Conflict and territory

The boy breathes with difficulty, he is afraid in spite of his exacerbated bravery, he had never before gone so far away, and even less alone. He crouches down, aware that if he is discovered it will be the end, but an animal impulse governs his actions. A noise from behind makes him turn fearful, relieved he discovers that it is his people who seem to take positions. With learned gestures they communicate how and when to act. They tighten their grip on the song that each of them carries in their hands, their touch reconciles them and gives them audacity. Victor stands up and they all, all at once, rush forward emitting bloodcurdling growls and hurling their stones at the helpless members of the other tribe. Everything happens very fast, those who are not finished off on the ground try to flee, the children follow in their footsteps, but fall quickly.

The boy and his kind are proud, their excessive body language shows it, they have no more tribes to subdue, but they have the whole Earth to conquer. A fleeting moment in his primal thought 125,000 years ago.

Victor, as the great-great-great-descendant of the ambushed boy is called, gets off the boat full of joy, he can feel the astonished looks of his former neighbors as he walks. In this small Cantabrian town things have hardly changed, at least that’s what he thinks after 19 years of making a fortune in Cuba. In the tavern he asks for orujo, the old waiter recognizes him, he used to work with his grandfather mowing, he remembers him, he greets him with affection. 

Victor withdraws impassively, kills the drink and hurries, he has an appointment with his lawyer to finalize all the purchases. In the office he is persuaded not to sign the sale of the cannery, 39 families are left in the street, he does not make the slightest gesture of commiseration, he is even irritated by the reproach. He closes other transactions and goes to see the land where he will build his new house. There, a married couple and two children of about eleven years old break their backs digging potatoes and greet him with reverence when they see him. A third child, who is just learning to walk, crawls up to Victor and grabs him by the pants with the joy of one who glimpses a new face. The Indian, with a natural shake, gets rid of the little boy and, looking at the horizon, tells the couple that they have until dawn to harvest the entire crop. First thing tomorrow morning a gang will weed the land until it is barren.

The connection is terrible, Arina is typing nervously and the autocorrect is driving her crazy. The last time she spoke to her brother was seven hours ago, she knows that they were barricaded together waiting for orders to storm the factory, but in this time everything has happened. He remembers perfectly well the day Taras graduated in medicine, he also remembers his mother’s dejection when she told him that he was enlisting as a medic in the army. Taras taps his cell phone insistently, looks up to share his protest with a colleague when a brutal explosion envelops everything in a blinding flash. Arina, crestfallen, walks towards the refugee office, her phone locks and the screen goes blank. She stops dead in her tracks, notices two children playing in the distance and nervously starts laughing loudly until she falls plummeting to the snowy ground.

Curated by Fosi Vegue