39

01:27

'We made a permanent division. We chose the area we wanted solely for us. We collected the right people. We imposed rules. For some they were ridiculous. We scribbled down the measurements, eye colors, heights, width, the state of teeth. My wife would have fit the pattern without problems. I, on the other hand, didn't. Imagine my life in fear surrounded by decades by the best of the best. Imagine this group of attractive tall and young who gave birth to yet more attractive individuals. Just by looking at them you could tell that there was fortune written on their faces. We built our flats, we protected ourselves, we became isolated from those who could harm us.

But people get used to strange things, Mel. War taught so many of us to eat things that we didn't eat before. So they, my people, you see, abandoned N. during the night and hunted. They came back and they fed us till we were full. We had our basic needs appeased, so we started investing into science and technology. We soon invented fertilizers that would make crops resistant to weather variations. We created foods which would be tastier than ever, that would make people of K. happy and open to our needs...'

Melquiades was putting pieces to the puzzle.

'You drugged them. You put drugs into the food to make them numb! To willingly enter those trains!'

'Mel, we drugged them to make them calmer, to make them stop killing each other. Brother was eating brother, families were torn apart, people were traumatized. And yes, we needed meat. And we wanted to obtain it in the most humane way possible. Food had other qualities, as we came to notice. It made them fertile. It made them fertile beyond our expectations. The population was getting bigger and bigger, while we had problems to maintain our inhabitants on the same level. Every woman was enjoying her life of pleasure and physical attractiveness that we had to enforce a law of giving birth to at least one child. Those were strange times, Mel. When I was younger I thought that only such weirdos as you, antisocial, bookworms, those afraid of women, were not to have children. Times changed. N. had everything, each of its people had flats, houses, villas, and cars. And the abundance of food. And yet, those who had nothing, apart from some fresh fruit and vegetables, engaged themselves in sexual pleasures and created two hundred million of themselves in such a short period of time. We didn't need as much meat. We used the surplus. We used K.s bright children to be our engineers, to work in our factories, to produce everything for us so that we didn't have to raise our little fingers. It worked for a while. It ran clockwork, Mel. Then you came and I was waiting for your move. But you stayed in the old house. You played with the villagers and, finally, you came to me. Tell me, Mel, apart from making all this havoc with mice, what did you come for?'

Melquiades took a long breath. He liked talking about things as they were.

'I came here to kill you,' he answered honestly and smiled in his awkward manner.

Jacob didn't reciprocate the smile.