Julio Aníbal Portas - "Time Disintegrated" (1954)

INTRODUCTION

Julio Aníbal Portas (8 Feb 1915 - 10 Dec 1984) was an Argentine fiction author, historian and bibliographer. He was one of the directors of Más Allá ("Beyond"), as well as the magazine "Misterix" and "Screen" ("Parabrisas") and "Teleaventura". For his science fiction output, he published four short stories that appeared in Más Allá, an Argentinian science fiction magazine, three under the pseudonym Julián de Córdoba; the short stories "Raw Material" (#20, January 1955), "The Jump" (#22, March 1955) and the novella "Rino's Fantasies" (#46, April 1957), and one under the pseudonym Julio Almada, "Time Disintegrated" (#8, January 1954). "Time Disintegrated" was illustrated by Olmos.

For further information on this era of Argentine science fiction, see Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "Más Allá, El Eternauta, and the Dawn of the Golden Age of Latin American Science Fiction (1953-59)", "How Latin America Saved the World and Other Forgotten Futures" and Carlos Abraham's "Las revistas argentinas de ciencia ficción".

For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/

TIME DISINTEGRATED

I had a premonition of it. And without fail, there was something that closed my eyes. Now that I think about it, I realize that I was surrounded, enveloped, manipulated by some subtle force that, without touching me, was handling me delicately and deliberately, until I became blind, stupidly blind.

I'm afraid, it's true. My world has perished. And the terrible thing is that it's perished without really dying. My eyes will no longer see the things that were once a common part of my life. I think that men have seen what they imagined eternal disappear many times. But all these changes were preceded and driven by events that were ultimately relatively accessible to intelligent thought. And none of them subjugated and fractured everything in such a catastrophic way. The old things faded away bit by bit, and the new things came in bit by bit. They were always a little mixed up at some point. The learned that came in had come from what had left. What had left at least left a distant scent of what had came. All the history books I've read taught this. And I believe it, as I observe and compare. That's why I'm afraid.

* * *

I clearly remember the origin of everything. We were in Sector 8 of Interlab: what Romero called, half-jokingly, "Pandora's Box." Romero always had a rather sinister sense of humor. Sometimes I think he also had a premonition of the terrible things that would come one day, and it was this hint of those premonitions which gave that mournful but cruelly truthful note to his merciless epithets.

All of us there preferred to call ourselves the apt, if somewhat vulgar name, the "brain trust." We had some right to do so, for by this time, us specialists of atomic matters were freed from any commitments, and from ties to anything or anyone that wasn't our science itself. We could make and unmake without fear or restraint. The good we found would be harnessed by all. The bad would benefit no one, for no one could use it unless they deliberately sought their own swift and fatal elimination. We were, then, working on firm ground. At least, so we thought then, and so we really thought.

I don't know who said it first. Perhaps it occurred to several of us at the same time. But in that time, in Sector 28 of Interlab, a fascinating problem arose: what would happen if we used radioactive waves on living beings, dosing them in such a way as not to destroy life itself?

Among us, formulating a problem that gave rise to a common interest was equivalent to actually doing the work. Twelve laboratories began to work towards a solution to this "what will happen?" No, this was not absolute novelty. The good thing was that it was never exhaustively examined, and that all the preliminary attempts ended in failure.

So when I was handed Number 8, I viewed it with much delight. I had a Raymond emitter at my disposal, as complex and precise as possible, half a dozen zealous assistants, and all the guinea pigs that a mad scientist in the maddest of deliriums could ask for. We could measure our steps to the millionth of any current measurement, and cybernetics provided us with the machines necessary to arrive at the most impressive equations in a second.

Things weren't very encouraging at first, but that's what normally happens in any research. We exhaustively reproduced the known experiments. We decimated battalions of guinea pigs searching for that dangerous point, that at some indeterminate moment, was between real harmlessness and absolute death. Nothing we discovered was anything new. From the distant day when the inhabitants of Hiroshima saw a silver object dangling from a parachute descending onto them, to us, a large amount of research was conducted in these areas. It was least sufficient that each of the cases we classified - and there were thousands - had no other result than to add some additional data that confirmed the certainty of the statistics intended for these areas.

We moved forward slowly, as we improved our aim. We did manage to see a few strange things, it is true, but not very far from those that were already seen - or at least anticipated - in the research reports that preceded us.

