A Man With a Biological Pump in His Chest

A Man With a Biological Pump in His Chest                                  

by Avelino Benavides

Richard Thompson woke up drenched in sweat. He felt something inside his chest pumping and thumping violently. He was very scared. Never ever before he had felt something like that.
He placed his right hand on his left breast and in the silence of the night he stood still sitting on his bed listening. He realized that whatever was inside him, it had a rhythm.  He could feel it in his head, on his hand, and soon realized it was making noise too.
He thought of rushing to the hospital.  “Call an ambulance?” he wondered.  “Maybe wait a few hours and take the first train.” He could not make up his mind. He stood still for an hour feeling and listening, feeling and listening to the thing inside his thorax.
He calmed himself down and decided he would wait for the morning since there was no pain whatsoever. It was only the unusual feeling of something beating inside his chest.
He tried to conceive sleep without luck at first. He had always been a good sleeper, but this time his mind was flooded with thoughts and feelings.  He had mixed emotions and contradictory feelings about pretty much everything and everyone. He could not stop thinking over and over on the minute details of every thing that happened to him the previous day. The last thing in his mind was the pumping inside his body. After a few hours he finally fell asleep.

Richard Thompson was the only son of Samuel Thompson and Judith Cohen. They had passed away ten years ago. He was alone in the world, but not lonely. He had grown up alone and loneliness was something he had become comfortable and familiar with, like pair of tough leather shoes worn for many years. Like all children his age, his parents, grand parents and numerous generations before him, a team of specialists in a group of 11 children raised him. Upon till he was 18 he never met anyone else but his parents, the specialists and his classmates. He was specially shy and reclusive. During breaks he vehemently refused to chitchat with the other children or to talk to an adult without being spoken to first. All of that behavior came naturally, and far from alarming anyone it gave a clear indication of his personality and how he could contribute to society. Months before his high school graduation he was handed down a career path that was decided the day he became 15 years of age. He would only have to decide whether to take it or start working in something else right now.  For him, it was an easy choice and decided to take a four-year degree that will gain him automatic entry to the McCluskey-Humphreys Institute for Genetic Engineering to work correcting DNA sequences for cattle animals. At university he met a girl for whom he fell head over heels. This girl manipulated him and sucked every last fragment of humanity and empathy towards other people (not that he had much empathy to begin with). He felt, like many people after their intimate feelings are shattered for the very first time, he could never love again. Except that unlike most of the people, he actually carried that sadness around like a casted iron anchor around his waist. He let go of the girl, but not of the dismal sensation that numbed his innards. The day before his graduation his parents died in an accident and that prevented him from feeling accomplished or proud. He attached one more anchor of sorrow around his waist and decided to carry on with his life anyways. He was so full of sorrow that he had no space for any other feeling, including solitude. After a government-mandated week of bereavement, he started working as a new graduate employee in the exact role and place where his high school vocational report said seven and half years ago. At work he was meticulous and hardworking, he avoided coffee breaks and his lunch breaks were always too brief, just long enough for the mechanical part of eating could take place. Although his colleagues were aware that his work was reliable, they seldom engaged in camaraderie with him. It is needless to say that his colleagues did not appreciate him as a person. He was a social outcast, yet no quite a social misfit. He was quiet and reserved. He seldom held a strong opinion or cared enough about someone else to talk about anything other than work or administrative errands. And so Richard Thompson was sleeping soundly like any other night, except that his body had changed from the inside and was changing his persona, without him being aware.
He woke up the next morning at the usual time. He got ready to go to work, ironed his shirt, and took a warm shower like every morning. He ate a hearty breakfast and picked up his computer bag ready to catch the usual 7:35 train.  Not for one second did he thought about last night’s incident. He was a tad late, so he rushed to the train platform.  And there it was again. Well it was there all along, except that he had not realized until now. His chest was thumping fiercely and quite fast with the same syncopation as last night. At that instant he stopped unexpectedly. People behind him could not stop in time and pushed him aside making him to almost lose his balance.  Once he was bucked away from the stream of people walking towards the train, he began looking at the timetables on the station walls for the next train to the hospital.
Thirty minutes later he was standing in front of a reception desk in a nearly empty emergency reception at the hospital.
Good morning. Who are you visiting? Asked the receptionist.
I want to be admitted. So, I want to visit a Doctor if it is not too much trouble.  Said Richard Thompson with a subtle sarcastic undertone.
The receptionist startled. This has never happened in the twenty-five years she has worked at the hospital, so she did not know what to do and just stared at Mr. Thompson. Never before a healthy looking man has come to the emergency reception and without so much of a grain of stress in his voice asked to be admitted.
Feel my chest. Richard Thompson said while he leaned forward and pulled the receptionist's hand towards his body. She pulled her eyes wide open gazing at Mr. Thompson. He peered back. After an instant of disbelief she pulled her hand away slowly. Her hand was shaking while pressing the emergency button on the screen in front of her.
In less than thirty seconds a two-meter tall male nurse in light blue scrubs appeared with a wheelchair. Mr. Thompson took the cue, nodded his balding head towards the nurse and proceeded to sit down in the wheelchair.
It was luck perhaps that an expert in the circulatory system, Doctor Robbins, happened to work at that same hospital where Richard Thompson called. Doctor Charles M. Robbins was a curious man. He usually drove his colleagues crazy with constant questioning and bizarre ideas trying to explain, as he called "the ultimate and fundamental source of illness". His colleges called him an eccentric, a mad man with an M.D. diploma, and many other euphemisms. Doctor Robbins knew all about it and personally thought they were not very creative, yet they were the most inventive things the other doctors have ever said.   When Doctor Robbins received the message of a man in the emergency reception with a thumping coming from inside his chest, he immediately cleared his agenda and literally jumped out of his chair in his way to meet this patient.
Doctor Robbins ran every test available to him for Mr. Thompson and had reached a diagnosis after a whole day of tests, analysis, enquiries with his colleagues and wide speculation. Richard Thompson was very impressed not only by Doctor Robbins’ thorough and methodical examination but also by his kindness and warmth. Before that day his experiences with doctors were akin to attending to a housing board annual meeting with an empty agenda, in other words impersonal, sterile and useless. Doctor Robbins dismissed Richard Thompson and asked him to spend the night at the hospital.  Just in case, he said.
Doctor Robbins summoned Mr. Thompson to his office early next morning.  As for Richard Thompson, he had spent his first night at a hospital since he was born. Resting in his hospital bed, he had trouble conciliating sleep because a gnawing suspicion that Dr. Robbins' performance was somehow planned and rehearsed in advance despite of how improbable it actually sounded.

