Kodiak

   Winter had been very hard on the people of Kodiak town. It always was. Snow had fallen every single day in copious amounts and wind had blown from the mountains towards the ocean with a constant force, never going faster or slower. Everyone there was used to that and they knew exactly how to deal with what nature had to offer to every creature in that corner of the world. Kodiak was very remote and it could only be reached from the outside world if people dared to do a three-day trip to through the frozen desert and the dark forests.

 That was the reason why people in Kodiak were self-sufficient. They went fishing into the ocean every single day, In order to have their three meals a day without exception. They had learn to plant some vegetables thanks to the help of two scientists who had come from the outside world fairly recently. They had taught the people that they didn’t need to plant in the ground but they could do it practically in the air with only the help of water and compost made with the feces of the dogs everyone had. It had been a really revolutionary thing for all of them.

 The scientists had done the trip because they were very interested in the culture of the people in Kodiak. They wanted to document every single thing they could find, including the way they fished, the way they hunted for creatures in the forest, how they built their homes and other traditions that hadn’t changed in many years. Stella and Norman Ruiz had always wanted to have a big adventure and be in the forefront of discoveries in the world and now they really were. So much so that they had decided to stay for a longer time than predicted in Kodiak.

 At first, people didn’t trust them at all. It was a normal reaction as outsiders were very rarely seen in the region. Normally, they would only come to take the riches of the land for themselves and steal the people from what was theirs. So the moment the couple arrived to Kodiak, everyone agreed they should be watched every single moment of the day no matter what they were doing or where. They would always have an escort. The only moment they were left alone was when they slept in their assigned house. However, someone was always waiting for them in the mornings.

 The couple found that fear understandable and had nothing to say about it. They thought it was best not to antagonize with anyone and just do what they had come to do. That was how they gained the trust of the people: through wanting to know more about their culture and traditions. At first, they were all very reserved and only talked with short sentences. But after a few weeks, men and women opened up to them and realized that Norman and Stella were not bad people at all. They were genuinely interested in them.

 However, that didn’t mean they instantly trusted every other outsider. Just a month after the arrival of the scientists, there was a problem with a group of men that had come out of nowhere. They never revealed their names or if they worked by themselves or for someone else. The point was that they had established a camp in the river running close to Kodiak town and were using chemicals to clean whatever small stones of gold they could find in the muddy bed of the river.

 The inhabitants of Kodiak noticed the chemicals when two of their children got sick one day. The local doctor, who was more of a shaman than anything else, noticed they had ingested something and the Kodiak almost instantly thought of the fish they had caught that day. Some thought it was a punishment from the gods because of their acceptance of the scientist but it was precisely them who found the real source of the problem. Stella and Norman were certain it was not the fish but the water who had some polluting agent in it.

 The people of Kodiak didn’t know whether to believe or not what the scientists were saying. But a couple of them decided it was best to check their version out and it was then when they discovered the miner’s camp and the use of chemicals to clean gold. It was a very tense situation, as the people of Kodiak asked the miners to please leave but they wouldn’t budge, claimed that river and all the land around it was theirs. Norman went there to help and the miners showed him a paper signed by a federal authority giving them rights over the land.

 It was very hard for the scientist to tell the people of the town that the paper said exactly what the man claimed. No one understood how that was possible, as the government had never came into contact with Kodiak, even though they perfectly knew that it existed. It was then when everyone trusted the scientists so much that they told them the origin of the town and showed them other documents they possessed, stating that outsiders had created Kodiak. It was the best-kept secret in town as it was always thought natives had founded the town.

 The elders explained that, although many native tribes inhabited the region in years past, the reality was that they were all nomads, going from one end of the country to the other. It was only when the whalers came and founded the town that a settlement came to exist. However, the whalers were not well equipped to survive the harsh conditions, so they abandoned the town. Not a long time after, one of the tribes took possession of the houses, restores them and built more. Kodiak was reborn. The outsiders had left everything behind, including those papers.

 So it was easy for Norman to conclude that the miners had a false document, as the one the people in Kodiak had predated it by many years. He decided to tell this to the local authorities and let them deal with it. It was the best as the miners saw him as a traitor to his own people. Even if they were clearly not the same, they were all outsiders and that united them in the mind of the miners. They ignored whatever the people of Kodiak had to say and told them that they wouldn’t move until they had found every single piece of gold the river possessed.

 Tensions kept rising as the days went by. The children were getting worse and people were now forbidden to drink water from the river. The two scientists decided to do something: they decided to send a letter to the authorities with a local resident who was going to look for medicine for the children in the outside world. In the last minute, Norman decided to go with him, leaving his wife to help the people and try to avoid any time of conflict with the miners.

