Krisis with a K

Hemingway, the nuclear catastrophe and atomic bombings. “(…) In this story, young George is still framed in the doorway as though a picture looking at the sun, trapped within his imagination. As it happened to Ernest Hemingway, still an unpublished novelist, who was paying a visit to Pamplona in 1923 when he felt that deep sensation of the inaugural rocket announcing the start of Sanfermines and the running of the bulls, cowboy in his far west of emotions. Because you should know that in his first novel “Fiesta” the American Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 told us all about his experiences during Los Sanfermines and his feelings were inspired by bullfighting. From the front door of his house young George’s childish bangs scanned the Valencian sky and thereby the inspiration of the sun entered into him, pure energy like the one generated by the wind without the risk of the nuclear catastrophe suffered by the inhabitants of Chernobyl and Fukushima. (Page 18) “(…) –Everything’s possible on the Earth –he emphasized– for men and women of respectful faiths and constant determination. Let’s take the example of the Japanese people that have been devastated so many times by earthquakes, atomic bombings and the Fukushima catastrophe. The best possible life is similar to your thoughts. (Page 231)

Take a try and with Julio Cesar cross the Rubicon River! Julio Cesar, the brave, and the "ALEA IACTA EST." (Krisis with a K /Second Part: ‘Falling in love with life’)

Mandela, Kennedy, Lincoln and Luther King. “(…)George and his two brothers were excitedly waiting for dusk. The children were playing on the pavement with an eye on the door, in case her mum came out with dinner. But on Josefica’s television, who was sitting outside enjoying the fresh wind of the evening and watching the news through the window, the eldest brother was attracted by the strange language spoken by the newscaster. The captions of the simultaneous translation clarified the statements with a strange accent. A handcuffed, dark-skinned man who looked honest was on the screen. George read the words on the television quickly: “It’s an ideal which I hope to live for, but if it needs be, it’s an ideal for which I’m prepared to die.” –Who’s that, Josefica? –¡Mandela! ¡Nelson Mandela! –What’s he saying? –He gave the football to his two brothers and got closer to the TV set. –He defends freedom and equality in South Africa and throughout the world. The screen released two flashes of lightning and the thunder was heard. Young George recalled those days of storm. And the mournful shadow of another headline appeared on television: “Kennedy has died!” –Who? –He wanted to change the world! –explained Josefica. –Change it! Why? –He has been assassinated like Lincoln and Luther king. Another good president was assassinated in the United States! –His neighbor picked up the cup of coffee she had on the table and sipped it. –Has he died in a war? On the blackness of the television screen a coffin appeared, meanwhile in a box on the left side corner of the screen the self-assured, full of life countenance of a man and a dreamer was shown, which impressed George, without need to understand what he was saying: “Now the trumpet summons us again. (…) My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. (…) With a good conscience (…) that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.” They killed him, Josefica! –But his message will live on and his dream of equality will come true. You will see it! I am sure you will see everything fulfilled in your lifetime! (Page 46-47)

RAT-a-TAT-TAT of the African famine and “We are the world” by Michael Jackson.“(…) The following days were very tense and George kept a cautious silence. The xenophobic slogan aired by the brains of hypocrite tongues. They co-existed with an irrational contradiction: their neurons sailed within the entire united world by the Internet and Google, while their selfishness fought tooth and nail and kept their minds and lives chained as prisoners of the past.In their interested amnesia they had forgotten the colonial plundering carried out by European countries in Africa and in almost all the continents, the massacres and looting with the excuse of El Dorado committed by the Spanish Empire that impoverished most of the people and peoples of America for centuries. Despite the tension of the moment, one morning, our friend wore the attorney’s gown: –Are you afraid of the African rat-a-tat-tat? Are you afraid to be invaded by the Zulus or Masais? And could they steal your sandwiches? –He sprang it on them while biting his sandwich made from bread, olive oil and salt. Like deaf and blind zombies who do not return their looks they remained in silence as an answer of terror and lack of respect to immigrants. They never understood Jackson’s song “We Are The World”. Some minutes after, George heard some radio interferences in the news broadcast by Matias Prats, a radio he had on a cabinet at work. Nobody moved to tune it. George approached the set to tune the channel and turn up the volume. An Algerian small raft had run aground on the Torrevejense coast. Thirteen men, a pregnant woman and two four-year-old children drowned! Seventeen stomachs that were looking for food. (Page 57-58)

Al-Andalus in Spain and the Berlin Wall collapsed. “(…) Every corner of the Levantine farmland surprised him so much that he took notice of everything from the back saddle of his father’s bike imagining his dad was driving a stagecoach. The polychrome of crops on the banks of the Segura River is like a paradise on earth, as it is the Yanna in the Muslim Koran. Garden or oasis of water overflowing sewers and irrigation ditches and canals, the efforts and knowledge of the Arabian agronomy, a people that populated the al-Andalus for seven centuries (Spain and Portugal until 1492 when Granada was taken under the command of Rodrigo Ponce de Leon obeying the orders given by the Catholic Monarchs). The Arab descendants survived in the Levantine land, mixing their blood with Aragoneses and Castilians, just as it happened after the invasion and colonization of the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors, and since 711 they co-existed with the Spaniards. Young George stored up images and details while riding the bike across such a fertile Levantine region. Enjoying the excellence of such an awesome green universe he wanted to learn everyday something new. And besides, he had already conquered his dream: the green wall by the bridge collapsed, because he had gone beyond it with his dad riding the bike. He had delved into the feeling of freedom provided by the orchard. In the same way as in 1989 the Berlin Wall collapsed to give rise to the new border-free Europe. (Page 29).

Africa, Haiti, India, Guatemala and Mother Teresa of Calcuta.“(…)Yeah, you… who is judging me and George and his utopias too. I am speaking to your brain and soul. Let’s make a new world! The Creator was never an abstract entity but life is put into action. The act of creation emerges from the actions and deeds of millions of good wills in motion. Choose your own path and act without delay. What do you feel whenever your hear the African famine rat-a-tat-tat? Or the rat-a-tat-tat coming from the desperation in Haiti, India, Guatemala… Has that rat-a-tat-tat changed you? Go help them! Or would you open an extermination camp on the isle of Lampedusa for the millions of Africans escaping from starvation and a certain death? Be in their shoes! Do it for just a few seconds! And what if you had been born where they were born? Mother Teresa of Calcuta assured George that the human heart will always help them and will let them cross the border. (Page 129)

(See the History section at the end of the novel/Second Part)