The next morning Richard Thompson was waiting impatiently for Doctor Robbins in the sitting room just a hallway away from emergency reception. That morning in particular he had been experiencing heavier beating inside his bosom. This trepidation was making him sweat.  Finally his name was called and he was directed to Doctor Robbins office.
Doctor Robbins apologized for keeping him waiting all night for his diagnosis.  I have a colleague in Manila who had a similar case and I was waiting for his opinion over night, Dr. Robbins continued.  Richard Thompson sat down quite heavily on the worn down leather chair in Doctor's Robbins' private office.  Don't sit down, Doctor Robbins ordered. Lay down on the bench instead, he said.  Doctor Robbins did one last examination of Richard Thompson's chest. Very active this morning, he muttered and Richard Thompson nodded. Now, you can button up your shirt and sit down, ordered Doctor Robbins and then began his explanation: “You have a quadruple failure of your systolic arrays, which regulate the body’s blood flow and pressure. Such failure is usually fatal, but in your case...” Doctor Robbins added a dramatic pause and then continued.  “In your case your body has grown a biological pump that has been keeping your blood flowing. In a normal case an alarm will be triggered if any of your four redundant arrays were to malfunction. In your case the health center received four warning alarms. Under normal circumstances just two of them would have triggered a major alarm and an ambulance would have been sent immediately to pick you up.”
Then what happened? Richard Thompson asked. What happened, Doctor Robbins continued while raising his voice at every other word, is that almost immediately the pressure monitors cleared the alarms.
Mr. Thompson was baffled. Doctor Robbins stood up and began walking up and down his office while continuing to explain in a monotone. “This is where the strangeness begins. Your body started growing tissue, muscle, and blood vessels. A whole new organ!” He finished his sentence almost shouting, and continued: “This is unlike an ordinary tumor growth. This outgrowth actually began to function in harmony with your body.” Richard Thompson thought he had cancer, his stomach sank and he asked in a muted voice. Do I have cancer? No, absolutely not! Doctor Robbins exclaimed and then clarified: “This outgrowth has stopped growing. We could not explain why your biological monitors did not react; until I stumbled with a very old piece of literature, more than a thousand years old.” He sat down and a holographic image began to display illustrations from and ancient human anatomy book.  “Before the advent of hereditary nanobionics and before the human genome was engineered, most animals had an organ that pumped blood throughout the whole life of the organism.” He continued to explain at the time that images of animal anatomy from ancient texts were displayed in thin air. “This organ was called a heart. This is what has grown inside your thorax.”  Richard Thompson placed his right hand over his left breast and felt his heart beating calmly and asked: “But why did it grow?”
Doctor Robbins placed his hand on his forehead and attempted to answer Mr. Thompson question: “Well, we do not know with certainty. I suspect that there is a problem with the genetic engineering of our bodies. Prior to the human genome re-engineering project at the end of the XXI century, it was the absolute norm that all domesticated animals and humans had this hearth pumping blood through our bodies. The problem was that if it failed, then it was over! It meant almost certain death, and deadly single failure point weakness. After many decades of experimentation and debate over the ethical and biological consequences, the fragile organ was replaced by our modern day systolic arrays. And this was the last of our many biological engineering enhancements for the human genome. Almost everyone got it. Eventually the groups of people that did not have it because of religion or superstition died out. We suspect that if one your ancestors mated with one of these last people and somehow the gene did not manifest until your pressure regulators begin to fail. Quite remarkable.”
Are you going to take it out? Richard Thompson asked apprehensive.
I don't think it is a good idea. Doctor Robbins said.

