The Relic

by Francisco Angulo

  Driving along those straight roads was a breeze. All you had to do was put the autopilot on and go on quietly enjoying the landscape. Then asudden stomp on the brakes led the truck to lurch abruptly. The posterior part of the truck was jolting from side to side, like a wild bull in a rodeo. León saw a huge crocodile in the middle of the road and managed to manoeuvre to avoid the reptile only to end up with the truck in the lagoon. As the vehicle impactedthe waterLeón hit his head and when he awoke he found himself under water where he algae rose from the depths to the aquatic infinite sky like giant forests. He looked around and saw a lot of multi-coloured fishes, crocodiles and a myriad of large oysters. Without thinking twice he startedmaking sounds and the oysters joined in. Then, they began singing together. When the song ended, the great crocodile León had dodged on the road spoke through their speaker. As a sign of its gratitude, the croc talked to the other gators and they formed a long line with their bodies to help León get the truck out of the water.

  This is what León remembers and this is what he recounted in the hospital, where he was told he had suffered a concussion caused by the blow to his head.

  The Vibratory Universe

  THE VIBRATION of the universe is what gives mass to matter. It is what gives consistency to the universe per se. Just as we are able to transform matter into energy, if we vibrate the energy in the right way we will be able to create the kind of particles we want.

  The universe is like a huge pond, a pond over which a thin rain falls. The folds of the water, the waves are what we perceive as matter. But on a closer inspection we can see that all the pond is made of the same matter andeven though some areas have no ripples, they still remain part of the pond.

  The Weight of the Light

  THE PHOTONS that make up light have no mass nor weight but their high speed can cause a curvature of the space-time continuum. What is the actual weight of light? Depending on the frequency at which it vibrates light can weigh as much as a star or even as much as a black hole.

  The Relic

  A thunderous sound accompanied by atremor that caused parts of the ceiling to detach and fall on the room. Cheng, a stout man with a four-hair long moustache wearing a black silk robe with white edgings, covered me with a blanket to prevent any pieces falling from the ceiling from hurting me. Mr. Cheng was the commander of the monastery and one of the oldest monks, charged with the task of keeping me safe. They call themselves men, human beings. I called them “Hazel Eyes”’ children. Another sound, this once a lot louder, brought down much of the room’s ceiling. Cheng got agitated and vociferously called out to other monks. Only a young man appeared and Cheng told him to help him move me to safety. With great effort they lowered me from the pedestal on which I stood, wrapped me in a blanket, took me away from the temple and placed me in a cart. Then, they loaded a few corpses, lifeless children of “Hazel Eyes”. Cheng told the young man to lie down in the cart between the bodies. The young man did not hesitate a second.

  The temple was being besieged and the invading forces were about to gain entry. The bodies of the monks were scattered everywhere. We left the temple through a side door and came face to face with the invaders. The soldiers threw Cheng to the ground while one of them kept his taut bowstring pointed at him:

  Wait a moment, you useless lot - said one of the captains who directed the attack to the monastery.

  Can’t you see he's the undertaker?

  Undertakers were respected because nobody wanted to do their work and, according to tradition, whoever killed an undertaker had to take care of the bodies that he would have buried, otherwise the spirits of these unfortunate people would not be allowed to rest in peace. That's how Mr. Cheng managed to get us out of the site. Of course, he also knew the legends about undertakers and respectedthem, so once in a safe place, he made sure he buried the bodies of the dead.

  We then began a life of pilgrimage, wandering across the country from town to town. Mr. Cheng was oftenrequired for his services, blessing homes and businesses. People invited him to eat and some even gave him some coins. The young apprentice always accompanied him and learnt the different rituals. Once, the young man corrected a sentence wrongly spoken by the monk and the old man told him:

  - There once was an old teacher who worked as a boatman, helping people cross from one side of a large lake to the other. One day he had to transport a peculiar man wearing ridiculousclothes and carrying lots of bags, each filled with innumerable scrolls. The teacher treated him politely and helped him into the boat. The man did not return the courtesy, barely talked to him and made a point of complaining about everything. He seemed to be annoyed by every single thing. They started the journey and the man didn’t stop yapping to the teacher. He soon realised that the teacher’s language skills were not too good and asked him, “Did you not study language and literature?”, to which the teacher replied a humble No. “So in that case, you’ve lost a quarter of your life”. They continued sailing across the lake to the other side which, was still nowhere to be seen, and the city man continued asking more questions and criticising the poor old teacher. During the conversation the man realised that the teacher was not very good with maths and then asked, “Did not you study computing and geometry?” to which the teacher humbly said: "No, I have not had the opportunity”. “Then”, the man said, “You have wasted half of your life”. As they ventured into deeper waters, the weather changed and the sunny sky was soon covered with dark clouds. The man continued tormenting the teacher with his conversation and noticed that the teacher did not know much about astrology, so he asked, “Did you not study astrology?”, to which the teacher honestly replied that he had not had that pleasure. Well then you have wasted much of your life. Just then it began to pour so hard that the boat began to fill with water and started to sink. Then, the teacher asked the man: “Have you not learned how to swim?” The man replied negatively. Then the teacher said:

  - Well, you’ve lost all your life, because we're sinking!

