Encounters (Los conductos)

I drew to kill time.

I guarded a warehouse, like this one, day and night.

I'd watch the door so intently

I could close my eyes and still see it.

A few days after moving in,

I began to sleep holding my gun.

It was a 38 calibre with 6 shots.

There were 4 left.

To pass the time,

I started to play around with the gun.

I carved an inscription on the handle with my knife,

"This is my life",

like on Revenge's revolver.

The warehouse belonged to us.

We had several like it.

Rented to companies or left empty

for our own activities.

I joined the group because I felt lonely.

We were many,

united by a sense of loss we felt in the world.

There was a guy we all respected.

He was considered our leader,

we called him "father"

even though he was as young as us.

Father was our voice and our conscience.

He knew how to talk to us.

He told us we were at last living the love we had so longed for.

But we all knew

we had not come to the group for love,

but because of the hatred we felt for society.

The sum of all our hatreds,

father turned into love between us,

by telling us what we wanted to hear.

All that existed

outside our group,

things,

other people,

we called "the world".

The world existed for us.

The world

was like matter that we could use at will,

because we, "the chosen",

we were the only ones who knew how to mould it.

Kill,

steal,

dominate,

all this

was nothing more than the force needed for transformation,

like striking iron to forge it.

Over time the group grew,

and money ran out.

We began to set up small businesses

that served as cover for other business

less honest but more lucrative.

Most of the people in the group were good people,

men of faith.

True believers in God,

inclined to believe in anything.

We obeyed father's orders docilely,

convinced we were acting for justice,

even if it was with violence.

Father led us in a subtle but firm way.

He did not allow for doubt

so we had to close our eyes on our own barbarism.

From the moment we entered the group

we were ready to sacrifice ourselves.

For the good of all and for father.

Soon we became one body.

A surprisingly large and powerful body

whose arms and legs

struck those who questioned its unity.

A body whose mouth, eyes and ears

constantly monitored individual acts

that might put the whole at risk.

A body whose organs were connected

by the faith that we had in the group,

in father, and in God.

A faith that empowered us all with self-confidence,

and a feeling we had been miraculously saved

from a world that had always seen us as worthless.

Mister,

can you pay me the days I worked?

I don't know anyone here,

I need some cash to pay for a room.

It was just what we wanted.

To live the illusion of being chosen people,

chosen by father and through him by God.

"The chosen".

Encouraged to eliminate the first person who disagreed.

It's the last one I'll take from you.

Take another and I'll kill you.

I've been told you're a fucking junky.

Take your stuff and clear out.

Where did you get these t-shirts?

Ok, kid. First off, they're fake.

Second, I'm sure you stole them.

I should call the cops.

But I will be nice.

Take 20,000 and piss off.

One day something happened.

I found myself somewhere I shouldn't have been.

From there, I saw him,

him,

father,

doing something that I do not wish to remember.

You'll tell me it's nothing.

We are so used to hearing such horrible things.

But you had to be there,

and see him,

to understand that we had lost the little goodness we had left.

I suddenly felt great disgust for him,

for me, for the group.

As if I had suddenly regained my humanity.

I understood that to be "chosen" was to cease being human.

That day I realised I was the only one who could do it.

Because I was the only one who knew we had to stop all that.

I had to wait for the right moment and seize my chance.

I was one of his trusted men,

one he allowed to work alone in our warehouses.

I knew he would come to give me another mission.

For days I'd been staring at the door, the walls

Dragging my heels down corridors,

Waiting for him to turn up.

How long would the others look for me?

Maybe not long

if someone used the situation

to become a new father.

In a warehouse in Southern Bogota,

a group of delinquents broke into an abandoned warehouse.

When the alarm went off,

they tried to escape over the roof.

One of them fell.

He was already dead when the police arrived.

There were three of them:

the father and his two sons.

The father's name was Bolt.

The children: Nut and Baby.

They were on TV every Sunday.

They went to working-class neighbourhoods,

to measure holes in the roads.

Each of these holes,

represented as much public money diverted by corruption.

They dropped giant tape measures into the holes.

They laughed hysterically at the number and incredible size of the holes.

Their living was making people laugh

about these holes, thefts, and corrupt politicians.

They were considered crusaders

but they were just a group of clowns.

They said the holes were so huge

that cars fell in

and drove down parallel streets to ours,

then fell through other holes

to resurface from time to time

on a road

that overlooked all others.

One day,

people learnt Nut had been a drug addict since he was 7 years old.

Shortly after this revelation,

Nut ended up on the streets,

ravaged by drugs and reduced to begging.

A beggar that everyone knew.