So Richard Thompson left the hospital feeling heaviness on his chest. He had too many questions in his head. And the question began to bother him more than the constant beating inside his body. What would happen if this organ failed? Would his children get this malice as well? Was it possible for him to find a partner with this thing in his genome? Would he be allowed to marry? Will he be euthanized and then dissected for research? How did Dr. Robbins arrive to such extraordinary conclusion so fast and so well documented?
Doctor Robbins had prescribed him four weeks complete rest and bi-weekly checkups. Richard Thompson gladly took the work leave but begrudgingly accepted the checkups. During the long empty hours he had a lot of time to think. He meditated much more than usual. And he began to question and ponder pretty much everything. He felt lonely. He felt loneliness for the first time in his life. It felt like an old pair of shoes finally expiring unexpectedly in a last stride a mile away from the destination.
Doctor Robbins began to think and wonder about Mr. Thompson's condition. He poured his brilliant analytical brain and wrote a genial research article. It was eloquent, full with exquisite detail and above all, it was a breakthrough paper. The moment it was published it became an instant success. One week after the article was published, his agenda was full with interviews, symposiums and guest talks.
What everybody wanted was to meet the wonder of nature, the patient, not to listen for two hour straight to the last scientific discovery in the area of genetics since a thousand years ago. Doctor Robbins opposed to showcase the patient citing privacy and confidentiality concerns. All what he wanted was attention for his not so humble self. The public eye began to look elsewhere for novelties and he began to consider asking Mr. Thompson to appear in public. And so the time for Richard Thompson’s last checkup came to be.
Good news Mr. Thompson, Doctor Robbins said. You are in absolute perfect health and you can return to your normal life.
Richard Thompson did not think it was necessarily good news. He did not like his normal life. Since his visit to the emergency room, his mind and soul was burdened with thoughts, questions, dilemmas and sadness. He nodded yet his head was somewhere else.
Cheer up! Doctor Robbins exclaimed while clapping his hands and faking a smile. I have a question to ask you. More like a favor. Doctor Robbins paused, licked his lips, rolled his eyes and with apprehension asked Mr. Thompson if he would like to appear in public, to a worldwide audience to talk about his condition. Richard Thompson heard these words and his wandering thoughts came back to the office and he could hardly contain his excitement. To his amazement he managed to accept Doctor Robbins proposition with a gentle smile and a firm handshake without overly showing his enthusiasm.