  The teacher swam slowly, reserving his energyand managed to reach the shore, while the city man went straight to the bottom of the lake.

  An unusual event occurred while we were in a city. It was a serene autumn daybut the calm was broken by flocks of birds hurriedly flying by. Then, there was absolute silence, not a single leaf moving in the treetops. The wind was motionless, the sky cloudless. People stopped their chores to observe the sky, but nothing seemed to happen until, suddenly, the silence was broken by a tremendous uproar. The wind began to blow with terrifying force, it was almost impossible to stand, roofs were flying and trees lost all their leaves. In a few moments the sky turned dark, black as coal, and started raining with incredible strength. The water flowed at such speed that the earth had no time to evacuate it, so in just a few seconds the ground was covered with mud, and the water rose a foot. People ran for cover wherever they could but for many, it was impossible to move from where they were because if they’d tried they would have been dragged by the strong winds, making them roll in the mud. They had never faced anything like that, nor did the elders remember having seen or heard any legend that spoke of a similar event. The huge hillside under which the city was nestled began to slide, and the mud avalanche it created destroyed much of the town. Entire houses were buried underground, covered by tons of debris. There were people screaming and shouting everywhere perched on trees or on the roofs of the few houses that were still standing. Just as it arrived it disappeared. Soon the sun was in the sky again and exposed the damage of the catastrophic event. The survivors left their shelter and started looking for their relatives.

  No one had ever seen such destruction.

  What was the cause? Why did earth punish them this way? It took weeks to remove the bodies from the mud. Funerals lasted months and survivors were in constant mourning. Many left the city never to return, but misfortune seemed to follow them because no matter how far they went, no matter how much time it elapsed without knowing about such catastrophic event
s, these appearedsooner or later to beat them up again.

  About María

  María was a nervous, restless girl. Her mother used to say she was pure nerve. I guess that’s why she had such strange appearance - she was very skinny and her arms were so thin that it seemed that they were about to be detached from her body at any moment. Her hair, jet black, enhanced the colour of her eyes. She generally wore it short, sometimes she even shaved the back of her neck. Her eyes were bright, glittery, and full of emotions which, she transmitted with her gaze. Her face was long and had awell-defined chin and her large, wide mouth had fleshy lips with clearly profiled edges. Her dark complexion seemed lighter in contrast with her black hair. She looked tall due to her slim figure, but in reality she was only medium height. Her hands were not large, but they were elongated due to the shape of the fingers.

  María’s appearance greatly influenced her personality as her classmates continually laughed at herlanky physique. Her pilgrimage from doctor to doctor started at the age of twelve. They tried everything, including those special shakes that bodybuilders take but nothing would make her put on weight. She was healthy and strong, eating twice the amount her friends ate, but her body consumed a lot of energy because it couldn’t stay still for a moment.

  As she grew older, she stopped caring about what others thought of her. She became very unsociable and used to enjoy walking alone through the park. She liked winter, mainly because wearing so many clothes made her look normal and people did not notice her slenderness that much. She also enjoyed listening to the whistling wind and looking at the snow. When it did snow, she went out and danced glancing at the sky, feeling the fine snowflakes caressing her face.

  She always tried to be happy but sometimes she felt very lonely. On those occasions, she went out for a walk through the woods looking for a tree that seemed nice, usually a chestnut or walnut, and then she hugged it tightly closing her eyes and imagining she was part of that huge tree. She could spend hours imagining she was a tree, letting time go bywithout even noticing it, completely forgetting who she was.

  Once she totally lost track of time, and when she opened her eyes it was night. She had to run back home and on the way she felt rather embarrassed when she was stopped by a police car. Her mother, anxious about her absence, had asked the police to look for her, so the patrol car picked her up and took her home. The neighbours were gossiping from the windows of their homes and María felt ashamed. Her mother’s overprotection made her feel she was unable to care for herself and María did not like that, although she was only really upset she treated her like a little girl in front of others.

  Her mother punished her a week without leaving home. During that time, María stayed in her room reading tales of enchanted princesses and animals with magical powers. Although she was too old to believe in such stories, she loved them and continue to believe in them. While reading she liked to pause and imagine those magical worlds.

  Some say it is in little things one finds the greatest wonders and in the case of María, that was certainly true.She watched things that at first glance may seem insignificant in detail, but, upon closer inspection they opened her eyes to a wonderful world. Even the most insignificant insect has its little soul and its little personality. That’s something María noticed by observing ants, because although they all seem the same, some work harder than others, some are clumsy, and some are very clever. She was staring at a procession of ants marching towards the nest - most of them were were carrying leaves but some poor clueless creature transported any inedible thing it had found on the ground, and another smart antcomfortably laid on a leave being carried by another.

