**AT THE PHONE SHOPPE**

–¡Good morning everyone! – I shout as the door is not even closed behind me.

A young lad on a red t-shirt walks towards me, and asks me to join a huge line of people. -Good morning sir–says the guy– would you please queue up?

-G’day. Yup, sure.–

Queuing up is not a funny thing to do. However, it helps you observe a world that otherwise would keep moving too fast. Far inside the store, just before the horizon, a lonely girl with a desperate look in her eyes, sits behind a small white desk and talks to an elder woman which looks like she barely can keep the piss into her underwear. Probably the whole problem is that the new gen you-will-get-used-to-it-soon phone her smartass nephew got her for Christmas is turned off again. I do my best not to loose my coat of patience and take a look at the horde of phones that stare back at me from the shelves. Different prices for different ways to be hooked up to modern times, in order to waste time stupidly. But then again, that’s what I got here for, innit?

Two hours and four wrong pin codes later, I get to talk to the lady at the desk.

–Hi sir–she says–May I help you?

–Not really, just wasting my time –I quickly turn away and then turn around again. She looks at me as if I had a fly on my face the size of an apple. Obviously she’s not up to any jokes by that hour of the day.

–Just kidding– I say– Actually, I was wondering If I could get a new phone: the old one seems wrecked–.I pull a tiny black cell phone off my jacket and leave it over the table.
- See? Time for a new one. Maybe my account allows me for a new terminal?

She does not pay attention to the thing and talks like an automaton while slipping a dusty brochure under my nose:
- Sure sir, we have a great promotion for our cliens, for a Nokia or a Motorola. The Nokia has some nice wood finish to it. Both are five year old models only–.

I take a look at the brochure she shows me. Then look to the lady. Back to the brochure. Back to the lady again.

–Five year old models?–I shout, grabbing back my phone – Damn! I’d be faster to send a pigeon with a note than a text message with one of these!. No way! I mean, I have been a loyal client for the past eight years and the only phone you have available for me is an A-Class Crapbag with buttons in it?

–Sir, there’s no need to shout, maybe you want to try one of our…–

–I don’t want to try nothing!. I ‘ve been waiting here for ages and now I want a new phone, or I want YOU to get my old phone fixed! Right now!!–

The guy on the red t-shirt comes to the desk as I grow nervous.

–¡What now!– I say, pointing at them with my menacing broken phone– ¿are you threatening me?¿You muck around with me, and now you see I’m not an average stupid that digs your crap, you start threatening me or what?

The girl looks embarrassed. The rest of the people at the store stare at us as they slowly step back off me. One or two leave the place.

–Sir–says the guy– If you don’t calm down, I will have to ask you to leave the store.

I smack on the table with the cell phone. Once. Twice. The girl stands up, grabs her own phone and tries to call someone.–Sir, please calm down– she begs.

–I am as calm as a damn fat Buddha you pricks, now get me my bloody new phone! - at that point, the phone is the less of my worries. I know me. I know me, and I'm about to make an scene. Sometimes is the only way to get what you deservem right? So I keep going:
-You know what? You’re are all the same, only wanting to make money, no matter how much we spend on these stupid phones! You only want more, more, more! Now I need you to help me and you offer me shit without even listening to me, you know what?, I think you treat me like this because I’m black!.

Absolute silence. I don't know why the hell I just said that.

–Sir …–The clerks look at each other, then both take a look at me, their eyes wide open, round as soup dishes– you are not black, sir. Please calm down. –
Two policemen break into the store, followed by the old lady. Bitch. 

-I can't believe you called the coppers you old mummy! Dammit! You called the coppers!

–Drop the detonator, sir! Drop the detonator! -As I still hold my old phone and shake it around like a weapon,  they think I’m some sort of terrorist, and so they start pointing at me with their guns.
–Well that does it, you suckers!– My face is red burning in anger– I came here peacefully and this is what I get? This is a police state! – I raise the phone high in the air whilst screaming ¡Police state! ¡Police State!. By that time, everybody in the place is sure that I have a belt full of explosives underneath my jacket. Suddenly, the phone switches on somehow. Someone's calling. I laugh hysterically when I recognise the phone company number on it, and as I try to pick it up, the coppers shout:

NO!- and shoot me down.

The phone falls off my hands as I lay into the floor. Voices fade away, some insulting, some calling for an ambulance. The last thing I hear before I faint, comes from the guy in the red t-shirt. He holds my phone, turns it around and then looks at his colleague. Then says:

–Unbelievable! This phone is not from our company! This idiot got into the wrong store!

HERDING THE LAMB

Elders warn not to roam around alone when the day is over. Terrible things could happen under the moonlight these days, they say, because night is no more than a curtain painted black, meant to hide the unexpected.

But she ain’t scared, and remains there on the rooftop again, not too far from home, staring around while the night starts to crawl above her. Half of the bright white sphere shyly leans over storm dragging clouds, which slowly approach from a fading horizon on their way to the ocean.

Cold wind freezes everything around, bringing up clear traces of many souls lying beneath her feet. The faint moans of a couple, while making love on a couch in a flat nearby, attract her attention. Down below her stone–cold feet a couple fights whilst their children cry at their argument. A sudden gust whirls her hair before something quickly dives in the shades.

Enough for the girl to realize she is not alone.

—Who are you?— she asks to the darkness .It takes a moment to hear a smooth laughter:

—Good girl– says the silhouette. It smiles, and the pale light of the moon lines a sharp tooth stiffing a dead lower lip.

