had gotten a psychiatrist to run some tests to her, all of which certified she was beyond insane, losing all grasp of reality.

The yacht went back to the sea, with only Mr. Ronson inside and a few crewmen. The rest of the passengers left for Athens or London, or other destinations in the Mediterranean.

The actual murder? He left for Cyprus and then for Israel. As it happened, an old lover of Lady Emerson had been the real killer. She thought he had married another woman to spite her but he had married her to get close to her and to his husband, who he hated for having put her through so many bad times. So he killed her with a knife and she went mad when she woke up to see his lover, arms covered in plastic, killing her husband.

Lady Emerson died, insane and in pain, in the Attica prison. She had no children or real family. Her former lover lived in Eilat for several years, until one of the many wars in the region, in which he died.