2000treize

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If I'm not too wrong the microprocessor of the skies turned suddenly into black with no reason, like so many things that happen with no reason, it was 2 pm.



I think it was on April or May of 2013, although cannot remember the exact day, it happened to me one too many years ago, when I still was reasonably young...you know, and old man like me usually forgets about certain details, especially when the nurse (a very attentive woman, be said) forgets to give me that infernal pill.
And by George! Only she knows how I need that chemical venom to keep myself going, if I hadn't those hellish pills, I probably couldn't even stand up and walk to the bathroom, would need diapers constantly, and fortunately I only need them to sleep.
Imagine: I couldn't even reach the bathroom in time to save my honour, and the clean dignity of my trousers, and that's very embarrassing for an old Englishman, you know.



But yes, I think it was in April
or June?
Erm, well: all I know is that the year was 2013, I am sure about that.
Yes, the skies became brusquely black, in the middle of a Spring day, I'm almost sure it was May.
Definitely the last days of May.



And as the skies turned into black, blacker than the mouth of a Pyrenean wolf, a powerful crack was heard coming from somewhere...yes, the sound was a crack.
A crack.



...Oh thank you Amanda...



this is the other medication, for the Parkinson, this bloody Hell keeps my hands quiet...
Amanda is very punctual -usually-, I would feel lost without her caring attention in this old and cold house, Alaistair.



Let me...just a sip of wattrr, to push...[glupbulg, gulp, gulupgulb]



That is, alright now, well...[cough, cough, heerrrrppp, ahem]
...as I was telling you, a strange crack was heard under those terrifying black skies, and at 2 pm! The horrid sound seemed to come from the eastern zone of London, I think that Stephen Hawking saw an UFO in that zone, or maybe was Alan Parker?
Well, the noise, the sound, it was as if the spine of a huge, a giant cockroach was broken in two...so vivid.



Then some other minor cracks were heard, and we realised the sound came from the sky...we were paralyzed there with my fiancee, in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, the daylight was virtually nonexistent at 2:12 pm, it was like a closed night on Endor, and the only illumination we had was the electronic advertisings of TDK and Sanyo, two so-called neon autotrols...the electricity of the city struggled to be turned on, but I think the whole electric structure of London was about to collapse for some reason...immediately, instinctively, we looked at the ground: my fiancee (Marla was her name), she released an agonic, almost inhuman scream of horror through her throat:
multitude of human faced locusts walked around our feet, locusts as big as kittens, whose faces were human...



I was too petrified in my panic to move a muscle, even to scream...every now and then one of these repügnant creatures stopped their random, maddening march, to observe us
to look to our eyes...
their long manes were red, it was like woman's hair...same as their faces
their eyes were undoubtedly human eyes, but lifeless. Big and lifeless red human eyes.
Eyes of man.



We soon realised these locusts, or whatever they were, not only were around us: they walked nervously over the whole Piccadilly Circus: their polished and green backs did shine under the tilting neon advertising of Coca-Cola, they copulated under the antinatural black firmament of the afternoon, copulated and creeped everywhere, on the statue of Eros, over the walls of the Criterion Theatre, on the columns of the London Pavilion, over the Shaftesbury Memorial...



in that very moment my fiancee lost her mind and escaped running, kicking and crushing the disgusting torsos under her Dr. Martens, shouting like a demented, and leaving me alone in that enigmatic and sad place.



I will confess something that you don't know, and that doesn't let me live in peace ever since. Like a knife in my heart, going deeper every day, slowly, extremely slowly, but every time deeper, every time hurting more
because I never saw her again since that day.



I searched for her everywhere, in London, all over Britain, in Ireland, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, all over the Americas. In Australia, New Zealand.
I appealed to the police, the internet...her family never saw her again, nobody.



I...



Never.



And, Alaistair, my friend: that's something that still hurts my heart...deep inside.
Deep down, too deep. Inside.



And I'm still prisoner of that incomprehensible absence, in my nightmares.
Every night of my life.






II.



Let me please taste a bit of this tea...[blurb ffrslurp]...



Amanda please! Could you bring us some hot tea, this is cold as Hell...



Hum [cough, crough, coff]...
as I was telling you, as far as my fiancee escaped from that painful place (I don't blame her, just miss her, AND probably I would have escaped too, if I had the grit), my stare was automatically redirected to the adjacent streets, to behold with sadness the infernal panorama: the big insects offered a spectacle that was worthy of a Velazquez painting: like a neverending, green river, filling evry street at sight, their green loins copulated and walked hysterically by Shaftesbury Avenue, Coventry Street, Great Windmill, Regent Street, Haymarket...all the streets and avenues that my eyes could see, around Piccadilly Circus, were like green rivers of locusts...for a moment I thought that they were growing: I fixed my eyes on several of them and observed them minutely, but soon I discarded this idea.
I should have escaped when my fiancee did it, but I couldn't, my legs didn't respond me, something paralyzed me, tied me to that place where I was...my wristwatch indicated 2:30 pm, when I realized that I was the only human around.



An increasing nausea assaulted my chest and mÿ bräïn in the exact moment when I noted that the insects were actually growing at prodigious velocity: several looked now as big as adult cats, while others around still kept their first size, like little kittens.



They emitted a mysterious noise, a sort of hum, mixed with unknown proto-vocables, like rudimentary and screeched words, full of sibilant consonants:
a violent vomit ascended through my chest, and was expelled through my mouth like an abundant jet, splashing the green loins of the closest locusts, which now shined like the moon of Hell on a lake where the demons torture human souls. Is then when I couldn't stand it anymore, and started running.



I ran through the avenues and the streets, unnamed for my eyes, streets without name for my desperation, crushing and kicking locusts on my way to...to nowhere. Crushing their nauseating torsos under my shoes, because they were everywhere...on my run I appeared suddenly in front of the Westminster Palace: the Big Ben was a solid and green obelisk now, the clock was totally covered by the intriguing animals...like a flash, two white helicopters appeared, cutting the skyline as if it were black cellophane, and started discharging fat tongues of fire on the tower of the clock, on the Westminster Palace, and on the bridge.



My eyes observed with terror a thick sheet of carbonised locusts in flames floating on the Thames, when the most sinister of the moons appeared dancing over the river, like a spherical and lonely tyrant in the middle of the sky.



The whitest moon that my eyes ever have seen. And never will see again.



And in the moon, a sign, and under the sign, two numbers.



In the exact moment when I tried to read the numbers, I woke up.









During one or two seconds, right before my awakening, I am sure I heard a couple of words close to my ears.
They were like the locusts words, but much more clear.
Much, much more clear, although incomprehensible.






Out on the street, the morning was sunny and dry.






Since that day, I din't see Marla anymore.













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