The Land Of K.

37

00:13

It was the same exact house. If there were wax figures imitating the lives of celebrities and stars, if there were painters responsible for copying the paintings of the greatest artist, a genius must have been hired who built the same exact house kilometers from the original.

Melquiades gasped. This had to mean that Jacob missed both of them, that he remembered those times spent at home when they were kids, that there was still something good in his heart. Leaving the car, he sprang into the house.

'I have been waiting...'

He heard a voice. His heart stopped. He stared.

Jacob was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping wine from the glass, a little tired but still astonishingly attractive.

'I have been waiting for years, Mel,' he said coldly and encouraged him with a gesture to sit down opposite the table. Jacob took the glass and poured some wine inside. He passed it to Melquiades.
'I have been waiting for years. No news, nothing. And then, when everything was peaceful and quiet, you decided to come back and mess around with what I had accomplished with such a huge effort. You played for a while, nothing came of it, you sacrificed one little girl, you did nothing of importance and there you are. The last resort. When there is no success, you come to me for a rescue...'

'I didn't come for a rescue. What happened to Gemma?'

Jacob shrugged.

'She was punished. She wasn't the first one. She isn't the last one. Drink. It's the wine from the harvest of the year you left. I'm getting sentimental. I store memories. I have some questions I would like to ask you...'

'So do I. I also have questions.'

'Oh. We met for the same reason. So, what would you like to ask me about? How did I manage to create such a magnificent country? Or how is it possible that you are still alive and I didn't order your execution the day you came here in the first place?'

'You knew that I came?' Melquiades was surprised.

'Of course, I knew. My little brother flew back to his beloved country. I was informed by the consulate. I was afraid that you will hurt yourself. See, we aren't as young as we used to be. And then I was waiting for your next step. But nothing happened. You were so much concentrated on yourself that the only thing that you did was to stay at home and occasionally invite our peers for a drinking party. And then you started to be involved in politics, which I found hilarious. Condoms, schools... Idealist. I must say I was enjoying myself. You wanted to repair something that was destroyed...'

'By you?'

'By me?', Jacob laughed 'You really think I would be able to destroy the whole country on my own? You think like the father. You think it was my fault. How was it that it was my fault when K. actually destroyed itself? I wanted to rebuild it. I couldn't rebuild all of it, so I rebuilt it for a limited number of people.'

'What happened to the father?'

'He was killed. He didn't like what was going on, let's say he didn't like my ideas. I couldn't allow myself to have a family member question my authority. I was afraid. They asked me to choose, to make a choice between K. and N. So I chose. The father died a short and peaceful death. Unlike many of us in those times...'

Melquiades' heart was pounding. His father was killed by his own brother. If there had been anything that would stop him from his plan, it disappeared instantly.

'What times?'

'Well, that for me is even more shocking, Mel. You behave as if you had lived in a state of complete ignorance. Your life was hidden from so much... While you were there, schooling yourself, learning unnecessary facts, we were in a state of war.'

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36

08:45

It was like the dream that you're having when you can do absolutely everything: you can fly, jump over skyscrapers, move at the pace of a jumbo jet. N. was madness. People walked out of their homes and apartments and were waiting for the end of the world, paying bigger and bigger tribute to little rodents running along the streets. Mice felt that people were afraid of them and started to make use of their superiority, storming flats, clearing dustbins, walking on children's limbs and taking the food from their hands. It was an amazing view to see people, not so long ago clean and attractive, now dealing with homelessness, exhaustion, hunger, and fear.
Jacob's palace was in a state of anarchy. Security guards were desperate. The queen was missing. Jacob was absent. His workers looked hopeless and left the palace with no intention of returning. This temporary paralysis wasn't Melquiades' problem. For him, it was a lucky coincidence. He entered the palace, utterly uninhibited, and logged on the system. He checked the position of Jacob, using passwords given to him by Gemma. He searched through every chamber.

And then he found one little room which was closed. There was no key. There was no one who could help him open the door. And, as Melquiades wasn't the type of a man who could be a secret agent of any organization, carry weapons of mass destruction or invent extraordinary devices, he used a simple solution. We went to the neighboring room. He opened the window. He looked through the window and turned his head right. Luckily, there was another window, leading to the closed room. Melquiades walked out of it and, stepping carefully on protruding brick ornament, he managed to break the glass and get inside. Straight away, he knew that it was Jacob's room. It didn't look like the chambers which he saw not so long ago. It wasn't a luxurious, spacious, light and comfortable place. It was old and cramped. There were old tables, an old bed, a few old books and a few old photographs of him, Jacob and the father.

On the wall there was a map, depicting the area of K. and the area of N. in its full glory. K. was colored in orange, N. was light blue. And on the border of N., on the other side of K., there was one spot marked as Home. The same exact mark was in K., precisely on the spot where Melquiades' house was located.

Melquiades took the map from the wall. He left the palace. He took one of Jacob's cars and left the palace's surroundings. The idea of theft didn't exist in N. as everybody was well-off enough not to envy anyone objects possessed. In each car, flat and shop the doors were left unattended. People didn't consider their neighbors a threat. They only feared creatures from K. Getting a car was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

And while the people of N. were losing more and more control over their mental health, so sure about the system that they had never dreamed of questioning any of its data, Melquiades was set on getting to one place in which he was sure to find Jacob.

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35

07:25

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02:39

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33

02:37

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32

02:34

There were four trains running at the same time in four different directions. One of them was heading to K. It was a modern train, half-empty, transporting a few commuters who were working in N. and were allowed to pay a visit to their family members and friends if those were still alive. In one seat by the window was sitting a half-conscious woman, whose past beauty was barely visible under the bruises and swellings. She had a pass and once the conductor saw that pass, he didn't dare to ask her any questions. This woman observed the same countryside that she had admired a few years ago but now with a feeling of deep disillusionment and pain. For sure, she didn't believe in love at that time, but she barely even believed in any of the traces of humanity.

The next train was heading towards N. The pass was this time checked very carefully, dozens of questions were asked and an inspection was performed by the officials leaving no space for suspicion. No substances were allowed, no weapons permitted and the old man was allowed to enter the train carrying only his pass and wearing a set of clothes provided by the train controller. The old man was amazed by the beauty of his land and honestly impressed by the landscape of his brother's land where everything was clean, trimmed and brand new. And once again he felt his inferiority. Whatever country had been left to him, he wouldn't have been able to surpass his brother's achievement.

Another train was a typical cargo train full of beans. One wagon was intentionally not to be inspected. The young man entered the train and buried himself in beans. When the train left the station, he felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

And the last train was crowded with people. Half of them were in a state of shock, the other half in a state of numbness, either resulting from the fatality of the situation or the indifference caused by no hope of rescue and change. One man was terrified. He was woken up in the middle of the night and informed through the loudspeaker that the district was to be closed and people were to be moved to different location. And from his roommates' looks, he could easily tell that they were told a lie.

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