The Relic

by Francisco Angulo

  The ice age lasted so long that the men who had marched South in search of a better life, forgot their place of origin and never returned.

  Space and Matter Do Not Exist

  MATTER was created by movement, thanks to speed, so the distance we are able to measure from one point to another iscontingent on the speed with which the field we are gauging moves. For example, the distance from my city to the next is 5 km. If the earth were moving faster than usual, the space between my town and the nearest would increase. From my viewpoint, this change would be imperceptible since while our planet increases in size so does the size of everything in it, including myself and the tape I use to measure distances.

  As we do not need a point of reference for an object to have velocity, we do not need to goanywhere. Wecould simply go around in circles or even move quickly from one side to another producing a vibratory motion. This vibratory motion is experiencedby all particles in the universe, and it endows them witha high speed: “while we might not see the table running around the room, it does not stop moving”.

  Therefore, all we can see and touch is just energy in motion. If an atom or a particle should cease to move, they would disappear.

  On the other hand, for a particle that was able to move at the speed of light, there will be no space.

  Itis able to travel from one point to another instantly without distance playing a part because for this particle, distance does not exist -nor does space.

  Space shrinks becoming minute sofor those who travel at the speed of light all the universecan be seen insidea pinhead.

  We can thus explain various phenomena that appearto be abnormal because of our reference point, from which we observe them.

  If a ship moves away at the speed of light and turns on its headlights, we will be able to see that the beam of light moves away at exactly the speed of light. If we reflectfor a moment on what we’ve mentioned above, namely that light does not actually travel any distance because distance does not exist for light, all this will no longer seem strange.

  Another proof is the effect produced by light whenone of its photons crossesaslot and gives us the illusion that it’s a particle. And if we there are two slots open, the photon creates an interference as if it had passed through both of them. Light seems to know when is going to find a slot or two, but this can also be explained by the fact that light has no distances. In reality, each photon continues to be in contact with all the others, maintaining communication with them, because from their perspective they never separated because there is no space for them to move. The same principle applies to all particles but it varies according to the speed at which they move. That’s why there are particles that appear to be in contact, even if they becomedetached, without distance really playing any role. Depending on the speed with which particles move, they can perform amazing moves, they can disappear and reappear anywhere in the universe, because for them there are no distances and when there are no distances there is no time, so they can simultaneously be in different places.

  Since matter is linked to speed - "the faster the speed, the bigger the mass and the lesser the mass with deceleration" because planets sweep out equal areas in equal-times -,these planets increase in size when moving in their elliptical orbit as they pass near the sun, since their speed is accelerated.

  If we produce a collision between these particles at high speed, these will remain still due to the crash and their mass will again be transformed.

  If we stopped the movement of a particle fully, it will also have to burst and become energy.

  About Elías

  I REMEMBER clearly how I used to spend my free time in the schoolyard sitting in a corner, in the corner where the two reddish brick buildings met - I crouched hugging my legs against my chest. I remember the cold wind I protectedmyself fromin that corner and howthe sun warmed my face. It was like diving into water, like entering another world. The noise of children playing, the sound of the wind, the cold air, everything died out when I enteredthe world of bright lights that danced in peaceful calm while caressing my face. Then I stretched my hands to reach theglowing lights and suddenly felt as if the world shrivelled beneath me, as if I rapidly distanced myself from it by flying towards the sun, briefly traversing the clouds, and then, after feeling their touch, returning to the silence and the stillness, floating in the dark, floating in a sea of warm, dark, clear, deep waters, where I could see countless lights, just like in some beaches where stacked white shells reflect the sunlight as fragments of mirrors filling the sandwithmulti-coloured lights. It was during those moments that time stood still. In that world, clocks had no place.

  After floating among millions of dazzling lights, one of them in particular began to radiate with more brilliance, its heat gaining more intensity. The brightest light moved from side to side like a dance of fireflies inthe warm summer breeze. The light reduced the space in which it moved, its tinkling increasingly shorter, like a ball bouncing with less and less force until its final halt. At that point, the light remained centred right in front of me. It seemed to watch me, and then, suddenly, it moved again, an accelerating movement that drove me to it with progressively increasing speed. Calmed at first, it was a whisper and then an unbearable sound that rippedmy quietnessapart and dropped me from a great height, abruptly forcing me return to the schoolyard where the siren heralded the end of recess.

  I couldn’t always travel to that world. I was often prevented to. I was always told it was for my own good, but it didn’t seem like it to me and I had to hide every day in a different place to find that serenity.

