Reality is always lurking, get it wrong
and you will know it
Anonymous
Life always smiled on Ruben, a normal growth prevented him from ending up as a scapegoat in school and he happily participated against those who were different and alone. When he grew up, without being very intelligent or attractive, he got a well-paid job and a wife with no major pretensions. Once a week they made love, and as a result of this periodic affection they had three children. In his 40 years of life the only outstanding emotions were the anxiety of waiting for the new confrontation between the titans of his favorite sport on a Saturday night and after the game (no matter who won) he would go to a bar for beers to return home happy and content in the wee hours of the morning, rest the rest of the day to discuss the match with friends on Monday with his smile of satisfaction. With such a stable happiness it was not surprising that the discoveries in his life went unnoticed, as long as the prices of consumer goods did not increase he was a happy employee.
As he rode through the streets of magnetic transport he felt interest in floating as with houses with anti-quake foundations; if his slider ran on bamboo he would be indifferent, he had transportation, his children were healthy and were doing well in school. If Japan was still at war, it was all the same to him; if his country had requested new loans from abroad... well, it always did, in short, he was the perfect example of the average Mexican thinking.
As he walked through the colony, even with the congestion on the
people's gangs, he felt moderately optimistic. He knew his house needed no maintenance, he had no enemies at work, no registered lovers with his wife... If only he could afford a sexual escapade, but she would have used him as an excuse to date someone else.
The house, like all in the area was relatively large. Duraplex allowed for more than two stories with walls no more than two centimeters thick; theirs, ovoid in shape allowed for up to five people comfortably ensconced. Ruben could complain about how much he was discounted per week, but nothing cheered him up more than when he saw his house so different from the others. Let them show off their airlift," he would say to himself from time to time, "no one has a house to their liking like I do.
He had made an art out of routine: arriving home, the cold, calculated kiss for his children; a hug and a slightly warmer kiss for his wife, answering with a gesture the obligatory questions in the family (How did it go? Where are we going on vacation?, etc.). She doesn't understand what he said with that face movement. He probably doesn't know it himself, it's a ritual they've been doing for years, a way of saying what they don't dare, but up to that point, there was nothing else to do.
He took a seat in front of the tri-tv, which had three years of life left in it and still looked great. He was not interested in all the new brands and innovations; he did not plan to change it in spite of his family's insistence because it was a very heavy and quite unnecessary expense, but he knew that if his wife was stubborn he would end up giving in... Can't he see that it is too heavy to pay the monthly payments? That the prices keep going up?... That maybe it is too much voluntary indebtedness? While these thoughts were going through his mind, his hand, obeying an unconscious signal, a product of years of habit, took the remote control and turned on the sports channel. The event had not yet started, but there were already commentators and reports, images that were scrolling through the room, making him forget his thoughts. After all, we only live once," he said to himself, "it doesn't matter if you die. Debts are not paid by your children and they can finish the race, yes, it doesn't really matter.
The game started at exactly 8:00 pm, by that time only the beers in the fridge and the one waiting in his lap mattered. In the evening he and his wife would use the new impersonator; there was a character in that sexual fantasy simulator that transformed in appearance and behavior a bored wife for a Latina maid (which was the reason for the purchase). At first he was a little afraid to buy it, people would buy that to make their partners who they were not. However his wife, despite loving her very much (as he often reminds her) knew her very well... "It's important to keep the flame" the commercial read. The reverie was interrupted by a yellow screen, which was strange, since the match was being held on green field. In those instants a siren howls heavily and as he took off his hearing sensors he felt the fear... the whole room smelled of panic, his children crying and his wife hysterical; as he turned his eyes to the projection area there was a simple legend:
"Attention citizens of Temixco, there is a leak of contaminants in the Renovax chemical plant, to prevent these contaminants from leaving the Zapata industrial park, an incendiary bombing will be carried out in all surrounding areas; we thank our employees for their sacrifice and for their loyalty to the company they will be remembered."
End of transmission.
His family runs and hugs him, they hear the planes and feel the silence broken by the howling of the siren and the bombs that fall. By the weeping of 730 families and by a restrained oath of Ruben, who had bet 1000 on the match and 500 that the personifier was useless.