* * *

WE WORKED according to the most rigorous scientific methods. And precisely because we were so rigorous in this matter, we also allowed ourselves some fantasies. Thus, one day, when we had finished a gradual series of exposures, it occurred to me to pass two specially marked guinea pigs through the intersection of two alternating emissions. Crossing two alternating emissions was mere piece of virtuosity, and after so many events I've come to ignore how and why it could have possibly occurred to me. Too late have I cured myself of my unforgivable agnosticism and I say again with the language of an old poet that no one reads any more: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."[Translator's note: Hamlet, Act I, scene V]

I can't even say for sure that was the reason for what occured. I'm inserting this reference point because it was from that moment on that things gradually and progressively started to grow more complicated.

Osman, my assistant, a monotonous fanatic of pure science, was the first to note a series of strange phenomena in that famous pair of guinea pigs. He pointed out to me evidence of changes in their relationship and, once on the trail, we set about checking everything that could be verified about the case. We measured, weighed and analyzed the guinea pigs hair by hair. Despite their biological similarities, which should have assured a certain unitary development for both, B-72 lost a considerable amount of weight compared to his colleague, B-73.

* * *

It took us a while to understand what was happening. The first thing we observed was very simple: we let our colleagues fast, then we put water and the most coveted cabbage leaves in the cage. B-73 rushed to eat, as was to be expected. But B-72 remained apathetic for a half hour before he threw himself at the food. But he too late. Little or nothing was left over for him. It was thus that we learned that a diet, apparently involuntary, was the reason for our friend's physical decline.

Of course, we separated them immediately. We repeated the operation in adjacent cages. And everything was, in a way, the same: B-73 immediately devoured his ration. B-72 religiously waited for his half hour before starting. B-72 regained his normal weight, but this confronted us with a disturbing mystery.

Osman, the fanatic, watched all this with absorbed eyes. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​reversing the procedure. We would give B-72 half an hour's meal in advance and in this way we would get them both to start eating at the same time. The conclusion was obvious and it didn't take us long to formulate it: B-72 was half an hour behind the general time, our common time.

What relationship did this phenomenon have with respect to our experiences with the alternating crossed Raymond emissions? We set off to find out at once. But by then it was too late, although we didn't know it yet. Pandora's box - the one that Romero spoke of - was opened and we soon learned that, with all our genius, we were nothing more than simple toys in the hands of more powerful wills.

Osman was the first to pay the price, perhaps because among all of us he was, if not the only one, was at least the one who most felt like his discipline was a religion. I said he was a fanatic, and I said it without disdain. Because only a fanatic is willing to do anything for what he blindly believes in. Because he felt that way, Osman was the most dangerous. And because he was so, before anyone else, he paid the price we opened up with the unknown.

* * *

IN other times, it might have happened that men of science, when subjected to violent intellectual pressures, succumbed to the weight of their own lucubrations and gave way to madness and suicide. This resulted from inappropriate combinations which, through the excess of the forces contained, caused the fragile structure of their container to break. All was finished for us. The "Metric" was already in operation, the control office which ensured a perfect balance of all the "brain trust" men. Never since its establishment did we suffer a casualty and its systems of adaptation and graduation were considered perfect and immutable. That's why what happened to Osman was like a violent explosion shaking a group of peaceful readers in a public library.

I spoke with Osman the night before. He seemed a little restless and nervous. I attributed this to the importance he was giving to a new idea that was still in its infancy. I made an appointment with him for the next morning in my office. When my direct assistant announced his presence, he allowed himself a comment, very unusual in our circles and, of course, completely anachronistic with regard to Osman:

- "He's here. If he's not on a bender, he's ready to go. And if he's faking it, he's doing it very well, by the way."

I didn't want to reply to his impertinence, but I noted the incident. If this happened again, I would be changing my assistant very quickly. Even though I appreciated freedom of judgment in the men on my team, I didn't appreciate those that intended to be humorous at the expense of some unsuspecting victim. Without saying anything, I asked for Osman to be brought in.

He was wearing a buzo jacket, one of those that was very fashionable among us five years ago, long before the special suits known as "Integral" were designed, and which insured us, as far as possible, from any unforeseeable accident in the plants where we had to work.

Osman was certainly very excited, although that was a relative novelty for him.