The live worldwide broadcast was on a Wednesday night. Both Doctor Robbins and Richard Thompson were visibly nervous. The transmission began. The host, know for his wit and charisma, was one of the most popular interviewers in the world.
The interview started with five minutes of well-rehearsed scientific explanation by Doctor Robbins of how Mr. Thompson's circulatory condition came to be. How the biological pump in his body was a relic from the time where every human and most living animals had one. Before re-engineering of the human and animal genomes known today as hereditary nanobionics. How the genetic code was hidden for generations and became active when his systolic arrays began to fail, and how nature in harmony with human engineering evolved a failsafe to take care of human carelessness and lack of understanding of the ultimate source of illness.
Then the host introduced Richard Thompson. He was very shy and could hardly look at the interviewer in the eyes. The host asked Mr. Thompson how he felt. He looked at Doctor Robbins as if asking approval to talk. Doctor Robbins nodded and smiled to him.
I feel fine. Richard Thompson struggled to say.
How does it feel like? The interviewer asked.
It is confusing. Richard Thompson said.
Can you elaborate? Prompted the interviewer.
Richard Thompson's initial shyness vanished and he was filled with courage and valor as if a task of the utmost importance was suddenly entrusted to him. He cleared his throat and said in an increasingly urgent tone. “I’m confused. I have been thinking since I grew this thing inside my chest. And I have been questioning, why? A lot. Why does humanity stopped caring? Since when did human progress become a thing of the past?  Why have we exchanged passion, ideas, and curiosity for apathy, comfort, and numbness?  Was it all in the name of leisure, selfishness and wealth? Why it took a thousand years for the humanity to make one brilliant discovery?  True, we have eradicated war, misery and poverty; but at what cost? We have cut corners. We have given away our desire to be free, to change and revolutionize, our hunger for discovery, our passion for life. As I come to think of it, maybe the reason we all have become plastic insensitive clods is because we have lost something a thousand years ago. Precisely a thousand years ago!  We have lost the pump inside our chests, but maybe it was more, much more than a pump.  It was our soul, our hunger and our spirit of life. Before I got this pump, I could look at everyone with indifference, apathy, just like you look at me now. The only thing that mattered was appearance and wealth.  Now, I see everyone different.  My eyes were freed from a cloak of insensitivity and now I can see the people for who they really are. I feel it inside my being. I see people being self involved and careless.  Most of the times it hurts, but sometimes it brings me warmth and happiness to see innocent acts of kindness, completely selfless acts. The worst part is when I look at myself. I was one of these lumps of dirt cruising through life without contributing to the world in a meaningful way. I was only eating, breathing, working and not caring about anyone else but me. I’m so ashamed of myself. I have seen myself for who I really am. My biggest realization since a pump grew by chance and filled up my chest is that I need to change. I need to change myself and change the world. I must. Otherwise we will go on for another thousand years without achieving anything significant. The humanity must change its current state of listlessness, of not caring and not being concerned with our position and condition in the world. With the exchange of our life-giving pump inside our bodies for an array technological wonders we have euthanized ourselves. We have confused life with being alive.”
The host continued the interview without being concerned about the meaning of what Richard Thompson just said. “And why do you want to change? Do you want to get your systolic array back in working condition? Are you afraid the pump is going to fail and you will die?”
Richard Thompson’s face became red. He looked with anger at both the interviewer and Doctor Robbins who was thinking of how bringing the conversation back to him looked at Mr. Thompson with admiration and incredulity the same time, put his hand on his chest and stopped thinking about himself. Richard Thompson stormed out of the studio so fast that the host only managed to say, “Well folks, I guess this interview is over.  Thanks to Dr. Robbins for the opportunity to hear from the man himself how is like to have a biological pump in one’s body. I guess I will not be replacing anything inside me any time soon! Thank you and good night.” Doctor Robbins wanted to stand up saying that he felt exactly like Mr. Thompson and defending word for word what Mr. Thompson just said, but it was too late, the transmission had ended already.

