Capítulo 21: WHEN THE IDOL ON COATED PAPER IS FLESH AND BLOOD (2)
When people passed the security string and left the secondary street to join the main avenue, what was blindingly obvious was the increasing activity in the camp. Entire teams were coming back from the mess. What he observed when he was at the infirmary was magnified by several times. If the atmosphere a few minutes earlier still reflected the relaxation, it was sinking with the passing minutes. The tension would reach its peak when Pom would appear on the battle field, ready to kick off. This activity was like a countdown for Moa, the more active they got the closer they were from the beginning of the jousts. The ultimatum he had received would come to an end, the chopper would fall.
Thinking it was funny and to calm the atmosphere, Moa pretended to follow a platoon of soldiers who were moving away in the opposite direction to his own. However, the members of the escort did not have the same sense of humor. Moa stopped as soon as he heard the safety catch of the weapons being unlocked.
He was just trying to lighten the mood, not to desert; they did not have to fly off the handle. He wanted to start the conversation, because being followed by a dozen silent men was a situation, independently of the context, which gave him goose-bumps but the escort was not paid to speak, in any case, it was something they had not managed to get a bonus for.
The emissary often wanted to speak to them, they used to it. When the idea to mission an escort specifically for the emissary was proposed, at first they replied but it was not the case anymore. They soon understood that the emissary was going to die and they realized that the sentimental investment that was not worth it. Perhaps in other circumstances, they could have become friends. Since the destiny of the emissary was to probably leave them and this world, there were no reasons to become friends. Since their mission was to lead the said-emissary towards the mission which would cause his death, in the end, they felt uncomfortable attaching emotionally to him.
They had raised the problem with their hierarchy, asking, the question could not be more natural, if it was possible to obtain a bonus, at least cover the costs the consultations with the psychologist entailed. They were told that they were absolutely right to ask, it was cheap and legitimate, but if they were born with a fragile psychology, this was their problem and this army did not see what it could do.
When something was missing, the role of a successful administration was to explain how it was possible do without it. There, the advice was to simply not speak to the emissaries. They had the right to speak, but they would do at their own risk and should take full responsibility for it. Then the escorts no longer spoke to the emissaries. It was a torture for the emissary but as he was going to die, it didn't matter. The escort members contented themselves with warnings, thanks to the sounds of their weapons, and with catching up with the deserters.
A black cloudy mass obscured the sun's rays and the shadow that Moa drew on the ground disappeared. Neither did he see those of the members of the escort. The cadence of their steps betrayed an invisible presence behind his back, like a cleaver that threatened to fall at any time.
The gloom was characterized by sadness, boredom, disenchantment and a lack of interest in the activity offered. It was exactly how Moa felt. He was gloomy.
The world had turned gray. The sky was dark gray. The surrounding buildings were gray. A few years ago, the landscape showed a white city sparkling under the effect of the sun, under a blue sky, at least when the weather was good.
Those buildings were made of limestone, whitewashed mud or concrete whitewashed but time had darkened it like it wrinkled people's face and accumulated fat on men's stomachs and women's thighs. It was possible to fight against the effects of time with a good anti-wrinkle cream and a liposuction, for a city too, it was called renovation, but it had never been undertaken.
Over the time, the pollution of exhaust gases, the residues of shots which came to smear them had accumulated. Normally, the rules stipulated that the army was to give the infrastructure back in the state they found it. When the front was moving, it only borrowed the buildings and was to give it back to their legitimate owners because the migrations were too difficult to organize.
However, when the front was fixed here, both armies expropriated the population and gained ownership over the infrastructure. So the coalesced army had decided not to implement the renovation plan because it was expensive and because they would have to start again very quickly. As long as the FWJ allowed them to do so, the third regiment would not start the renovation, preferring to keep its construction workers for more urgent renovations, on more strategic buildings like the private apartments of senior officers.
Moa had nothing against gray, ultimately gray was not black, but right now he would have liked to see a rainbow.
All around, the soldiers were busy. Moa didn't like human promiscuity but he would have liked to approach one of them and hug. He wanted to tell to someone, that human heat, precisely it was 37°C, had to be treasured. This heat was what comforted, and human physiology worked especially due to this heat.
There was nothing to prevent a soldier from approaching an emissary, and neither was there a rule preventing an emissary from approaching a soldier, but it was strongly discouraged. No one was ever immune to a shot.
The snipers Moa did not manage to spot had taken place on the few rooftops to cover the jousting ground. From their spots, the view was clearer.