- "Test 328 produced good results" - he blurted out, like shooting me point blank. "It would be a good idea to immediately pass the report onto Fhreiger... If they start the plant now, we'll have a definitive solution within our grasp."

I confess that something got into my throat. I mentally discounted the negative point I noted during my direct assistant's account. I instinctively looked at the emergency button, but, suspending the action I started for a moment, I wanted to listen a little more before condemning the unfortunate man. In a word: I took things as calmly as possible at that moment.

- "Osman," I said softly, "you've been overexerting yourself these past few weeks. When did you last walk through the 'Metric'? You should know that Test 328 was scrapped exactly four years ago and that Fhreiger paid for that mistake with his life."

* * *

I couldn't take my eyes off Osman. I knew enough about these things to instantly realize that my efforts were futile. I put my hand on the emergency button. He advanced on me with a stray look of hatred.

- "You damn spy," he muttered in a low voice. "I knew you'd try to suppress these results. You're conspiring with the others. They want to make me look crazy. But Fhreiger will find out. And then..."

I pressed the button. It was the first time this had been done in my office, except for one of the periodic drills. This time, as in the previous drills, everything functioned correctly. Two seconds after my finger made contact, Osman was in a corner, subdued by four robust guards who immobilized him instantly.

I ordered him to be taken to the nearest cell in the "Metric" and ran to see Reamur, who was the head of Interlab at that time. As I went there, Osman's face danced before my eyes, his eyes rolled back and his lips covered in foam, a disgusting animal maddened by bloodlust and the fury of vengeance.

* * *

REAMUR was a calm man, and it was not for nothing that he had been placed at the head - "primus inter pares" - of the most rigorous selection of brains that the world had ever known. He listened in silence to my hurried story, asked two or three apparently casual questions, and that was enough to expose the core of that ugly business.

- "We don't need to see Osman now," he said. "Let's thoroughly check the Raymond emitter. Those damned two alternating emissions were your idea, and it's clear that your results are just as true for men as they are for guinea pigs. Let's correct it before another disaster occurs. Then we'll correct Osman, although I have to say..."

He said nothing further and the rest of his thoughts remained unexpressed. I, who worked with Reamur for many years, knew however, what he meant and at that moment I thought that if someone gave two cents for the poor soul who stopped to enter the "Metric", they'd be making a very bad deal.

It did not take us much time or effort to locate the final position of the Raymond emitter by the remote control system. That cross of emissions had been, after all, as I have said, nothing more than pure chance. We made a few brief calculations with Reamur himself and soon we had the formula necessary to bring things back to their original state. When we were finished, Mitchell went to arrange what was necessary to carry out the director's orders. It was at that moment that I looked at my watch. I stole an hour of our director's precious time. I wanted, somehow, to lessen the damage I was causing.

- "I'll keep an eye on the rest," I suggested to Reamur. "You should go back to your office. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

Reamur fixed his grey eyes on me, eyes that seemed to be looking from further away than he was, always seeing something beyond the point on which he was fixed. He shook his head gently, denying it.

- "I want to see it for myself," he said.

We waited in silence. When Mitchell returned, there was a strange confusion in his eyes.

- "I don't understand," he stammered, looking from one to the other. "I knew the plans for the Raymond emitter but I'd never worked with one. In fact, I didn't even know it had been built. We'll have to start practicing with it."

I felt my hair literally stand on end and looked at Reamur with eyes of agony. Mitchell was our top technician specializing in the Raymond. Something had gone wrong in his brain. How could he claim to be unfamiliar with a device he operated with great mastery for two years running? I did the math in my head and soon found the equation I was looking for: Mitchell had gone back two years and six months in time, and was now speaking exactly as he did on a day long ago.

* * *

REAMUR's eyes seemed to have wandered farther than ever. He put his hand on Mitchell's shoulder and spoke, with his usual pause, but with some vague tension:

- "It's true, Mitchell. Let's get out of here for now. I'm going to give you all the device's details so you can begin studying it."

Fifteen minutes later, Mitchell was under anesthesia in the "Metric", and I, along with the Interlab brass, was listening to Reamur's summary of the matter. The conclusions were the most interesting part of the whole thing, and none of us there could have added or subtracted a single comma.