Back in his home, Richard Thompson was sad and angry. Frustration and fury crept up down from his legs up to his throat. He could not walk and almost could not breathe. He felt actual physical pain in his chest. He clutched his hands in anger and ground his teeth with despair.  An hour later he was still sobbing when he received a message.  It was a letter from a woman.
“Dear Mr. Thompson,
My name is Manawale'a. Today as you talked I listened. While I listened I felt a bond. A feeling like nothing I ever had felt before. And I felt it in my heart. I’m one like you, with a flesh blood pump inside my chest. Like you I have an ache inside my bosom, but is not the flesh. I see people for who they really are. Just like you described. And I was joyous when I heard from your own voice how you saw the same things. I want to change the world too. But I was alone. Alone no more since there you are. I want you here.
Sincerely yours,
Manawale’a”
Richard Thompson was ecstatic; his whole being was trembling with joy. He could not wait to meet to this woman.  He was not feeling lonely anymore.

Dear Lunch

Homage to vintage advertisements, movies, documentaries, instructional videos and the good old lunch time.

Original Music 'Almuercito' by Avelino Andretti

Movie Clips from the Internet Movie Archive on public domain or CC share-alike

This Video is CC Share-alike non-commercial

Until the End of the World - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I didn't even had one hour awake. A few glimmers of daylight were beginning to intimidate the dusk to turn into dawn. I was on my way to the everyday stop for my grand limousine shaped as a Volvo bus with direction to my everyday bleak destiny. At least from Monday through Friday. Then a grim precognition, like a sixth sense, I saw a gloomy human shape walking inexorably towards me. He was like 6'3'' tall, husky without reaching the shape of a weight lifter. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray hoodie where he kept his hands. And finally a black militia style balaclava that covered his face.

That latest feature really scared me and sent a frozen chill through my body. And with that unstoppable pace he had, I knew he was off to kidnap me. Me, someone who have no idea of what's going on. But why? I asked myself, surely to claim a rescue to finance their nefarious intentions, what ever they were, anarchists, murderers, criminals; me Harry Diaem, the warranty, of course it had to be me.

This sombre man advanced relentlessly from the distance through the ever decreasing shadows of the night. He was going to take out his hand waving a gun, with the other arm he would grab me by the neck and threatening everyone that the life of this unknown character will end if anyone tried to become a hero. One single thought was comforting myself. Like, if I were in the jungle, locked in a cage, something was telling me that hostages were well treated while they were exchange for a reward. I felt a frosty breeze crossing my body while I gazed to the eyes of whom surely will become a shipwreck of my everyday destiny. What I saw into those eyes was the Limbo, like a black hole that eats all the light that surrounds it, and I was part of the light.

Not three feet between us and I had already accepted with admirable stoicism how I was going to be kidnapped. Be made a pawn in a game I wasn't playing. I would be made evening news merchandise, the TV anchors will more or less scruples would exploit my situation, they will make special interviews, magazines, and maybe even a couple of fake biographies. I felt like a wild hog in a roasting jack, slowly cooking with my own fat. But I was not going down without a fight. I was holding my guitar in a hard box, ready to be used as a last resort weapon if the masked guy had the chance to get closer one more step in his intimidating stance. I was ready to give him a blow to the head like a lead shroud between his two Limbos to fill them with his vilified mortal remains.

Then it happened like a punch - literally - I saw myself beaten to the ground in an instant by the shoulder of that idealized psychotic monster. A psycho, a criminal. I was laying on the ground after five seconds of abrupt imagination. I was amazed that all these thoughts happened so fast through my brain. Then, mortified, I stood up and gazed towards that imaginary guerrilla kidnapper and saw how he dusted-off his shoulder from a minor hit. Then he disappeared by the time I had the chance to take the bus to my really unchangeable destiny.

How wrong I was. This incident that day and others that were playing in my mind would finish my monotonous way of life. They will take me out of my slumber with a mortal conjunction and change my destiny.

Photo Credit: Jeremy Burgin

To Spy a Mockingbird

This is not a short story, not even a scary one. It is a rant. A cry out of indignation while I can. I hope that this technical analysis demonstrates how futile and suspicious it is to spy on an entire society.
Surveillance societies are springing like mushrooms nowadays. One here, one there, one over there, one down there, even under my own feet. But these are not nice mushrooms you pickup on a chilly autumn afternoon. No, these are the ones that eat your feet, your hands, your face, slowly but surely.
Enough with the prose. Lets get technical shall we?