There was a reason to this peculiar formation, the escort was forbidden go beyond the center of the field. When the team was recruited by the coalesced, the Grenati easily managed to gather intelligence and soon found their background. Dangerous was the word that crossed the Grenati strategist at that time. The new team was clearly an elite team which could not be underestimated. When you let a fox penetrate in a chicken coop, the fox was this kind of animal which first killed for food and when it finished this task, the fox was this kind of animal which killed because seeing feathers flying all over the place was fun. Letting the escort team entering their camp was welcoming a fix in a chicken coop, resulting in the risk of losing chickens, and as the intelligence didn't report that they were cannibals, those chicken would be killed for fun.
The arguments and the money paid directly to the members of the FWJ had been sufficiently convincing for them to adopt a rule saying that an escort of an emissary could never be nearer from the enemy camp than his own. And to be sure that the rule was followed, the penalty fees were pretty huge.
Thus, the last few meters separating Moa from Grenati camp would be covered by snipers. Crossing the border line from after no-man's-land, Moa would no longer be at risk of being the victim of a friendly fire, but his mission would start for real. In the meantime, the soldiers all knew that Moa was an emissary and none of them would let him approach them.
Indeed, the act of opening one's arms to embrace someone could very well be interpreted as an attempt to desert and a shot could occur. Anyhow the snipers were pretty good, they were recruited at fairgrounds. However, a prompt gust of wind to deflect the ball could never be excluded and at these distances, in particular due to the quality of the equipment they used. The gunpowder was of poor quality, causing a too slow combustion to project the bullet with a speed high enough for it to come out of the barrel with kinetic energy allowing it to escape the hold in the wind that the profile of said-bullet underwent during of its stroke. The difference in angle was minute between a shot reaching the back of the head of the emissary and the forehead of an unfortunate who was just going to get a hug.
Moa himself would never let an emissary in mission approaching him. So he took it on himself to refrain from causing collateral victims.
If he kept a regulatory cadence with each step he took, it was a habit so deeply rooted in him that he could not change it unconsciously, each step that brought him closer to the battle field was shorter and shorter, and if the jousting ground was a little further, he would have finished the route in moon-walk.
Very quickly, he arrived at the coalesced border post.
In the history of war, the appearance of border posts was recent. A border post was just the name chosen for a particular type of stronghold, a name unanimously adopted by senior officers.
To describe it briefly, you have to imagine a choke point at the end of the main street leading to the battle field, drawn by jute bags filled with remainders of different inorganic wastes: scraps of tissue, wadding, rubble, sand, ceramics, old cutlery of the mess, finally, in short, different rot-resistant inert matter. The bags weighed around twenty-five kilograms because the handling was too complex after this mass. The choke point overlooked a barrier, more there to look pretty because even when closed it did not prevent the passage. The barrier was opened and closed from a gatehouse, using a switch. The mechanism was powered by a 12-volt lithium battery.
The structure was simple, easy to dismantle and reassemble in a few minutes by a few men.
These men, called border guards, were responsible for monitoring the jousting ground while the rest of the regiment was busy having something to eat. When everyone came back, they would pack up and put their equipment in their van while waiting for the evening when they would resume their missions. It was far too dangerous to maintain a border post while a joust was underway and, moreover, it was useless, the presence of the squads hampered their mission.
It was a thankless task with shifted schedules, so they were allowed to wear a special badge to sweeten the pill.
The border post was born a day after the Grenati army had taken advantage of meal time to install fortifications on the jousting ground, to dig a trench and to trap the starting point of the coalesced teams.
All of this had made any tactical set-up obsolete, and after a stinging defeat, it had decided to monitor the jousting ground. Even if it was impossible to prevent the Grenati army from doing it again, at least they would not find out what had been going on at the same time as they began their digestion.
As for the possibility of adjusting tactics at the last minute, it was not in the coalesced tradition, so the idea had never crossed their minds.
Seeing the coalesced innovate, the Grenati did the same on their side. There was a border post at each side of the battlefield, each with the same architecture because symmetry was more pleasant to the eye. Thus, apart from a few journalists and FWJ officials, for the former turning their duplex from the front, for the latter carrying out their inspections, there was nobody who usually crossed the battlefield at that time.
On the coalition side, the border guards were not responsible for preventing the comings and goings from the camp to the battlefield and vice versa. Anyway, such movements were very rare even if on occasion, an officer could come to take a measurement, or simply to relieve his bladder.
Likewise, they did not prevent anyone from entering. It was tricky to deny entry to the followers and FWJ officials, at least the border guards did not have this authority. As for a Grenati soldier losing himself on the wrong side of the front, he would quickly notice his mistake and return home on his own. As for the possibility of a Grenati soldier to come with bad intention such as sabotage or spying, it was not in the coalesced tradition to consider this kind of action which would not disrupt significantly the result.
