Read Online 2085 by Alejandro Volnié - Free Book Online

them, or a measure of time that could provide some rhythm to his existence.
    He decided to keep his mind busy. Seize the time to make a thorough retrospective of his personal history, beginning from the oldest memories he could retrieve. At each step he should revive the events and the feelings related to them. His thoughts went back to his early childhood, and from that point he fell into a sort of trance that would last many hours.
    Time became meaningless during this endless alternation of lapses of sleep and meditation, only interrupted by the eventual downfall of bags of food through the opening left when one of the boards of the upper floor was slid. Their arrival was announced every time by an intense glow that forced him to shut his eyes tightly and to cover his face with his forearm.
    Finally, one night he heard the noise of the table legs dragging on the wooden floor while the voice of the landlady warned him:
    “I’ m going to open the door right now. Cover your eyes. Although the room is dark, this little light may hurt them.”
    Her voice took him by surprise. The thrill of finally being released made him jump up in a hurry to find his jacket and cover his face with it.
    When the entrance was opened the room above filled with the stench of the shelter. The woman had to hurry to open the windows.
    Groping , the newly released prisoner tried to climb the earthen ramp that lead outside; however, his limbs were stiff due to the long period of inactivity and this was making his journey almost impossible.
    Then he felt the farmer’s strong hand grabbing his arm to help him overcome the obstacle, and soon he was standing in front of his protectors. The glow irritating his retinas felt like daggers stabbing his skull; however, he knew that he gradually would recover his ability to see, it was just a matter of letting a few hours pass.
    A chair was pulled to let him sit and then his host’s words sounded cheerfully:
    “ Oh boy! You urgently need to bathe! You smell worse than the stable by the end of winter. How did confinement become you? I guess not too bad. I’ve seen others come out from there in a worse condition.”
    “How long was I there ?”
    “Let’s see… You arrived last Monday by nightfall, and now it is Tuesday night already, so it’s been exactly eight days.”
    “I see. What’s next?”
    “First of all you must clean up. We will launder your clothes and do our best to make you feel again like a human being. The scanning of the house stopped since before yesterday, which lets us assume that you are not sought anymore in this area. This morning I talked about it with some neighbors who were also being watched and they said the same to me. Anyway, you will better stay with us for a couple of days and continue your journey next Thursday after sunset. Meanwhile, you will not set foot outside. We must be cautious. Although most people in this region sympathize with dissidents like you, you better keep a low profile.
     
    In the building of the Internal Security Central, the officers in charge of the persecution were meeting again. They had lost track of the fugitive. Little did they get from traveling his runaway route back and forth or from the siege to the farming community where they had expected him to arrive. Now they needed a new search strategy. However, three days before they had been instructed to inform the leader that the mission had been successfully accomplished. The image of the board’s private police shouldn’t be undermined just for a simple mishap. Report falsifying was one more of the customary procedures to safeguard the myth of corporate infallibility. The leader himself had taken such an action a few days ago.
     
    At Lucy’s home things were back to normal. Her husband had left the clinic Monday of the week before, as planned, and returned at her side being the same man. He was taking two weeks off to recover and this night they were chitchatting after dinner as usual. He