- "The cross of emissions" - concluded Reamur - "was never tried before and, in reality, sounds like something a child might think of, more silly than simple. Now we see that it is not so. As things stand, it isn't worth risking another life to try to correct it. It's necessary to evacuate the laboratory and the surrounding area, within a reasonable limit, until we investigate the matter a little further. When we find a solution, we'll act with certainty. If this idea seems fair, we will put it into practice immediately."

No one objected, for Reamur had exhausted the matter. The order to evacuate was given, and No. 8 became a lonely, dark ghost, surrounded by a sonic pocket which no living being could cross. This was good work by the autodefense team, and to be fair, it should be said that there was no record of failure in any cases where such isolation was employed.

For the next forty-eight hours, every man who ever had anything to do with a Raymond emitter worked like hell gathering all the information he could. There was no visible progress on the problem, but that was the only way he could arrive at the beginning of a solution.

I met up with Reamur when we finished our review. We were a little tired and we went out for a walk, in silence, driving the director's car around one of the great Interlab highways. We didn't talk about it, but it was present, uncomfortably present, between us. So much so that, despite consciously not wanting to, we ended up near No. 8, where that damned Raymond had been isolated.

* * *

AS if by agreement, we simultaneously dismounted in front of the central guard post. We had barely finished doing so when a tall, stern man with a small but deadly "Atom" machine gun hanging from his waist stopped us, looking at us with an air of suspicion.

The autodefense force had its very clear and concise regulations. Although this was sometimes a source of annoyance for us, we were all satisfied to see them well followed, because it was, after all, a further guarantee of common security. I smiled at Reamur and handed the man my director's pass, which gave me free movement throughout Interlab, without restrictions or obstacles of any kind.

I never could imagine what I was about to see. The man barely glanced at my identification card before he had the "Atom" in the pit of my stomach and sounded the alarm. A moment later the place was filled with guards, and Reamur and I were held by as many hands as were necessary to prevent us from making the slightest movement.

A ranking chief was there. Reamur spoke to him in his calm voice even amidst all the hustle and bustle. The man looked at the cards, stared strangely at the one who had raised the alarm, and gave the order to release us without further ado.

That was the last thing he ever said. A second later he was hit in the head with an entire magazine of "Atom" rounds, enough to dispatch a regiment. Our captor had fired at point-blank range, with the classic decisiveness of the men of the corps. Now, retreating, he called for backup while struggling to put a new clip of atomic bullets into his portable machine gun.

He didn't succeed. A hand grenade flew towards him from somewhere, and suddenly it was an active warzone. But a strange warzone, with four or five sides trying to eliminate each other simultaneously, and just as many sides fleeing desperately, as if they were unsuspecting passers-by surprised by the outbreak of some unexpected revolt. And this last was perhaps the worst of all; because up to that moment no one could say, without lying, that they ever saw a autodefense man fleeing and throwing down his weapons, as they're those sort of beings imbued with a total sense of duty that made them face any danger in defending the order they'd received.

* * * 

I don't know how we got out of there; and if we owed our lives to anything, it must have been precisely to the savage intensity of the fighting that was taking place, which meant that no one was directly concerned with us, everyone being entrenched as they were in the extermination of some more immediate and dangerous foe.

Reamur seemed like ice when we arrived breathless at the Interlab headquarters. Everything moved at a dizzying pace. One after another, the emergency patrols flew overhead. When the fighting stopped, what was left of No. 8's guard was exterminated. It was only then that the big decision was made: No. 8 would be blown up, reduced to tiny particles.

* * *

Any other time, I would've been sorry to see such valuable and perfect construction lost. But I couldn't ignore the fact that the fateful Raymond was inside it and that its crossed emissions were strong enough to escape the sonic envelope that surrounded them, and that they were capable of affecting a distance greater than that was foreseen by our most precise predictions.

I saw it from very close. A chief engineer, dressed in a lead anti-radioactive suit that made him look like a dashing knight from the Middle Ages, led the demolition squad.

It was a clean and efficient job. The elegant No. 8 was scientifically reduced to an impalpable powder. Hundreds of hydrogen charges ground it up from every direction. Concrete, plastics and steel were melted and re-melted, and every bit of material was tortured through changing its original structure again and again. We left there convinced that we woke up from a terrible nightmare. There were still a few details to be sorted out - Osman and Mitchell, for example - but the main thing was settled. So we thought then.