So Moa entered the jousting ground normally, followed by his escort.
He drew the attention of the journalists, but the journalists were also aware that approaching a coalesced emissary in his functions was dangerous so they stayed at a distance. Anyhow, they wondered about this presence. There was no toss at midday.
Hoping to glean a scoop, they would wait for the emissary to cross the dividing line that in any case was materialized with white paint on the ground and since the ground was not covered with snow, it was easy to see it. Then, they would rush towards the members of the escort who never spoke to the emissary but who had no problem doing it with journalists, especially since some of these journalists came from the world of sport and the escort team was at the time a star team in the world of hide-and-seek, so knew the journalists beforehand.
Normally, Moa's brain should have been filled with scenarios ensuring his escape; this was what any rational person should have done. At worst, he would have to put a strategy in place to achieve a ceasefire. But no, he tried to communicate with his little voices. Doubt would not answer if he had no warnings to give, Curiosity seemed to be busy with his own business, Audacity was not in the mood and even Killjoy was speechless without knowing what the conscience should dictate at a time like that.
So his mind got lost in the dreams he hadn't had time to fulfill.
There was this ocean he had never seen with his own eyes, this water his skin had never taste, this salty air his nose never smelt. So yes, he had gone to the pool like everyone else, he had paddled in the pool like everyone else, he was closed to drown when he had been pushed into the big bath where he wasn't within his depth like everyone else and he had caught a mycosis because the managers of the swimming pool wanted to save on chlorine treatments, like everyone else, but a swimming pool was not the sea.
A swimming pool, it was fresh, stagnant water of a few thousand cubic meters, without wave, without fine sand, without coconut palm. It was not the same as the photos his parents brought back from their week of vacation when he spent the same week in the airport daycare center on the pretext that his papers were not in order. His parents had resented him because they hadn't been able to get his seat refunded.
He had seen documentaries which said that the rivers always ended up throwing themselves into the sea. So one day, he listened to the advice of Curiosity. He equipped himself with a backpack, a swimsuit and plastic flip-flops, and quickly headed for the little river that passed not far from his home.
He was following the riverbed but he had not fully understood the concept of upstream and downstream, so he followed the migration of salmons.
Eventually those salmons would die when they arrived at the sewage treatment plant. These salmons would not reproduce; the sewage treatment plant was not their spawning ground that their taste and smell had memorized. Their run would stop there as there was no fish-pass and the poor treated water could easily poison them.
As the salmons, Moa reached the sewage treatment plant and was blocked there by old wire mesh. He hesitated for a long time because it didn't look like the pictures of his parents at all. In the end, he did not jump into the water. A station employee spotted him and drove him back to his parents.
He had been reprimanded as rarely because the smell he brought with him had taken time to dissipate. He had promised himself, like bravado to parental authority, that one day he would go swimming in the sea.
Moa had already reached the center of the jousting ground and his escort stopped before making a U-turn because they had fulfilled their mission and it was now the responsibility of the snipers to escort the march forward.
The most daring journalists were already approaching the members of the escort to gather their impressions and perhaps learn more about the reason for the coalesced to send their envoy to the Grenati's camp.
Moa was now thinking about the little sister he would so much have loved to have. He had had a dog, that's right, but what he really wanted was a little sister. He had thought about the first name, his little sister would have been called Cetissi. Audacity had concocted an infallible plan for him. He had switched Arkisée's birth control pills wit homeopathic pills for Enthi's hemorrhoids. Luckily, it was the same laboratory that supplied both prescriptions, and since it was easier for them to limit the number of production lines, the two drugs looked similar.
Finally, he had waited and his little sister had never come.
What he didn't know was that since his birth and his mother's postpartum depression who had sworn never again it. Although it was God when it entered, it was the Devil when it came out. Her parents no longer touched each other. So her mother had become pregnant once but knowing that the father was not Enthi but a certain Sainka Seth and that the morphological differences between the two men were likely to be obvious at birth, she had passed her medical abortion for a miscarriage.
Subsequently, her mother had lost all confidence in hormonal contraception. She had an IUD inserted and then, to be sure, she underwent a hysterectomy. Never again, she did promise herself.
Enthy had developed a chest and then had to wear a bra.
Moa's life was a series of almost great moments. Well, the jousting ground did not take that long to cross so he did not have time to remember more than that, soon he faced the Grenati border post. At that moment, to go back was to be shot in the head.
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
ludo2776
ludo2776 ... to be continued in the next chapter
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