ARMAGEDDON

Why am I writing this? I know how it
started but I can’t say how it finished.

Is this the most important
moment for humankind? All of these questions come to my mind now that
I’m going back to the primordial matter, and I will cease to be me.

 
Having been many things that start and finish in a moment, I wonder if
I will I be something now that I’m about to end.

I hear shouts
in the streets, hallucinated words, the crying of the dying and drunk
men singing.

I had never seen or heard anything like that and I will
never do again. Everything started in a simple way.

It had been a day
like any other, when workmen went to work, wearing their overalls and
their packed lunches.

They did something they call work where you move
your fingers and muscles until the clock on the wall tells them to stop.

Rising
on a side and going down the other, nobody noticed the sun. Primitive
man worshiped it, the Inca made a toast of chicha from the highest
points in the Andes, while some others offered the flesh and hearts of
men.

Our father sun had decided to eliminate us, perhaps because he
didn’t have any more chicha and hearts. He would leave our toasted
ashes in the cosmic cloud, as a reminder of the children of the sun.

On
that particular day, the news traveled fast everywhere. I had just got
dressed, when the radio program was interrupted. Someone said:
“Attention! Attention! Extra! Extra!!! Extra!!!”

I thought they wanted to sell soap for washing clothes.

“…northern
lights in all regions, including the tropics. Several observatories
around the world have tried to explain the phenomenon as a dense fog
has descended over the earth, and the seas have receded. We’ll keep you
informed of any more developments.”

Wondering about the northern
lights, I heard some more news while cutting my sausages. A plane had
fallen down in the sea and a coach full of football fans had crashed in
the mountains.

The maid appeared by my side, looking worried.
“You must see this,” she said.

On
opening a window, I noticed dense fog in the street. The neighbouring
houses had disappeared, while shadows moved within the clouds like lost
angels, and cars drove slowly in the whiteness enveloping the world.

I
had not paid much attention to the news that morning, but as the maid
went back to her duties I listened to the radio again. I would look for
the northern lights in the internet before leaving for my job.

The
local television station had been put together with the national radio
as the world had never seen anything like that. Switching on the TV, I
saw the presenter in a studio full of people.

“We bring you
information about the rare things happening to the world,” he said.
“Fog has invaded the country, and airplanes have been declared in
emergency. We don’t know what has happened to them.”

I saw total
chaos everywhere, as motorists crashed with each other in the harsh
conditions, and then I noticed lights amidst the clouds.

I had
forgotten all about my breakfast as I heard the news again.The White
House had declared the USA in state of emergency and rumors circulated
that a terrorist had planned the whole thing.

As I saw the
lamp in the lounge moving, I thought something had to be wrong but the
presenter kept on talking. I had to go to my job, but all of this talk
about lights in the sky might be a perfect excuse to stay at home.

“Attention,” the presenter said. “We have just had a small tremor. Attention!”

As
I left my chair, I had to hold the table to keep my stability. It had
to be trembling again. After I managed to go outside, I heard people
screaming, clouds of dust rising in the air.

As the floor moved, I stumbled out of the room, tripping on a cord and
landing on my face.

I can’t recall those intense moments when I cried
for my life amidst the cataclysm. Cracks appeared on the floor while
the earth shook forever, but then the earthquake stopped, leaving
everything in silence.



After struggling to my feet, I saw a city reduced to dust. The screams
had died out, my feet faltered on the mud, and my nose bled. I found
the radio on the floor.

I must have dropped it there when I had run for
my life an eternity ago. After switching it on, I heard only static or
perhaps it didn’t have any more stations.



People full of mud, wandered the streets like zombies lose on the
earth. Blood stained my clothes and my left arm hurt.

 
As I tried to
stop the flow of blood with a handkerchief, a naked woman ran by my
side, sagging breasts full of dirt, tears running down her face.



“I must find my baby,” she said.



I saw people roaming the streets, with no memory of that life they had
lived before. Feeling dizzy, I sat on a boulder with the radio in my
hands, hoping to wake up from my nightmare. A voice interrupted my
reverie.