She steps back as he steps  towards her, leaving the shadows where he was hiding. But the shadows seem not to leave him, somehow. Atmosphere fills up with the bittersweet stink of death, and all sounds  shut at once, leaving the place in absolute silence.

–Don’t you know who I am?–.Though his smile she notices a glimpse of infinite sadness. He tells that he’s been alone for a thousand years. Offers her to join him for the long night where pain and fear are no more. Asks her to become the nightmare of many. A true goddess, for just a few drops of life and the gift of a last heartbeat.

–No– she says – go away!–, and keeps moving backwards until she reaches the opposite rail. The girl understands there’s no chance to run away. The vampire stops where she was a moment ago, and observes the people passing by on the way home. Then looks back at her, and rage whips a face kept young for centuries. He rushes over the girl, grabbing her neck with bony cold fingers, lifting her up in the air.

They say that fear heightens senses.That would be the case except for one thing: she does not look scared at all. He realizes about it too late, as the full moon raises above the clouds for an instant. She shifts quickly, as a sweet quivering mouth turns into deadly saw-shaped jaws, and the long black hair starts to spread all over her changing animal body. Her neck grows so strong that the immortal cannot hold her anymore. He is the one who tries to escape now. But she grabs him on the run and holds him by his spine, crushing his ribs, ripping his rotten flesh. Slams his body on the floor, tearing a sibylline scream out of him. He crawls pathetically, willing to scape. It seems that there is pain and fear in his world after all, she thinks. One only precise bite cracks his front, and the threaten, if it ever was, is gone.

She chews the bone while the quiet body at her feet turns into ashes, and slowly disappears, whipped by the winds of the imminent storm.Then leans out from the rooftop rail, and howls his victory to the moon. She can hear no noise, but surely can smell the fear of the lamb. Soon others join her song from the heights of the nearest buildings.
She never stays too far from the pack when the day is over because, as the elders warn, night is no more than a curtain painted black, meant to hide the unexpected.

CONTROL

Caía la tarde a través de las ventanas, relamiendo las paredes de la habitación con su lengua manchada de ocres, cuando aquel tipo decidió abrir la boca. Ambos nos miramos a los ojos directamente; Los suyos mostraban un atisbo de súplica, los míos le devolvían una determinación férrea.

–‘’Podemos solucionar esto’’–insistía–‘’Podemos hablarlo como personas civilizadas’’ –.

Yo caminaba de un lado a otro sin parar y no le quitaba los ojos de encima. En mi mano un arma, cargada y amartillada, ronroneaba inquieta esperando ejecutar sentencia. Su tacto, rugoso y cálido, contrastaba con el frío sudor de mi mano. El hombre alternaba miradas nerviosas hacia aquella herramienta de muerte, y luego hacia mí. No se movía de su sitio, sabiéndose derrotado desde el primer momento en que coincidimos en aquel lugar miserable. La puerta, entreabierta y solitaria, devolvía los ecos de un tráfico ya moribundo a aquellas horas, mezclado con las conversaciones lejanas de los que esperaban allí fuera procurando no ser vistos. Hacían su trabajo. Solo eso. Pero aquella vez no les iba a salir bien. La decisión era mía. Allí, en aquel lugar y en aquel momento era yo, y solo yo, quien tenía el control. Sonreí.

El hombre malinterpretó mi gesto y volvió a atosigarme con su lastimera verborrea. No se daba por vencido, pero yo no pensaba desistir. Una sombra cruzó la puerta y perdí el contacto visual con mi interlocutor por una única décima de segundo.

Luego todo se aceleró. O se ralentizó, quizá. El tiempo es siempre algo subjetivo. Hizo el amago de atacarme: Desesperado, se abalanzó sobre mí en un último intento por conseguir su objetivo. Aquella era la señal que había estado esperando. El fuego en la mecha; El botón rojo sobre la consola de mando. Estaba todo decidido. Llegados a aquel punto, solo me quedaba una cosa por hacer. Así que la hice: Apunté y apreté el gatillo.

Y un instante antes de que la embestida del policía me lanzase por el suelo, me volé la tapa de los sesos.

EL LAMENTO DEL ACORDEÓN

Se presentó en el vagón con un ''buenas tardes '' y, sin más, comenzó a tocar.

La gente, que se agolpaba en sus asientos -impregnada del sudor y el cansancio de una jornada de trabajo más- no hacía caso de la advertencia que el viejo músico les lanzaba a través del preciso, casi robótico, movimiento de sus dedos sobre el instrumento:

''Cuidado''rezaba su tango'' una vez escuché el lamento del acordeón y lo ignoré, sin pensar en que un día podría llegar a ser yo el intérprete''

Una señora le miró con mala cara. Le molestaba aquel ruido. El se dio cuenta, pero se limitó a mirar hacia la nada y siguió tocando.
Fue entonces, cuando le vi llorar. Sus lágrimas se derramaron por entre las arrugas de su cara, como las últimas gotas de lluvia precipitándose al vacío desde el techo de una casa abandonada. Lloraba por lo que había dejado atrás; por la angustia del que comprueba a diario cuánto orgullo hace falta tragarse, para llenar un estómago vacío.
La canción acabó y el anciano comenzó su pequeño paseo, incómodo y silencioso, entre la gente. Desapareció de mi vista acompañado por el tintineo de monedas delgadas. Un tímido '';Muchas gracias'' se escuchó a mis espaldas.
Luego el hombre cerró la puerta tras de sí, y desapareció.

Poco después, amortiguado su saludo por el traqueteo del tren, le escuché advertir a los ocupantes del siguiente vagón…

''cuidado … ''