  Many would describe themselves as perceptive, clever children, they would say they were different and stood out from the rest but I never thought of myself in those terms. The truth is that when I was a kid I did not really care about what others thought of me and now that I'm older I see clearly that I am not nor have I ever been anything special. If I ever managed to solve a mathematical problem, it was always with great effort. Everything else was the same - I often only wanted to finish any kind of interaction with other people, end the conversation as quickly as possible, finish what I was ordered to do so that I could go back to thinking quietly, to plan and look for another opportunity to leave this world again.

  Apart from being a child who had trouble relating to others, there wasn’t anything else that would differentiate me from the rest, except for, perhaps, a strange feeling that always came over me when I talked to a classmate, a sense of being part of a memory or a scene from a movie that had been filmed a long time ago. It's hard to explain but I remember having these type of memories right after birth and even then I almost always felt I was the same age and had the same intellectI have today. Years ago I felt like today, but in a body limited by its own size.

  I don’t know why but every time I evokemy nurserydays, I can feel a taste of sand in my mouth. Perhaps from breathing the fine dust that rose from the earth asthe breezewas blowing. The place looked large, it had a few swings, but when I visited it years later I noticed that very same courtyard, where about twenty of us children played before, was no bigger than fifty or sixty square metres. It was a rectangular piece of land with a rear access door tothe kindergarten. Two of the edges of the rectangle, forming an L shape, were delimitedby the building itself and the other two sides were enclosed by a wall with metal bars on top,which also looked large to me but I was able to certify years later that it was no more than a meter tall. The part restricted by the wall of the building was painted in bright colours, with drawings of children playing holding hands. It was in this corner shaped by two walls where small wind swirls formed and lifted the earth, and I guess it was because I was sitting there that I get thesandy taste in my mouth whenever I recall the nursery’s playground.

  The interior was not as nice, at least from my point of view. There were only two rooms - the room with the cots and the room where we stayed in the little amount of time we didn’t spend lying down. Both rooms were painted white,
just plain white, giving the interior a cold feel, like the feeling you get in a dentist’s consultation. In the main room, at least, hanging on the wall in a cork board secured by pins, there were some drawings coloured by the children. I don’t remember any toys, like in the new nurseries I have now visited. I don’t even remember us enjoying any activities other than sleep, eat and sing those repetitive songs that end up stuck in your brain and leave you scarred for life. And even as the years go pass and you listen to them again, it’s impossible not to raise your arms and wave your hands to the rhythm of the music, as we were taught to do.

  In the nursery, the conversations I had with other children made me feel very lonely. We were constantly left lying in cribs with metal, thin, curved bars, through which I peered into the world. I felt very lonely talking tothe other children from the cot. I told them not to fear, not to worry, I told them that before they would even realise it, they’d be taller and able to do whatever they wanted and they’d no longer be forced to sleep when they were not tired or to stay awake when they were sleepy, but althoughthe other kids were my own age, they were not used to saying anything or whatever they said did not usually make any sense.

  And yet I continued with my conversations and I became very close to the child who was in a crib next to mine. We called him Mouse and even today I remember him very well: he was a short, chubby kid, I guess that's why they gave him the nickname Mouse. At that time we would have been two years old. Often, while I told him things he used to fall asleep, that’s why occasionally I asked:

  Mouse, Mouse, are you sleeping?

  He was a very clumsy child because his physical structure didn’t allow him to walk with ease - a midget with black eyes and deep look. As I told him all the things he would do when he grew up, he stared at me with a light in his eyes that seemed to understand everything I told him.

  Many years later I was in a cocktail bar aboutto drink a pineapple juice when someone pushed me from behind, making me spill the juice on my shirt. Evenbefore I had a chance to turn around I heard a voice apologising. When I turned my head I saw a young man about twenty years old who, more than a man looked like a bearas he was extremely large and burly.I looked at his face and immediately recognised that look, those black eyes with that unique glow, and without realising it, my mouth uttered a word:

  -¡Mouse!

  He looked at me and said:

  - Pardon?

  - Mouse! It’s been so long!

  - I think you are mistaken.

  - I'm sorry, forgive me, I thought you were someone else.

  Today I know with certainty that it was him, no one else could ever have that look.

  My whole life seems to be recorded on Technicolour film images and it’s very easy for me to go back to any point in the film. Other people don’t usually have this ability and forget much of what they’ve experienced, especially going that far back in time, but I remembered everything.