“Here H.K.5 A.C.1….H.K.5 A.C.1…Attention! Attention! A terrible
earthquake has destroyed most of the city of Palmira. Attention! We
must mobilize all the help available: firemen, police, the army,
doctors and nurses. Attention! This is an urgent call…



“Hello! Hello! We’ve received your message H.K.5. A.C.1. Here is H.K.9.
D.G.U. here, H.K.9 D.G.U. The quake has destroyed most of the city of
Cali and we are the only human beings left around here. Attention! We
ask everybody to help the cities of Cali and Palmira….



“Attention! Attention! This is voice Bogotá. We are using the equipment
we managed to salvage from the tragedy. Attention all the country.

The
capital has been destroyed by an earthquake. Attention! I repeat.
Bogotá has been destroyed by a quake and we need urgent help.”



I listened to requests for help from all parts of the country while
people moved in a trance. Another woman went past me with a dead child
in her arms.

Crying and laughing at the same time, she left a trace of
blood on the floor,as the radio presenter spoke.

The sea had flooded
most of the coastal areas of the world, changing the maps of many
countries.

People moving between the cameras, as everyone talks at the same time,
and a man with big glasses looks at the screen in front of him. One of
his colleagues appears with a notebook.



“The sun is having hiccups,” he says.


Pushing back invisible strands of hair, Antonio studies the
graphics where a sun full of flares looks at them from the darkness of
space. He listens to his headphones for a few moments.



“It’s time for the news,” he says.



As Antonio sits in front of the cameras, the studio lights up ready for an audience hungry for news.

“Good morning,” he says. “Our sun seems to have more energy that its
size requires, causing the fog and the lights in the sky we have seen
this morning.”



The camera shows a row of cars lining the road and disappearing amidst
the fog, as a few people argue with each other in the rain. A fight
starts between two men by a small blue car, but after punching each
other a few times, they go back to their vehicles with sore faces.



“It is raining in Bogotá,” Antonio says. “Attention! An electric storm
has developed over the city, with rain and hale.”


The camera cuts to the lights dancing amidst the fog as hail falls
over the city.

Moving through the blanket of mist, people try to get
away from the sea, while a picture of the sun fills the screen, large
flares shooting out into space.

Antonio’s voice interrupts the drama.



“Attention,” he says. “Mount Palomar has photographed the eruptions taking place within the sun.”


More images of the sun adorn the screen, flames reaching towards
the planets threatening to finish with the solar system.

The camera
cuts back to the reporter standing in the road, where the cars have
started to move.



“It is still raining,” he says. “But we’re driving away now.”



The cars move down the road, thunder echoing around them, as the fog
gives an air of unreality to the scene. A few people dance in the back
of a truck oblivious to all the problems in the world. The camera cuts
to Antonio reading the news.


“Similar things have been reported all over the continent,” he
says. It’s five o’clock in the morning in Hawaii, where the auroras
have been a beautiful spectacle. We can’t waist any time with
commercials. We’re making contact with radio Barranquilla. Attention!"



A thin man appears in a studio filled with people and confusion.

“This is Barranquilla, transmitting for the national television. We
have seen terrible things amidst the fog, as trucks and buses full of
people wait for the traffic to move. We ask everyone to be calm.”



The camera cuts to another studio, where a man sits by a picture of the sun and a table full of books.



“This is central station in Barranquilla,” he says. “Everyone wants to go away from the sea.”

 
After joining a rescue group, we went around the streets looking for
survivors amidst rivers of mud. A man, blood pouring down his face,
laid buried behind a wall.



“I want my family,” he said.



Looking at the rubble on the floor, we didn’t know whether they were
alive. We made a stretcher using several sheets we had found nearby and
took him to the makeshift clinic erected in a corner.

Naked people
surrounded us, their souls destroyed by the tragedy, while a woman
shouted obscenities before collapsing on the floor and a child searched
for his left ear amidst the rubble.



As everyone drank aguardiente, a group of people congregated around a
fire, ghosts from another age when the sun had loved us.

I moved about
the corpses clinging to life in spite of their wounds, covered with
rags other people had thrown on their bodies as they waited for death
to come.



I found a room left intact after the earthquake, where I sat at a table
to write my account of the terrible things that had happened, while
someone talked in the radio.

A small mountain had formed between the
cities of Palmira and Cali and the capital of the republic had been
completely destroyed. New York, Florida and Mexico had also vanished
but they didn’t know much about Europe.



I wanted to have my old world back where the sun never played tricks
with us. Feeling cold and wet, I dozed amidst the rubbish and saw giant
suns exploding,while seas of blood drowned the city.

The rays of the
sun drifted through a window when I opened my eyes later.

At first I
thought I had dreamed the whole thing, but then I noticed the muddy
walls and felt cold. Someone talked on the radio.



“…Ibague has been almost totally destroyed. Here are the names of the victims we have identified up to now…”

I was hungry. After leaving my refuge, I saw naked and muddy people
looking for bodies in the ruins with rudimentary tools, as drunken men
sang.

After drinking aguardiente, a man had fallen unconscious inside a
coffin, where he snored oblivious to everything.



Someone had found a radio and a few people danced at the sound of
music, while shouting: hurray to death. A beautiful girl offered me a
drink from a bottle of gin she had in her hand.



“Drink, comrade,” she said, pushing the bottle against my teeth. “This
is the end of the world. Can you see that rubble? That is where my
family died. I only heard a knock: Bang! And then it finished. Drink
comrade. Drink! UUUUUIIPPPAAA!!!”



As a tall man put a gun to his mouth before pulling the trigger, I saw
his brains pouring out of his head.

Then a woman shot herself in the
heart with his gun. Bodies burned on fires in a field, their faces
crying for the end of humankind, while I moved down the road, wishing
to wake up from the nightmare.



“Won’t it stop raining?” someone asked.



“I’m hungry,” I said.



I ate a piece of bread he had given me, even if it tasted funny. Then I
saw the shadows.

Some of them prayed aloud while carrying something
resembling a saint in their arms.

I went singing with a group of
people, as vultures looked at us amidst dead bodies and someone
shouted: “Hurray to the vultures.”



We all shouted: “hurray to the vultures.”



The animals remained indifferent to our suffering. I missed my family
and my mother.

I wanted to tell her about the terrible things happening
to us but she had to be buried under the rubble. I cried for myself,
for humankind and the end of life.

The voice in the radio interrupted my reverie.



“Scientists think our star might explode as a nova. The word means new,
because stars appear in the sky, where nothing was there before. We
have an alarm to transmit all over the world if this is true. You must
go to a secure place when we give the alarm.



After we give instructions in different languages through the radio,
you will have seven minutes to find somewhere safe, and lie down with
your head on the floor far from rivers and buildings. We will say over
the radio and in all languages: We have seven minutes.



“Attention” Attention! We have some more news. Attention! Orbital
observatories and artificial satellites have been destroyed. Mercury,
the closest planet to the sun has exploded, according to some
Australian observatories. We repeat the latest news: Mercury has broken
in a thousand pieces. One of these fragments might come close to earth
according to calculations.



“Our orbit around the sun has suffered some changes. The moon over
Australia is much bigger. We believe our satellite has come closer to
us.



“Attention! Attention! You’re listening to the Spanish speaking radio
for the whole world. The planet must listen to us, as we transmit this
alarm: We have seven minutes. We must get ready in seven minutes to lie
down in a safe place. If you follow these instructions, we will have
fewer victims.”



I hoped the seven minutes never came or the sun stopped playing games
with us. A man listened to the news by my side, his face full of mud
and blood.



“What will you do in the last seven minutes of your life?” he asked.



“I don’t know,” I said.



We talked about the sun, life and death as time went past, bringing us
closer to the end. Then we moved with a crowd of people looking for
somewhere to survive the seven minutes.



“I had a shop, where I made lots of money,” he said.



I smiled. We had been something else in that other world an eternity
ago.

We moved through fields full of people dressed in rags, but after
a lorry stopped, several men delivered food and water to the crowd.

ate a panela but my companion had a mango, its juice running down his
clothes



“It’s nutritious,” he said.



Thick clouds stopped us from seeing the sun as a couple of teenagers
made love by the body of a dead dog. No one cared about the seven
minutes anymore.

Someone played a drum, while an old man wearing a
white sheet moved at the rhythm of the music. A mother explained to her
small son about the complexities of time.



“What happens after seven minutes then? He asked.



They burned human bodies in a nearby field, the smoke rising to the
sky.

After lying down on the floor, I tried to ignore the smell of burning flesh, wondering how long we had to wait before the end of
humankind.

The sound of music drifted around us, as naked people moved
through the camp, their souls dead to the world.



People looked like ghosts with their torn clothes and dirty faces. The
sound of drums reminded me of a pop festival, where everyone had gone
mad.

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