* * *

So we thought. For two weeks we lived in that idyllic confidence, with no shadow other than that of the two unfortunate colleagues who bitterly resisted the Metric's meticulous treatments, and who continued to insist on living capriciously in their own time. It was curious - and also very sad - to see those privileged minds living retrospectively in the past. Being with them was like attending a "racconto", cold and desolate like a nightmare of a coven.

The whole affair didn't go beyond the narrow circles of the "brain trust." Romero, the same one who in a moment of funereal humor had given us the nickname "Pandora's box," felt obliged to make droll remarks. He was as accurate as ever, which is to say that he mixed things up exactly in the proportion that is considered necessary to justify what is called a good caricature, that is, the real with the addition of a reasonable exaggeration of the ridiculous.

- "What happened to Osman and Mitchell" - he started saying, when we were having a chat at the Interlab casino - "can be described as a temporary trauma. Soon we'll see them among us, as if nothing had happened."

We all looked at him with an air of suspicion. Romero rarely spoke seriously on such occasions. We sensed the mockery that his words were preparing. And it came, as was inevitable. Romero continued:

- "But just think if instead of two men who have misplaced their notion of time, there were many more, let's say half the population. It really would be a glorious spectacle. A few hours difference in a marriage would give us a husband saying goodbye to the woman who would be greeting him as if he had just arrived.

"Some days we'd be shown two businessmen trying to negotiate some impossible nonsense, one would compulsively be trying to collect the sold shares that the other would be trying to buy at a favorable price that very moment, and with great enthusiasm.

"Because of a few minutes' delay in his mental clock, a tour bus driver would throw himself very loosely across an express train that is supposed to arrive at the level crossing much later. Even after he was dead, we wouldn't be able to convince him that he had crashed into the train, which he'd still be able to see coming from quite a distance. What do you think?"

I don't know if Romero expected us to laugh at his joke, or even if he was surprised by our awkward silence. To be honest, the man gave me the creeps and I wasn't even able to manage a ghostly smile out of pure politeness.

There was no need for it, anyway. Reamur had just arrived at the casino and was listening without us noticing his presence. When Romero finished, he spoke. When I heard him, colder and more opaque than ever, I remembered a silly verse that had stuck in my head from some distant literature class, a verse that spoke of a broken vase, of a hidden crack that embraced it "with slow progress and fatal precision," silently stealing its life. Reamur spoke and, as clearly as if he were shouting it, I knew that something had also broken forever inside him.[Translator's note: Sully Prudhomme, "Le Vase Brisé (The Broken Vase)". The original French and its official translations into English and Spanish all slightly differ. In all three languages: FR: "D'une marche invisible et sûre, En a fait lentement le tour." ES: "Pero la leve e imperceptible grieta, con marcha lenta y precisión fatal" EN: "A long, slow marching line, it crept, From spreading base to curving lip."]

But even more terrible than that voice were his words:

- "Romero speaks like a sibyl. Today at 11:30, the Spring Oaks tourist bus hit the express. There were fourteen dead. The driver was uninjured and swears that the train was far away when he went to cross."

Reamur sat down with a fatigued air and we all saw, almost physically, how he closed his eyes, his face became wrinkled and his hands limped in a senile tremble.

- "Forty-six similar cases have been reported, just in traffic alone. Besides, the police stations are full of similar cases, only in other areas."

He raised his head to look at us and for a moment the old flame vibrated in him again. It was his turn to say what was in everyone's head and that no one dared to say.

- "Yes. The Raymond that we thought was destroyed and pulverized in the ruins of No. 8 is now up and running somewhere else. The police, the army and the Interlab autodefense force have been mobilized. But the radius of action of... that... is also expanded. We can't count on anything or anyone anymore."

* * *

A telephone by my side rang and I mechanically answered it. A nagging voice from afar insisted on expediently resolving some matter with some damned Lena. There was no way to convince the interlocutor of anything and finally, fed up, I shouted exasperatedly: "Lena died seven years ago! Lena died seven years ago!" And I hung up without saying anything further. And it was true; Lena had died a long time ago. Still with my hand on the receiver I thought of the voice that demanded this procedure for the dead girl and suddenly I realized that this was neither a joke nor a mistake. The caller resumed his journey in time and was living many years ago. I felt as if my brain was rocked by whiplash: the Raymond!

I recovered myself with some effort. Reamur was issuing some instructions. In short, something very precarious, an almost incoherent stammer, a timid blind step in the face of the magnitude of the problem we were facing: go into the city, see things directly, closely attend to the cases we found. Meet that same night.