  Many people think it's wonderful to remember things the way I do. Well,when I say many people I should really use quotation marks, because really, most of the people I associate withI tend not to share anything about this with them and people I trust more, people I tell pretty much everything, they take me for a freak, a crazy but harmless freak. The fact is that I don’t think remembering everything so vividly is that wonderful, it makes me remorseful every day about all the things I've done wrong in life, I even feel embarrassed remembering not knowing how to sing a song when I was in pre-school. Events in my life hover around in my head incessantly. It doesn’t matter whether they have happened hours or years ago.I have always felt anxiety, and when I was little I could not hold back the tears at the sight of a picture of me, because evenif I was only four years old and the photographhad been taken last month, having everything that happened since it was taken recorded in my mind, made me realise how quickly time passed and my inability to stop it. I always noticed the script of my life advancing without being able to halt it for a moment.

  The nursery gave me the impression of being something like a prison. The truth is that when you are small you rarely feels free to do whatever you want, you are always forced to sleep or sing when an adult feels like it. I understand that you cannot leave a child alone, although I'm not sure we as humans can really influence the events that befall us, I mean if a child has to fall, he will fall even if an adult is nearby; and by this I don’t mean to say that you have to leave children or people to their own fate, but I don’t think it’s right to treat them as prisoners.

  Still, I have fond memories of my time in the nursery, perhaps because it was a happy and carefree time. Later, as I grew up, everything became more complicated, from feeling like a prisoner to feeling more like a slave at school. Almost everything was work, split by just half an hour of recess, absurd work which, up until today I still don’t understand, learning things that have never been useful at all. To illustrate my point I could talk about the subject of circles. Yes, the subject of circles and those squares and triangles placed inside them - nearly three years drawing circles on paper where you had to put squares and trianglesin and take them out - I never understood why. I guess someone in ancient times, who knows who and when, decided that the subject of circles could teach something to children but I don’t really know why. Even today, no one makes the decision to say that although this system has been applied for over a thousand years, it is completely useless and it is time the teaching method be changed.

  My mother always prepared a bun or a small sandwich with hazelnut chocolate cream and put it in my school bag, for me to eat it at recess. One day, I was sitting in a secluded corner during our break where I could be alone and undisturbed. I was about to eat the sandwich that my mother had prepared, when out of nowhere, like a rocket, a small child ran towards me and snatched the sandwich off my hands, and then walked sufficiently to leave a safe distance between us. He sat and like a hungry wolf devoured the sandwich without even chewing it. I really was blown away, I had no time to react, I turned around and looked for a place to be alone and to feel safe. At that time I did not think much about what just happened.

  The next day, while I was holding my lunch in my hands, I made sure there was no one around but just when I started biting for the first time, again in a flash, there was the little boy running in a devilish speed, dressed in old clothes. He zoomed past and next thing I knew my hands which, were still feeling as though they were holding the sandwich, were suddenly empty. And once again, he left a safe distance to eat the snack so that I could not take it off him. How could it be, I wondered - where did that boy come from and how could a small child run so fast?

  The third day I prepared myself well, I found a corner where I could not be caught off guard from the back. Now I did feel safe enough to start savouring my sweet hazelnut cream sandwich. As I was relishing in the first bite I saw that scoundrel come towards me head on at a high speed. I got the feeling it was a locomotive at full throttle without brakes. He slammed into me, while I clutched the sandwich. He took me by the shirt and shook me until I decreased the pressure of my hands. Then he snatched my sandwich and ran out again.

  When I arrived home with a torn shirt my mother asked me what had happened, if I had fallen. I told her the story, although I felt a little embarrassed that a child so small in size could stand up against me in such a fashion. My mother then proposed a plan of action that would solve the problem once and for all. The fourth day came and with it recess time. I went to the yard and walked around looking for the rascal, but could not find him. I sat down and got ready for lunch. At that point I saw him appear again running at full speed, then I cried:

  Stop!

  And so he did and stood watching me. I raised my other hand and showed him another sandwich. I told him to take it. The boy stood hesitant, like a stray dog whom is being offered a piece of bread. He took it with suspicion and then sat down near me. We both ate the sandwich quietly. It was a brief recess. Every day I brought my friend a sandwich and h
e sat next to me without saying anything, until there came a day when I had to throw away the second sandwich because the child did not appear, and never appeared again.

  Now I realise how fragile the world of a child is. Older people do not usually consider these things and simply because they want to move to a larger home or get a promotion they move to another town and with the same ease a child's world falls apart. I never asked my mother who my father was or where he had gone, the truth is I had never missed him. They say that a child raised by a single parent does not develop as he should. Perhaps my mental problems emerged as internal symptoms of the lack of a father figure but I honestly don’t think so.

  In winter, jumping in puddles was what I liked to do most. Once, my mother dressed me in new clothes and polished my black boots with bitumen. The day before, it had not stopped raining and I was unable to leave the house, so I really wanted to go down to the street to run around and jump on the paddles. Before letting me go, my mother said: