Christian Lisboa is born in Chile, lives in Santiago, and is electronic engineer. Works on analytic instruments and knows
therefore about installing, training, maintenance and calibration . In his scarce free tie, he writes what he sees, hears and
feels, what he does since high school times.
Spring of 2024: Edipo’s waking up
My mother sobbed with one eye while she watched me angrily with the other.
- You can't have changed that much, Rael - she said -. After so many years of telling me that you would never leave
your independence, that never a woman could never tie you down, and that your pathway was too well drawn to be changed
by feelings.
-That isn't the point, ma - I'd told her - I will not change my path. She understands that, and she accepts it.
- You don't understand anything - my mother moaned -. Those are only words. In fact, you will probably remain here forever,
working for her just to be near her. And all of your dreams will finish here. What about being the hero? What about being
the astronaut, the investigator, or the space engineer?
- Mother, you exaggerate. Don't confuse the dreams of a boy with the projects of a man. All of my projects, from before I
even met Sue, are still going...,
and I will fulfill them, don't doubt it.
- Yes - she sobbed again, -when you are fifty years old. When you are old, like me. When you will watch with fear the time
to come.
- I am not going to watch the time to come with fear. Rather, I will watch it come like a blessing. Actually,
you should be thankful for your life, instead of feeling so bitter and illusion-less about it.
- Illusions, ha - she said in sarcastic tone -. Is that a joke or have you forgotten what happened with your father?
Where are you living, Rael, in the pink cloud of your geisha?
- Don't call her a geisha. Excuse me, but I think that you are too intelligent to center your life in your relation
with my father. I love you both too much, but if you needed to separate in order to be happy, you should have done it.
- Now you tell me that, when I gave everything to you, you and your brothers. What would have come of you with divorced
parents?
- Perhaps I would have been more than a sacrifice, mother. Perhaps I would care less about material things and work.
And perhaps I would have more normality, and less drama.
She returned to sob, and she didn't tell me anything else.
- Excuse me - I said -, but I don’t want to hurt you. The truth is that I don't know what I would have done in your
position. Maybe I would have done the same as you. I don't know, but it doesn't make sense talking about the past.
It can't be changed. But we were talking about Su. The fact is that I love her as I’ve never loved a woman before,
and I want to share my life with her.
- Are you going to marry her? - She said, scared.
- I don't know yet - I told -. In fact, marriage doesn't matter to me. But I want to live with her. I want to share my
mornings and my nights with her. Does that sound so bad?
- I did not say that it is bad…only that it's limiting.
- Ok, that's your position and I can't change it. I will only say that I think it will be good for me to live with her
and it would be terrible for me if I didn’t do it, for whatever reason.
- If that’s the way it is, go ahead. I'll say nothing else, or you will blame me for it later when you are unhappy.
- I would never would blame you, mother. I think that the people make their own decisions, and shape their own destinies.
In order to make a decision I must be strong and firm in judging adverse opinions, without causing hurt to anyone.
- But you are hurting me now, Rael! - She sobbed again.
- Mother, I'm sorry, but that's only your opinion. Perhaps if your relation with father had been better, your opinion
would not be so pessimistic now. With time, you will understand.
- I doubt it - she said -, but I can't do anything else. It isn’t that I have something against Su, that's beside the
point. I believe that she's a good person, and that she loves you. But that is irrelevant because things change when
you live together, and I don’t want to see you suffer.
- Suffering is part of life - I said -. It's not possible to be loved without undergoing something. It isn't possible
not to sacrifice something to obtain what we want. You taught me that. Don’t you believe it now?
- Don't ask me to accept that, my son. I will only say to you: do what you want and I hope the best for you, like always.
Autumn of 2028: Sísifo gets tired
I don't know when I began to hate her. Nor do I remember why. Perhaps there were things that always were present
that I had just failed to notice. Or perhaps it was something that made her change. But anyway, it was something
very subtle. For example, in all of her conversations, she began with: “did you this?”, or “did you do that?” I
waited for "how are you doing?", or, "hello, my love". But I can’t remember if this was a change, or if it had always
been this way.
Another thing is the food. What I eat, it always is unhealthy. What she eats is so few. In fact, I've never understood
how she can live by eating such a small amount of food. All she eats are a few fruits, water, mineral salts and vitamins
that she buys in natural food stores. Only a few times I have seen her drinking a glass of milk. "Synthesis", she says
to me, laughing. "Don’t you know that the plants make photosynthesis? Am I better than the plants?" I have asked to her
when she began to eat like this, but she doesn't answer to me. Or she says, "Always, darling. And it is because of my eating
that I stay healthy. And don't you want to be healthier? "
Furthermore, she is the perfect housekeeper. She returns home from work only a half an hour before me, and by the time I
get home, I don't understand how, the house is organized, freshly clean, and decorated with smell of Su. In the kitchen,
there is always a casserole, or a pot with some of my favorite meals is cooking. Not to mention, the teapot is full of
hot water, and the cups are neatly waiting on the table. What’s more is that I that I don't need to say what clothes
I need for the following day, because I will find them already waiting in the closet, and…, she is too much for me.
I don't know her partners at job, nor her job. I've only seen the outside of her "Security Systems” building.
(-“I can't tell you more, because of security reasons”- she tells me). Supposedly, her job is a type of bureau
job. When I attempt to find out more about it, Su turns terminates the conversation immediately. - Don't hide details
from me -, I tell her. - What does my wife doing during ten hours daily?
- Papers - she tell me, without disturbing herself-. I classify information; I enter data in the computer. So boring.
What more do you want to know, Rael? The details of each paper I enter in the data base? That's exactly what I can't
tell you. Security.
- Su, all the married people talk about the daily life. They talk about their lunches, their labor problems, their
confrontations with their bosses, and their relation with the coworkers. What does that have to do with security?
You know everything about my job. You know the factory, and the machines that I repair. You know all my coworkers;
you have even met my boss. We have gone out to dinner with them!
- Is my company not enough for you? - She asks, adopts an innocent look. -My coworkers are only that, they aren't my
friends. You are my friend...
I've gotten to think the most absurd things. For months, I thought that Su was a spy, under the service of some
foreign country, pretending to be an innocent secretary in an information company, while she copies thousands of
classified documents for a country planning to attack us. Or for a country that copies our technology. After all,
what do I know about Su? Her family left her when she was a little girl, she grew in a home for orphaned children,
(that I know it since she took to me to know the place where she played, when she was a child). I have seen her baby
pictures on the walls, and I can't deny the similarity she has with that small girl with crooked teeth and contagious
laughter.
But still…, what happened to the adult Su? After she left the orphanage, and finished High School, she began working as
a waitress while she studied to become a secretary. And then, while she looked for a professional practice she found “the
great opportunity” Security Systems, which became the black hole that absorbed her, hiding all that she is to the outside
world…including me.
Winter of 2028: Orestes taken
I'm afraid. I feel that everything that I knew about Su is nothing. She is not a spy; she is not a terrorist
preparing a secret attack. Instead, it is something much more terrible, something that I don't understand. If I
said this to a friend, he would think I was hallucinating. I can’t even think about going to the police.
Something incredible happened yesterday: Su was cooking, cutting vegetables with a sharp knife, when I
interrupted her to ask her if she needed anything from the supermarket. She glanced up to answer me while she
kept cutting the vegetables, and I told her: -Be careful!-, fearing that she would cut herself. Yet my shout was
exactly the thing that frightened her. In an instant she lost her grip on the carrot, and she sliced her forefinger
with the edge of the knife. I rushed to help, but she moved away, repeating several times "it was only an accident",
while she took the finger to the mouth to contain the hemorrhage. It was then when I saw it. It was only one
quick vision, only colors…, the finger did not bleed. In the place of the wound, I saw little lines, very fine,
of diverse colors, like thin cables of plastic material. I was so confused that I couldn't to say or to do anything.
I don't know if Su observed my disturbance. Who was Su? Who could I trust now? Were there more people like Su at
her job? Was her boss just is like her?
I must face it. I must know the truth. But, what she will do if I discover her, if my fears are reality? Surely she will
kill me; she can't risk the truth being exposed.
Today I didn't go to work. The telephone has rung three times, and finally the last time I answered it, and it was my boss.
I'd told him that I felt really sick, and that I would return to work tomorrow.
I have analyzed this many times. I don't have a way out. I am caught, like a hamster, running in the wheel of his cage.
I feel more threatening as the minutes pass. Outside, it is already dark. The long shadows of the trees are mixed with
the darkness of the pavement. The sky is sinister blue, and the moon hasn’t appeared yet. Su must be finishing working…she
will be home soon…
I have plugged in all the wires and cables that I found around the house, forming a trap between the main door and
the dormitory. I connected them to the extension cord in the first outlet in the wall of the living-room. 220 volts.
Any person who enters the house will suffer an electric shock (unless the energy is cut).
Moreover, I unplugged the all of the lamps in the entryway, so it will be impossible to see the cables.
Su, I'm sorry. I don't know what to do. I am terrified, hidden like a mouse in the closet of the bedroom that we have
shared by four years. In a few more minutes everything will be over. Tomorrow I will have to lie and pretend that there w
as an accident. The electrical stove has a loose cable. The trap is set. I do not want to die. I do not want to die.
I listen for steps. A click. It will be…
Fínale: Láquesis, Átropos
Su opened the door smoothly, like always. She got in and didn't switch on the lights, she didn't need it. She was
alone, it wasn't necessary to act as if she required them. She detected four alternate voltage lines crossed in her
pathway. In principle it looked incomprehensible to her, but in two seconds she processed the information available
and she concluded that it was a trap. She thought about grounding herself, in order to avoid a short circuit, but she
found the trap easy to avoid. She easily adjusted the cables, lowering the voltage to less of one volt, and scanned the
room. She walked silent by the corridor, avoiding the cables until her infrared detector got an aggressive thermal
emission coming from the interior of the bedroom, from the closet. She opened the door of the bedroom so smoothly,
that her own sound sensor caught failed to register the click of the door. And then, a small red light, smaller than
an ant, more careful than a snake, but loaded with the laser energy of thousand suns, peeked its way into the closet.
Christian Lisboa is born in Chile, lives in Santiago, and is electronic engineer. Works on analytic instruments and knows
therefore about installing, training, maintenance and calibration . In his scarce free tie, he writes what he sees, hears and
feels, what he does since high school times.