Why Massive Surveillance Does not Work Against Threats

Assume for a moment that every single electronic communication is analyzed for sake of saving us from terrorists, and that there is enough computational power to do it in reliably and fast enough.
How can a machine tell the difference between a legitimate lawful communication and a criminal one? For starters one have to tell the machine how a criminal one looks like. One have to figure out that oneself.
Suppose one have done it, somehow. Correlating hundreds of "real-world" criminal communication captured under previous legal frameworks (i.e. pre-massive surveillance).
Who can assure that no one is taking shortcuts? Like for example, making a few rules to match a handful of websites, email addresses, keywords, names and phone numbers. If someone does that, then a whole lot of false positives will emerge. I won't bother posting them there are many examples. Simpleton rules like that cannot tell from a person doing useful independent research to combat terrorism, like it has happened. Cannot tell if some teenagers are too curious for their own good. Cannot tell if the target person is only a plumber who happens to service the area of one a suspect. And of course the simpleton rules grow and grow because someone was careful enough to make sure new suspects are registered in the database, but not careful enough to think about how to handle false positives. Something tells me the the TSA "no-fly list" is a perfect example of this.
Lets assume one more time, that the rules are gold and they have a very good hit rate, say 80%.
I would not be surprised if the surveillance yielded results pretty fast. Then the arrests will stall. Why? Human nature, we adapt, we evolve, and very quickly. Criminals and terrorist will soon adapt. How? First one is a no-brainer, encryption. Second one is also easy, use other channels, regular post, parcels, newspapers, the whole of the spy v spy arsenal of WWII. The next ones are getting scarier. But it actually something similar has happened already.

Spam is an excellent example of criminal(esque) activity adapting very quickly and increasing complexity. Actually most of our email is already scanned and monitored for the purpose of spam and malware control. How many times have you received email with viruses and spam even though all the filters? How many times a legitimate email has been discarded? But spam monitoring would be the inverse of criminal monitoring, ignore legitimate conversations but capture suspicious activity, and it will be the government not your ISP doing the monitoring and the consequences are far greater.
So how to fool surveillance? Scary question, by now have read the disclaimer. If not scroll down and read it. Simple answer:

• Make your conversations look like regular ones (just like spam)
• Imagine stenography but 21st century style
  
• Make everyone else's conversations look suspicious (just like spam bot nets)
• Infect millions of computers/mobiles with worms or viruses that behave to match the scanning rules
  

Voila! Completely neutralized. Now the monitoring agents will have to adapt their rules to capture the new behavior, to filter out the noise. Chances are that the surveillance created even a better medium for criminal activity than electronic communications was before. Right now probably just a handful of people are using complete communication encryption for genuine purposes, probably criminals are dumb enough not to use encryption or disguise their activity. But as soon as the low hanging fruit is gone (i.e. dumb criminals in jail), the game becomes exponentially more difficult. I am going to leave the proof of that to some idle Ph.D. :) Regular people will start using encryption and criminal techniques will become harder and harder.
One may argue that rules will have to be refined endlessly creating the classic "arms race" good guys v bad guys. But to refine the rules you have to do good old fashioned classic criminal investigation, forensic and analysis work. No computer magic here, sorry not they are not that smart, just smart as the people that programmed them.
Here is my proposal, surveillance is not useless. It is a handy tool in criminal investigations that current legal frameworks should allow when there is compelling evidence that suspicious activity is taking place. Massive surveillance cannot replace good old fashioned classic criminal investigation work. And I think someone else said it before me. Whether mass surveillance or not, humans have to intervene, the difference is how we perceive "decisions" taken by a machine. We assume machines cannot be wrong (being technologist the reason why escapes my understanding), and then we act coldly. If the rules, created by humans, have errors, so mistakes will be made and they will be very costly indeed. People! Snap out of it! Technology cannot solve anything by itself, it is a tool not a complete solution.
More proof that mass surveillance is ineffective? Against terrorism and criminal threats, that is off course. More than one government that has such laws in place has resorted to the desperate measure of asking the public to report suspicious terrorist activity. As if people without training could tell between a terrorist and someone ordinary acting wacky. Quite frankly, the idea sounds desperate.
Mass monitoring may be useful to other purposes, but definitely not combating crime. Just ask the Soviet Union. Anyway, just in case whenever I will visit a government office in the future I will perfume my undies and trousers before hand. Just in case.