 But it was too late for that. The residents of Kodiak were not going to put up with it so, each night; they decided to sabotage the machines and everything the miners used to process the gold. They stole some of the chemicals and buried them in the forest and tried several times to destroy everything but the men were many and they would rebuild every day. It seemed as if they had unlimited resources of some kind. That went on for some nights until the miners had enough of the interruptions and decided to do something: they killed one of the intruders.

 No one had murdered in that region in many, many years. Not since the tribes had united into one a long time ago. People decided they would not take it lightly and they didn’t: that day, almost every single Kodiak man walked the side of the river in order to reach the miner’s camp by nightfall. Once they arrived, they started shooting their arrows, some of them with fire in order to burn every single tent to the ground. The miner’s attempted to defend themselves with more modern weapons and they were successful. The scene was bloody and chaotic.

 It fortunately ended very soon, as a regiment of the federal army arrived with Norman and the Kodiak man he had left with. They had brought medicine and were there because they had seen the fire. The government recognized that Kodiak was a native city and miner’s had no permission to be there, at least not yet. The government was cleat that anything could change going forward. But at least that threat was no more. The miner’s left and the people of Kodiak were left to their own devices, for the time being. The scientists never felt, feeling that was their real home.

The earring

   The wedding was over and now Christina had to supervise the removal of every single table and fork from the premises. The castle was a very special place to do such celebrations but they always asked for the place to be cleaned thoroughly after each party. It was very late and everyone was not very eager to clean anything but it had to be done. Christina supervised the men and women and checked every room where people may have wandered off to in order to see if it needed cleaning or if thee was something left behind. She found a scarf in a bathroom and even a high heel stuck in the grass in the garden. Another employee found a tie on a tree and a baby bottle beneath one of the tables. But the most beautiful thing Christina found was on a fountain in the garden.

 The water seemed tainted with something but she ignored that and just grabbed the earring that lay there, beyond the surface. The design was very simple but beautiful: an orchid made of metal with a center formed by a large purple precious stone. Christina saw every detail on the earring and realized she had never seen such a beautiful thing worn by anyone in the past. She decided to keep it and look for the owner herself. Maybe that way she could be able to ask where the earring was made so she could herself a pair. When everyone was done cleaning and leaving the place as if nothing had happened there, they were allowed to leave. It was almost four in the morning and everyone just wanted to get home and sleep for as long as they were able to.

 Christina wanted that too. She entered her car, sat down and pulled out the earring from her pocket to put it in her purse. But when she did that, she pricked her finger with the tip of the earring, which fell beneath her seat. Somehow, that had made her feel a little dizzy and her head felt big, like if it was a balloon or something. Christina inhaled deeply many times until she thought she was able to drive. She opened and closed her eyes, turned on the engine and drove in the night. But the truth was she couldn’t see much. She knew she was tired but not as much as she know felt. The car slid off the road a few times but she was able to control it but she knew that couldn’t be done for long.

 On a long curve, she finally succumbed to what she was feeling and let go of the car which when out off the road and into a tree. The airbag was the thing that killed her. The police discovered the car hours later and several members of the staff of the party said that they had seen her drive off after the cleaning was over but really no one knew about the earring. A detective assigned to the case, just in a routine way, discovered the piece of jewelry beneath the scene and he too fell in love with its shape and beauty, so he grabbed it for himself, even if it was evidence from the case. He took it home at night and left it in the kitchen counter.

 In the morning, it was already too late. Her youngest daughter had touched it out of curiosity and pricked herself too. Like Christina, she started to feel groggy. They were able to take her to a hospital but she was slipping away until she died. The doctor couldn’t give a proper explanation, as the child appeared to be falling asleep to very deep slumber but then died. The parents were crushed and stayed home to do the paperwork but they had forgotten about Marta, their housekeeper. She had keys to come in to do her work, so she did. As she mopped the floors, she found the earring and found it to be just marvelous. She had the idea to get it praised and maybe get some money out if it. She had never seen any of the women of the house wearing it, so it shouldn’t be an issue.

   However, Marta lost the earring on the bus. Fortunately, it fell off her pocket and just rolled under a seat, where it wouldn’t be found for some days until a driver checking his transport found it. He took it home, as they had all done. He told his wife it would be a nice pin to wear, in order to give his attire a little bit of class. His wife found a piece to put in his husband’s jacket and she was successful enough, she didn’t even prick a finger. And the jewel looked simply beautiful against the blue suit he had to use for work. He used his jacket like that for many years, been praised by many people when going in the bus.

