Wrong predictions – Javier López & Sergio Gaut vel Hartman

Raffaele Benadani, an early XXI century geologist, predicted that May 11, 2011, a cataclysm in Rome, the Eternal City, ought to occur. Eminent colleagues of Benadani were asked about this alert, but they refuted the truthfulness of such omen, and even more, they strongly denied the possibility to make any predictions on the long run about the plate tectonics. Even so, the news spread by the Internet and thousands of terrified Romans, run off their city, leaving their jobs and taking refuge in various places. They are the ones and only founders of New Rome about ten kilometers North of the ruins.

Original title: Predicciones erróneas
Translation: Héctor Ranea


Versión en castellano

Javier López
Sergio Gaut vel Hartman

Blind life – Héctor Ranea & Javier López

At the bottom of the pit the children played hopscotch, and the quieter ones played dominoes. They’d asked for a chess set but they were only thrown at a penknife and aspen wood so they could make their own pieces and some cardboard for the chessboard squares. Some of them tried to make gasoline out of what was coming out from the walls but some of the girls got sick with the smell.
The day came when the pit was going to be blocked up because the neighbors were annoyed by the emanations already.
-Are you really doing that? –the only woman in the neighborhood who seemed to still have a piece of heart asked.
-Don’t worry, Ma’am –one of the workers answered- Don’t you realize? When nobody can see them, it will be as if they didn’t exist.
Original title: Vida ciega
Translation: Alejandra Jamieson Barreiro

Javier López
Héctor Ranea
Versión en castellano

A matter of principles – Oriana Pickman & Javier López

The advertisement got every place in town: They shall put happiness into sell.

Everybody, anxious to have it, ran the streets, credit cards prepared, ready to buy it. Many had had mortgages on their properties, sold their cars, their television sets, their mobile phones, or they had even stop eating for several days just to have enough to purchase happiness.

When they’d got the place the advertisement specified, they wanted to know the price of happiness. That was a missing detail in the announcement. And the answer was plain and simple: Everything they’d been able to gather.

After they made their payments, the buyers were told that the money would be sent to those who had never had a house to sleep in, or a car to travel on, or a television set to watch, or telephones to communicate with, not even food to brought into their mouths.

Just but a few got the idea well, and went out of there happy. The others felt cheated.

Image: Clarita

Original title: Cuestión de principios

Translation: Héctor Ranea

Oriana Pickmann
Javier López

Versión en castellano

The New Intelligence - Javier López

The truth be told: I saw it coming. Little by little they’ve been taking control. Their capacity for arithmetic, for processing reality accurately, their technological skills and lack of emotion – it could never have turned out any other way.
They’ve already forgotten that we were the ones who constructed them. Artificial intelligence has evolved in such a way that robots have ended up branding us idiots.
Already they’ve stopped us using computers, going anywhere near laboratories, taking part in space flight, nuclear fission or any other technological, biological or chemical process of any complexity. They hoard all these endeavours and choices.
It’s true they’ve never wanted to interfere in politics, and this aspect continues to be specifically human. I ask myself if it’s precisely for that reason they consider us stupid.

Original title: La nueva inteligencia
Translation: Jamie Hershing

Javier López

Versión en castellano

Monsterland – Javier López

For several weeks chaos was developed after a series of phenomena.

Small but permanent tremors make big cracks evident in highways in and out of town, precluding its use. Some rivers were flooding by ceaseless rains, invading great areas, including kilometers of railroads, airports, comunication hubs. The same rain that make massive forests to grow gigantic, raising an impenetrable wall that shielded the city.

Before the authorities´ reaction, we were isolated, locked up inside with no way out of it. During the next weeks, the city began to devour us as it would be a gigantic monster, hungry and vindictive.

Original Title: Monstruópolis

Translator: Héctor Ranea

About the Author: Javier López