Mass monitoring is such a dumb idea only a politician could listen to it.

Disclaimer
By reading, loading, forwarding, requesting or displaying this page, partially or fully, or any of its contents you agree not to sue the author or anyone in connection with the work.

Update
Someone in the US Government also thinks it is unfeasible to spot terrorist with data mining.

Credits:
Image 1: http://flickr.com/photos/poper/
Image 2: http://flickr.com/photos/nhall/
Image 3: http://flickr.com/photos/enjoy-surveillance/

The Daughters Of Xolotl - Scar

I arrived to the college’s dining room where was happening the mid-term party. It was pretty early and I was just to have lunch. In an square table, sat on the head there was one of the beautiful daughter of Xolotl. I didn’t knew who was Xolotl, it was only the was those three beautiful women that always walked together were called. There were so many stories around those three muses, like the one that say that they were lesbians, that her father, Xolotl, abused them and that’s why they never talk.

I didn’t loose the chance and I sat in front of her. She didn’t notice. On the table were three bottles of a liquor that looked like whisky, but had no label to make a difference.

I started eating slowly waiting for the other two sisters to come. The one that was in front of me seemed to be the big one, she had black hair that reached her breasts. Her eyes were brown and she was the most voluptuous of the three sisters. I was mentally reviewing the way to talk to these women, when the other two sisters arrived and in the minute I forgot what I was thinking. The middle aged one also has brown eyes, the hair was tied with a black lace, and pretty and fine pale face. She was dressed with a tight blues and a gray low neck blouse. The smaller one has lighter hair, gray eyes and she was wearing a slate blue tiny shirt that allowed to see the ring of her navel. She was the most mysterious because her hair always covered the left half of her beautiful face. Both sisters brought two shot glasses and poured from the bottles and shyly sipped the liquid. I was watching with an eye and then the middle aged one filled her glass again and offered to me.

—Would you like some? It's good.

I took it and after smelling it I decided to push it trough my throat. To the taste it didn’t seem to be whisky, maybe gold tequila. Fact I found out a second later when my body was shaken by the electric spasm characteristic of tequila.

—This ain’t whisky, sure. — telling the middle aged.

—Is not in any way. — and she sipped her finger.

In that very moment I felt how the quivering from the tequila passed from her finger to my body without explanation. Then she sat next to me and took my hand.

—You have a very soft hand. — and I smiled to the compliment even while I was nervous for her tender smile and because she was the one I liked the most.

—Hi, what’s your name? — mediate the bigger one.

I answered and the I asked “You are Xolotl daughters , aren’t you?” They looked each other and I felt I said something wrong.

—Yes— answered the smaller one — Xolotl is our father, do you know him?

—No, is just that you are so popular— I said trying to fix the conversation.

—Our father is a mean man — the middle one said.

—Yes—agreed the bigger one now that she was standing next to her sister and I—do you want to see what he done to her.

And without waiting an answer she began to pull down her sisters, the middle aged one, low neck blouse and she took my hand taking it to her sisters breast. Then I startled and moved my hand and the middle aged told me “Come on, don’t worry , it’s ok.” While she smiled and took my hand.

Before I realized what was happening, the bigger one has exposed both breasts of her sister and my hand was caressing intensively one of them when the bigger one interrupted.

—Look below her breasts, in the middle. The one from the right is a birth mole and the one from the left was done by my father.

On the left breast was a flirting mole in an ‘X’ shape and in the left one a horrible black scar in imitation to the mole. I slowly brought back my hand and I looked with fear the scar, suddenly the mid one picked up her low neck, and I realized two things, first that she stilled smiling and second, that her right breast had no nipple, just the areola and inside, nothing!, plain as a balloon.

—But, how…?— I said before the bigger one interrupted me by moving in front of me and picking up her blouse to her neck showing me her huge and beautiful breasts. These were perfect and both had the ‘X’, but those were birth moles, without scar.

—My father wanted us three to be the alike and that’s why he tried to make a mole on my left side, just like my sister.

I felt scared for a moment, thinking how the can keep living with a monster like that. I got full of anger and astonishment, then the smaller one got closer on my left, once the mid one has moved.