 Those kind words made his life very happy. But one day, as it was destined to happen, the safety piece his wife had put behind the earring fell silently when he was driving. It was the same day a car crossed his path incorrectly, so he when he stepped on the brakes, he leaned forward violently and pricked his chest with the earring. The crash was blamed for his death. His body was transferred to a morgue, where they would fix him to look perfect. But a young mortician named Lidia fell in love with his pin and took it for herself. When he was buried, his wife thought he was wearing the pin, looking handsome as always but he wasn’t. The pin had a new owner, one that did something the other didn’t.

 Lidia had gotten several piercings and tattoos and she knew what was right. She got home and there she cleaned the earring carefully, avoiding pricking her fingers or damaging in any way the integrity of the piece. Weirdly enough, once she started cleaning the piece the pointy end started to turn purple, just like the jewel it had there. Lidia found this to be very strange so she decided to grab a small plastic bag, put the earring there and go to a friend that worked in a lab. Maybe he would be able to explain what was wrong with it because it was obvious she couldn’t put it on her ears. Maybe it had an infection or some other kind of disease and it wouldn’t be surprising if it had been on a dead man’s suit.

 Larry, Lidia’s “scientific” friend, worked as an assistant in a pharmaceutical company where he worked with various compounds and many advanced machines. When he was able to take the earring to the lab where he worked, he noticed something strange. He asked Lidia if he could damage the piece a bit, specially the tip and she agreed. She wasn’t going to wear it, so no one cared. Larry broke the tip of the earring and a soft purple dust tainted a small plate he had beneath. He had the dust checked and the machines couldn’t tell him exactly what it was but he was able to know what was, chemically, in there. So he did some of reverse science and discovered the dust was some kind of poison.

 But it wasn’t just poison. The earring, apparently, had been dipped into it and then left alone until the metal, and even the jewel, had absorbed the poison. But who would want to do something like that? It was a very complicated way to poison someone but Larry then realized that, looking at the compounds of the poison, it would be unlikely for medical scientists to even know they were dealing with something like that, mainly because the poison seemed to disappear from anywhere in a few hours. Larry told Lidia that maybe a lot of people had been killed by it and no one would ever know as the poison was untraceable and only they knew about its existence and about the earring.

 But then envy made its appearance in the form of a rival to Larry, who just happened to be very good at his job and had found many ways to make the pharmaceutical company win even more money. So this person, this enemy if you will, discovered the ring and thought that if Larry was working with it, it was because it meant something important. So he grabbed it and took him for himself. He took it home and checked it there with a microscope he had but he found nothing and he wouldn’t because the poison was not made to be found. In time, he pricked himself with it, enraged because he couldn’t find something to steal from his rival. His father found his body the next day.

 After that episode, no one really knew what had happened to the earring. Larry always thought he had just lost it but Lidia knew him very well and she knew he wouldn’t just loose something. More deaths happened but, as the people before Lidia, no one was curious or careful enough to handle it. They all thought that the beauty of the piece meant it was made to be worn, to be shown to the world and to be an icon of status and recognition. But it wasn’t. It was just a way to lure the people, the large crowds that believed that beauty was as simple as they were. They didn’t understand that beauty can also be lethal and should always be handled with the uttermost respect and curiosity.

Own poison

   I’m empty.  Have you ever felt, at least for a moment, that there’s no more gasoline inside of you? What I mean is, sometimes we just run out. We stop and there’s nothing to keep us going, at least for that very moment. And it feels eternal, like years and years could be put inside a small grain of sand and relived in a single breath. Everything seems still and it’s maddening because the human body, the human soul is not built for such hardship. We are made to be and to move and if we stop we just go insane.

 I did go insane for a little while. I felt the world crumbling around me, cracks opening on the floor and darkness in front of me. In that moment, there’s only you and no one else. Your friends, your family, they do not matter because you fall hard and deep into oblivion where no one could ever find you. And then that darkness penetrates your heart and makes you scream in terror without even opening your mouth. It is the feeling of real pain, of universal rendition to the darkest feelings and situations that the human heart can go through. In that moment, we are lost.

 But it always ends. Or at least for me, it has always ended. The light comes back and the back seems the same although I feel particularly changed inside. The feeling might be compared to the one you feel when riding a rollercoaster but blind and even deaf. That’s what it feels to fall into you and to get lost for the fraction of a second. When you come back, nothing really has happened outside your mind but you know it did happen inside. And then, like a poison, madness settles in. It slowly contaminates the brain, working for years, slowly. This poison has no real antidote but it can be stopped, maybe not forever but at least for enough time to build a stronger armor to defend your mind.

 Isn’t it amazing? We wage wars against each other, killing so many of our fellow men ad women and in the end of it all, our own brains can be our most vicious enemies, tearing us apart from the inside out. What good does it make to live your life dodging bullets and dangers, when maybe the thing that will take your life away from you is just growing freely inside, deep in your brain. We take everything, even the fact that we are just flesh and bone, for granted. We do not realize that there’s nothing that makes us really strong in front of the many dangers we might be forced to encounter in our lives.