I left with Reamur. Is there anything sadder than marching alongside a defeated leader? I'm not a servant of success and in our work, I learned to look failure in the face. But at that moment, I knew that Reamur was a sore loser. He was a man who fell because he was wrong, who's manning the front only because there's no one better to replace him, who knows that he and his cause are lost, who advances without faith and without hope, waiting for the minute when he'll flee, abandoning his flag.

So I set off with the man I had admired the most. Almost flying along the one-way "strada" without any intersections, we went straight to the shopping center. If there was anything to see, this was certainly the point of the greatest importance and most interest.

We got out of the car and after we'd gone a few steps we knew that everything was much worse than we could have imagined. There, in the middle of a vociferous group, a policeman stood firm beside the bullet-riddled body of a man who had fallen at his feet. A woman was screaming:

- "Murderer! It's murder! He was pardoned by the court. He was pardoned and reformed and lived a decent life for ten years. Murderer!"

The officer's eyes were shining with rage.

- "Dead or alive, said the notice at the police station. I read it today! He wasn't pardoned, he wasn't reformed! She's lying!"

- "Lynch him!" - howled a voice in the middle of the crowd. - "Lynch him!"

I looked at Reamur. We both knew too much about the recent and disturbing past to not recognize those scenes from documentaries in their attitudes and voices, where the scientific archives taught us what the life of our immediate ancestors was like. I looked at Reamur, but we didn't have time to do anything. Someone shouted:

- "Aircraft! It's an airstrike! Everybody to the shelters!"

There was a tiny scattering of a handful of people who were reliving distant times that they hadn't lived through, from the time when supersonic squadrons were spreading death over the cities during the continental war. A window opened again with a bang and a clear, stentorian voice began to vomit forth insults:

- "Dogs! Damn fifth columnists! Get that filthy flag out of the street! Fire, Joe! Finish off all those sons of..."

Joe must've been well prepared. At the last word, a machine gun filled the street with lead and death. Some fled, others fell badly wounded, most stayed there quietly or walked calmly, while the bullets continued to decimate that crowd of phantasms.

Reamur and I got out as best we could. He managed to pick up an armor-piercing round that had ricocheted near us and showed it to me with an air of curiosity. I recognised it easily because I had seen others like it in our museums. When I gave it back to him, he put it in his briefcase, with the same air he had when he was collecting materials for his experiments. I can say that this was Reamur's last contact with his time.

* * *

WE TURNED into a side street, which unexpectedly put us far from the bloody pandemonium. We cornered ourselves in the doorway of a luxury shop. I turned my eyes, scanning the area, because now I knew enough to distrust even my own shadow. I sighed with satisfaction, but all my sense of tranquility disappeared when I saw that Reamur wasn't at my side.

I caught up with him inside that shop, and now that I think about it, I wish I'd never seen what I saw there. 

Reamur, the super-brain of Interlab, had torn off his clothes and, now nude, was putting on a woman's fur coat. Feeling like my heart was leaking blood, I saw him tie his sleeves over his chest, his eyes lost, as always, in the void, but now with a bestial look that literally pushed me out of the store.

Fixed on the window, I saw him come out, hunched forwards and swinging his arms strangely, like an animal that has just unexpectedly found out how to walk vertically, not quite sure that it doesn't still need its four legs. A dog, miraculously appearing from who knows where, stopped to look at him with a strange look. Reamur advanced towards him with almost imperceptible movements and suddenly jumped on him.

I heard the animal's spine snap with a loud crack, and when I saw the blood gushing from my professor's hands, I ran away, blind with fear, screaming, screaming anything at the top of my lungs, so as not to go mad right there.

* * *

I'M AFRAID. I haven't returned to the city. I walk around, looking for food in deserted places. I don't want to say anything about what I've seen afterwards, or what I see day after day. In an old book that I've stolen from somewhere, I read a story about men who were building a tower to climb to heaven and whose languages ​​were confused by someone extremely powerful, so that they could no longer understand each other. Perhaps we are...

But no. I must say nothing more. I bow my forehead to the ground and whisper the only prayer my lips know how to say: I'm afraid. Maybe whoever is in charge will take pity on me. Maybe he'll leave me in my time. Maybe that will be my punishment. With my face against the dust I say only: I'm afraid.