—Do you have any scar? — she asked.

—No. Well, just this one on my forehead, it’s a scam from measles, I answered taking her little hand to my head.

—In his insanity, look what our father done with my face to make us alike for being the most pretty.

Her face had a severe look, and indeed she was very pretty. But without understanding what she said, I brought my hand to the right side of her beauty. She touched my hand and said me “You have a very soft hand.” And rudely she took my hand to the other side of her face discovering that way the horrid scars that looked like mountains, valleys and rivers. In that very second a withdraw my hand she broke in tears, brought her hands to her face and between sobs she told me “It was with boiling oil. But I took care and washed myself daily so I doesn’t become black.” She looked at me with her wet eyes and asked me “¿I doesn’t looks bad, really? With a crying smile.

—But, how can you stand such mistreat? You do nothing for yourselves.

—We are triplets —said the smaller one.

—And we must be alike— said the mid one though now there was no sense in distinguish of their age.

—That doesn’t justify such tortures.

—Our father threaten us with tearing us apart and we can stand that— said the bigger one.

—If you don’t have scars, how can you allow your father to do that to your sisters? It’s a price to high to pay.

—I also have scars, but I can’t show them here.

—I don’t want to look at them, I want to …— and they picked me up, the mid one shut my mouth with a juicy kiss; now forceless they drove me trough the college to their dormitory.

—Here we sleep, the three of us— said the bigger one.

It was a wide bedroom with two separate single beds apart by a bureau. The room was dark, the only window has thick curtains, there was no desk, only an ancient boudoir next to the heavy wooden door, at the front of the room an old wood closet with a large mirror on its doors. Wall were made of plaster , and near the floor it was tearing the rose paint because of humidity.

—Come with me— told me the mid one while she took me to the bed to left next the window.

—You all sleep here? — I asked in an innocent way.

—I turn in the bed with my sisters— said the smaller one — but sometimes none is on the mood — making a sad face —but there’s always one that takes compassion of me — smiling this time.

I was sitting on the bed resting my back on the headboard, the middle one lodged next to me an surrounded my wait with her arm.

The bigger one in front of me began to unbutton her jeans while the middle one was giving me massage in the groin. That made me nervous and I asked the big one “What are you doing?”

—I’m going to show you my scar.

—Where do you have it, what happened to you?

—I have it in my sec, it happened when one afternoon my father discovered a friend and I having sex, and he decided to sew me the genitals, according to him to make me intact, just like my sisters— and he broke in tears when she was just in panties .

—That’s not true, my father rapped her and the he wanted to repair the damage — the smaller one assured.

I was watching speechless and unbeliever to the bigger one that was about slipping her panties making some pubic hair visible.

—You don’t have to do it, seriously— I said scared.

—It’s ok. — and the bigger one sobbing already was picking up her jeans while the mid one was caressing me from every side.

I was a moment in silence, in one hand enjoying the caresses and in the other shocked by the spectacle that didn’t accomplished. In that moment the smaller one picked up her hair with a lace, I turned around in a morbid instant and when I returned my head y noticed that she no longer had scars on the left side of the face.

—Hey! — I screamed looking to the smaller one— Didn’t you had scars on your face just a few seconds ago?

—Scars? Me? — amazed she said — Just this small measles scab in my forehead— pointing with the middle finger up, in her forehead just between the eyes.

For a second I astonished and tried to conceive an explanation but my meditation was broken by the middle one that with her caresses she decided to unbutton my shirt.

—I want to see again the scar in your chest— and opened my shirt to my navel.

I saw with horror a black scar in an ‘X’ shape at the fourth o fifth rib, next the sternum, by the left side, and that I no longer had my nipple on the left. Was so big my horror that I sobbed and took my hands to my face.

—Does your face scars doesn’t hurts? —disgustingly said to me the bigger one. I realized that the left side of my face was half marred, I didn’t wanted to look at the closet in front of me, but I stood up immediately.

—But but — I stuttered — you were the ones that had scar, you — pointing to the smaller — had your face mutilated.

—Me, no for God mercy, what’s wrong with you? — answered offended.

—Chill, take it easy— said the mid one as soon as she began caressing my groin furiously— you’d better show us the scar you have down here.