 And it the world today, the younger brains, the ones least trained in the arts of fighting oneself, are those who are more likely to succumb to the evilness inside our brains. We all have it inside, there’s no one who doesn’t rot like that. The difference is that some people have received that click, that activation code that makes us realize the threat inside. And it passes so many times when we are young, when we are supposed to be living so many things and learning and enjoying life. That is because we are absorbing so much that we cannot control what enters our brain. And then, the poison begins contaminating the mind and in some youngsters, it happens so fast, with so much fierceness, that when others notice it it’s simply too late.

 Many people talk nowadays about the terrible cancer that extinguishes people in a heartbeat. AIDS does the same, consuming people fast. But there’s not that same awareness or interest in the mental issues of the human body. Our most appreciated tool, our brain, is also weak. No matter how hard the skull or how trained the mind is, the brain can also be affected and we are one of the biggest threats to it.

 The world today is the reason. We have to be so many things at the same time and do some others to be and be to be accepted because that is supposed to give all the peace we need. But that is a lie because we are never really accepted except by some individuals. Isn’t it strange that people what acceptance by everyone and they decide to ignore the fact that they will only know a small portion of the humans inhabiting this world in their lifetime? And even if they could meet everyone in the world, those others humans also do and think and are in order to be someone in this tiny grain of rock in space.

 We do not realize that we are competing, and hard, for the exact same prize, which happens to be non-existent. Because no one is never accepted, no even by all the people they know. And we all do that; we all do and say things to benefit ourselves, to keep moving, to be noticed and appreciated. Even if our main goal seems to be another, we are always looking for acceptance. Many have love as a goal and what is love but the acceptance, by someone else, of you as their chosen romantic interest? And if your goal is to have a job, you have to woo certain people to get it, by working hard or through any other means.

 It all comes down to people liking you, of that sick obsession with everyone needing and wanting you to be there by their side. And obsession that has its root in the past, when our species felt it needed to unite or it would face extinction. We are now many millions and still we think we need to be all on top of each other. That’s why countries always meddle in the problems of other countries: not only they need to show their power but also because they are desperate for allies and friends and companions. As if we weren’t already just by being born in this world. We do not need acceptance but a simple reality check to tell us how exactly alike we all are. No one better, no one worse. No one nothing. We are all the same thing which is, by the end of the day, not that much.

 When I feel empty, I feel like I cannot breath, as if the world was all around me, pressing me from every corner trying to make me explode. Once, the poison reached a point in my brain where I collapsed and was in the mercy of my most basic instincts. I attempted to destroy myself and felt liberated when I felt I had succeeded. There’s no feeling in the world like blood running down your forehead. You know why? Because you feel alive. Isn’t that sick?

 It is. If the only way to feel, to be able to communicate is to smash your head against a wall, something has to be very wrong. “Talk to your family”. That’s the advice I followed and it helped. Not because they said something really useful but because I realized I couldn’t go forward with the plans that the poison had for me. I just couldn’t sacrifice what I am and put them on the way. I stopped and held back from ending it all. And I didn’t do it for me. I understood things have more consequences than we realize. Sometimes we are so driven by what’s inside us, that we just don’t see what is happening around us. But I did.

 People would love me to say that I stopped for me, because I had some kind of revelation and just realized how much worse the world would get without me. But that would be a lie because the world wouldn’t realize I was gone, only a fraction of it would. And I stopped for that fraction and for nothing else. If it had been for the world, solely for that, I would have gone through with it. But I didn’t and here we are.

 I’m not strong. You don’t really require strength to stop the poison inside your head; you only need time and distractions. Because of you’re having a great time, it all seems to happen too fast. Have you ever noticed that? The poison hasn’t. And the idea is that when you die, the poison is there, contained because it had been distracted for years and years. That’s all you need. Again, you just need to do. Just do.

 That’s what I’m doing, trying to keep the thoughts, the sounds, the feelings, all at bay. I write because I like to do it, it’s true. And because it’s the only thing I feel I do well. But mostly, and many people do not know this, I do it to keep everything from touching me too close. I’ve been successful for the most part of the recent months with a couple of incidents where I just had to take a breath and relax, in order to not let anything inside win any ground.

 One of my weaknesses is when people say to many nice things to me. I mean, they are nice and gentle and even if they don’t really know me that well, I thank them. But when they happen too often I feel they are lies and they start hurting bad, like huge burns. And then the poison starts moving and I decide to chop every arm, every single thing that may let it move more, even if I have to sacrifice some things many others would appreciate.

 It was long ago that I decided not to have any romance in my life, at least none for real. Because I discovered that was the easiest way to let the poison, to let me, kill myself.