César Córdoba
The unbalanced propellers of the electric generator ended up prematurely wearing out the bearings and the noise became more noticeable as the days went by. Who knows how long it would last like this. Anyway, it was only a matter of time. Like everything.
Replacing it would take about hours. Disassemble the rotor, extract the bearings, change them and proceed to assemble it again.
But that was not possible and we had to wait. For now, the battery bank was still charged and you could use some things, such as the radio, although it didn't make much sense, you could only hear the scratchy sound of static. There were no broadcasts, no music, not even bad news.
—My gums are bleeding, I think I have cancer.
—It's scurvy, look at the halo on your nails.
—I'm telling you it's cancer!
—It's okay, Eva! If you say it's cancer..., who am I to contradict you!
—Fuck you! Go to Hell!
—We're already there, you don't need to get angry, my love.
—Are there no more vitamins?
—No…, and there is almost no food. If we ration it, maybe we'll gain a couple of days...
-Ration? Ha ha ha! We've been eating this shit out of semi-rotten cans for months. Why the hell do you want to win a couple of days, an hour, a minute!... I want to die, Bear! Shoot me!!!
—I don't have bullets, my love…, I'm sorry.
Bear remembered the blessed day when they met among strange faces and the apathy of a party, they exchanged glances at the same point and she laughed. He approached her and said a shy hello.
—Hello Bear, I'm Eva..., this is really boring.
"Yes, and the music is shit," he said, and they laughed knowingly.
—Do you want a beer?
—No…, better a mojito, with plenty of tequila.
—Of course! -and then He smiled in between the grove of the bushy
beard.
Since then they have never been separated again.
The gusts of wind lifted the tiles and made the structure of the house and the roof trusses creak. At any moment it was going to rise like a straw hat.
Bear went down the wooden ladder, looked into the attic, turned on a dim dirty white light and saw that there were two unlabeled cans of food left and a container of supermarket water with an expired expiration date.
He uncovered it and smelled it, maybe by boiling it he could drink it. He pushed up the folding steps with one hand and could barely hear Eva's fragile cry. She was too weak.
-Bear! I'm going to be electrocuted!
—Eva…, with twelve volts it is impossible.
—Do something, Asshole! We're falling apart!
—And when is the food finished? What?… We are going to amputate and eat by bits! And finger today, a tit tomorrow!… Bear…, this have to ends today! We're going to die anyway! —She started sobbing.
—It's okay Eva... Did you know that I love you?
—Yes, my Bear… Please hug me!…, I'm scared and cold.
Bear tenderly took her sparse head and she smiled toothless and bleeding.
And he kissed her with all the tenderness that a man could have, without stopping looking into her eyes, until the last second of her life. A sudden movement disconnected the spinal cord from the brain and she suddenly shut down. A brief “crack” in the neck.
"I'm sorry, my love," he said, crying inconsolably.
He picked her up like a bride and gently laid her down, clasping her bony, scalded hands over her chest
and kissed her forehead and walked around the bed until he opened the nightstand on his side.
He dug through old watches and sulfated batteries until he found the tiny projectile. The last one on earth.
He lay down next to Eva and mounted the bullet in the barrel. He pulled the trigger twice and nothing. Again and nothing. He insisted until he felt the yellow flash enter his skull. Now yes. They were extinct as trilobites. Like everyone.
The wind started to tear up the roof, raising it up like a gigantic kite floating in the universe. While the rain of cosmic radiation diluted them into an infinitesimal fragment of what we used to call time.
The End
