Lágrima antigua

The mocha river and the greenish glow behind the chemical company was our playground.

In our imagination, we were explorers on a new planet, seeking for new species that we carried back home inside mayonnaise jars.

Should've known better then, I wouldn't be dead.

>“Your transport has been delayed.”

>“The cyberattack has been executed. Our cover is about to be exposed.You've guaranteed our evacuation before the invasion begins.”

>“You must be patient. The invasion has been postponed. That would be all. Good luck. Over.”

One morning when I was a little boy lost in reverie, I saw an old man in a vintage mirror. Although I could see the man talking to me, I couldn't hear what he was saying. 

Today, I saw myself as a boy in the same mirror, and I knew what I was missing then. I knew.

In the room, a table, and on it, a tumbled glass. Meaningless melancholy for the untrained eye. 

But then I found the paper boat. I saw in it a desire, the hope for a better future, and an invitation. 

It was a clue left for my eyes only, one that I must follow.

After the explosion, I woke up on the lab's floor, a wet substance was thumping my forehead, a dripping tap. Soon after, the dripping pace slowed down, drops stopped in the air, and then reversed their path.

Somehow, time reversed for me since ever since.

“Turn out the lights,” a rasping voice said. “Time has not been kind to me; my skin is wrinkled, and my will has waned long ago.”

“I seek for your wisdom, not your beauty, old man.”

“Fine. That is my only virtue that has improved with the pass of time.”

Sliding was one way to go, so she pushed forward the sled, dragging me with her just when the whiteout got worse. 

Soon after, I sensed danger, a cliff ahead. Scared, I jumped to one side.

She went down laughing hysterically. That was the last time I heard her voice.

Hiding behind a tick white mask of makeup, lies a man without a past and with no future for his own. Once he was a fiddler in a metal hospital whose only duty was to entertain the boarding patients, today he is broadly known as 'Blueberry the clown.'

The impassible labor force we had created to easy the colonization effort, built this stone city for us. Once the finished, they halted their functions and went into hibernation. When we arrived, centuries after, the workforce was obsolete, so we recycled them humanly.

My daughter was holding my hand at the hospital. Somber faces surrounded me in my last hour, some of them looked sad, others seemed tired of waiting for my demise. Next thing I remember, I was standing in front of this lugubrious cliff. Finally, I was free.

The border patrol has been busy since the new administration seized control.

Arjun, the beleaguered boy who thought possible a new life, was sitting among a menagerie of illegal aliens.

“What have you done?” the green asked.

“I was caught following a mirage.”

“Same here.”

It happened without warning just when I turned that corner. 

The sound of a bandoneon out of tune, the aroma of ripe fruits coming from the street vendors, the stalled air trapped between crumbling streets, all of that aroused memories of her.

At the border between arousing fantasies and repressed guilt, I could not focus on my story.  

Hopeless, I went out to watch how the pigeons and elderly people find solace in each other in the nearby park.  

It was then when I met Veronica.

In a twilight of a dream, Alice learned that the world she was living in was not real. A gateway to the place where she was born could be opened but only from the other side.

Daring to cross that portal would mean finding happiness or sadness, same as staying here.