  María loved autumn as people started to dress in warm clothing. Moreover, in autumnthe forests dressed in colourful ropes, the tree tops seemed as thoughpainted by an Impressionist artist with a vastly assorted palette andthe earth was covered by colourful leaves that formed a vibrant mantlereminiscent of a Persian carpet. The evening light shaded the sky with amberhues, and the reflection on the leaves of the last rays of sun before setting down created a mysterious atmosphere that made her imagine she was in a dream, a dream in which a princess was walking through an enchanted forest.

  When the meadow finally filled with flowers, she loved spendinga lot of time playing games, weaving garlands of flowers. It was in those moments that María forgot the stress of her daily life. It was in those moments she spent alone that she felt at ease, she travelled to her own world, where everything had a special meaning, where every animal, every tree, even every stone had an immortal soul.

  She was very fond of reading. When the weather was not good she stayed in her room reading and when the weather improved she went out to read to the park or to the mountain where she imagined those legendary characters walking through the trees. María picked up and brought home all kinds of animals she found in the street, although her mother always scolded her and she had to leave them in the street again. Once she found a pigeon with a wing injured by a hunter’s shot. It was a light grey dove covered with black specks. Mary picked it up and took it home and asked her mother if she could keep it at home until it healed. She then bandaged the wing and left the animal on the terrace where she put a feeder and a special birdbath. Every morning she got up early and quickly went to see how the pigeon was doing. In the evening, as soon as she returned from school, she visited the pigeon again, and some days she read him stories out loud, stories she herself picked up at the library where she looked for tales of birds, adventurous and brave birds. She named it Sparky because the black specks on its light grey plumage stood out like sparks. One morning when she went to see Sparky, she came back crying to her mother and said:

  Mom!Mom, it's not there!

  Her mother said its wing had long been cured and it was time for the bird to be freed. The bird probably had its own family and should get back to them. María continued putting food and water in the terrace, but for a long time nothing happened, until one day, upon stepping into the terrace, she saw Sparky flying away after having eaten.

  Maria's father was tired of living in that town and they moved to a city on the other side of the country where according to her father, life would fare much better. In the new house’s kitchen there was a large old extractor, almost an industrial size extractor that didn’t quite match with the small size of the kitchen. Every day, as María's mother was cooking she found bird feathers in that kitchen, so one day she mentioned it to María. She placed a chair under the large extractor, climbed onto it and stuck her head inside try to see what was there. Then, she saw a bird, a dove, and immediately recognised Sparky. The animal had followed them across the country and had nested just above their kitchen.

  In summer, the city’s neighbourhoods took turns to celebrate their festivals which, legends had it, began thousands of years ago when the first men who farmed the harvest ended their tasks. Although she didn’t like crowds, the smell of cotton candy seduced her to the point that she forgot the massive concentration of people and cotton candy in hand, she walked happily among the colourful stalls of the merchants.

  Maybe working in a fair wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all, especially if you got to be the owner of the cotton candy stand.

  For María it was almost like a magic trick. The vendorbrushed the empty wooden stick around the container and this filled with cotton candy almost magically. The other thing she liked about the fair were those huge stuffed animals - she loved collecting soft toys and had kept a lot of them since childhood, although those she had at home were not as large as those you could see at the fair - these would occupy a good part of her room. Moreover, fairs had a certain medieval flair, as they were one of those things that barelyseemed to change over time.

  María had never been very lucky in the boys’ department, although this was something that never worried her because she had not found any that seemedthe least interesting. She had always expected to feel what they called a crush, love at first sight, but the truth is tha
t the years passed and with them, the hope that someday this might also happen to her. One day, as she was coming out of the library, she found a boy. Well, more than finding him, she bumped into him as María was flipping through her books and walking down the steps from the door of the library to the street without paying much attention. At first she did not notice anything strange, but when he helped her pick up the books and sawhiseyes up close, she felt something very special - that look was warm and sweet. It was a serene and tender look - she had never felt anything like that when looking at someone. She felt hot and cold at the same time and throughout her entire body. Surprisingly, she wanted to kiss his lips - what a stupid idea it seemed! But she did not care, the only thing she could think about was kissing those lips. She wanted that look to never cease studying her, that time stoppedstill forever and she was able to stay with him and stroke his face, put his hands on her skin and kiss his lips. But time didn’t stop and she gave the boy his books and asked forgiveness for having been so clumsy. María could not utter a single word and the poor fellow walked away. Then she reacted and said to herself in a low voice: “You cannot let him go” and when the boy was already far away, she began to run towards him without getting too close, keeping a distance so that he wouldn’t realiseshe was following him. After walking a while, he climbed the steps of a low house and entered it. María took the opportunity to approach the home and read the name in the mailbox. She repeated it out loud: Elías!