WELCOME

Welcome to the blog of Lights of the Earth, my first novel, and the fictional town of Hazington, where the main facts that my characters live are developed...

My name is Germán Llanes and hope people know me enough, but above all I hope they love my town and "my children". I am 46 years old. I was born in Minas de Ríotinto (Huelva) and live in Valverde del Camino (Huelva).

DEDICATION

My mother, Isabel Membrillo Vélez

"Because they came first and we are their creation"

A Lady of Chillón (Ciudad Real), which deposited 50 cents in my hand

 and did not know that she was not giving alms to a real beggar, or was she?

MAP OF HAZINGTON

 

This is the map of the city of Hazington. It has two flaws. The Arcade area should be logically on the west side of the mountain and the cable car should be to the northeast of Arcade, close to the mountains

PROLOGUE: AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND

   It is the shoulder, in reality, which bears the tension of the entire arm, but the movement begins at the elbow. The latter, with the impulse which arrives of the blood pumped by the heart and in accordance with the orders issued by the brain, which sometimes does that kind of shenanigans, transmits its force to the forearm, which rises about 30 degrees -sexagesimal system - and generates a magnetism almost telluric that electrifies the basilic vein to the wrist; and the hand opens. The thumb is leaning against the bottom phalange of the forefinger and the other four fingers humiliate before the palm. Hand is made a basin; there are new lines that nobody knows what fortune or fate foretell. It ages. The knuckles can’t be seen but they are there, challenging. After a couple of hours, the entire arm hurts. On a day of cold, watery eyes, rags just covering a miserable body, eternal hunger, the fingertips increasingly insensitive, pain almost becomes flesh. To get here, shame should be domesticated.  We must learn to endure the judgment of others. It is intended to move to commotion... or compassion. To get here! Not all the roads that lead to the street have the same threshold, but lead to the same point: the outstretched hand, the yearning plea, the solicitous flush. It craves something that is lacking and that other more blessed can give you. And at the end it comes to be the currency falling on the hand. The hand!... It is obvious that the word where “beg” comes from originated from Latin manus, and mendicare means to reach out to ask. For those who thus earn a living there have been many given names: poor, paupers, vagabonds, homeless, nomadic, poverty-stricken, ragged...; and others less benevolent: rogues, losers, unemployed, miserable, thieves, rabble... beggars! But there are many types of begging.

FIRST PART: THE MORNING TWILIGHT CHAPTER I: THE CITY OF FOG

   The star Regulus, alpha leonis, of an intense blue-white glare, bright in the skies of winter and spring in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere, the brightest of the five gems of Leo, and one of the four royal stars from Mesopotamia (together with Antares, Aldebaran and Fomalhaut), had just emerged, outpost of its constellation, in the east of the mountain range northeast on a cold night in mid-February of the year 33 of beggars; and he beheld the city as if it were for the first time since the night was a crystal, the moon was new, and capricious regular fog, that rhythmically often used to cover it, threatened not to appear; and everything tended to give the royal star, in that cold hour, the best terrestrial observatories.

CHAPTER II: ALL STORIES SHOULD BE TOLD TWICE AT LEAST

   In the serene, sacrosanct, stillness of Deanforest, the doorbell rang as a loud knock, startling Herbert Protch when he was at the top of the grand staircase. Because of its strident and out of tune notes that reminded a bird surprised by a sudden frost and which, terrified, had forgotten the tone suitable for singing; he understood that it was the main gate, which was on the west. The mail and the morning newspapers had already arrived and he didn’t know who might call at those hours. He was not used to receive many visitors. Maybe – he thought - a beggar or a seller of encyclopedias. He would prefer the former: he would give him some currency and that person would leave in a couple of minutes. Whoever that was, he was leaving the imprint of his personality in the call, because he rang with persistence, but at the same time -he could not explain it better - an unmistakable tone of calm could be perceived, of someone who didn't want to bother but had long time ahead and a clear goal. A little angry, but curious, he started to give some urgency to his rheumatic steps. In the absence of his wife, and having decided to give up having servants, it was his turn to open the door. Feet that descended the staircase not only were insecure; they also carried the weight of a body invaded by a profound melancholy, that of a man who cursed his sudden change of fortune as well as an old age that, much to his regret, was starting to devour him. He came down from the second floor, where he had been arranging flowers in his room: the former room of the lord, which only in the last year, and after the persuasive words of his wife, he had dared to occupy. That was - he thought - the word that best described his situation, because so he felt and couldn’t be avoided, as a squat that occupied a house that did not belong to them by their social position. Unconnected threads of thought made him remember he was seriously considering transforming one of the offices on the ground floor in a new bedroom where he had easier access, where his knees did not suffer much punishment. But that constant lassitude, that infinite reluctance to live! By one of the high windows of the house he had just seen with half of consciousness, how the fog dissipated, moving away from the north. It was half past nine in the morning of Monday, February 14 - year 33-, the morning after the night that Regulus had watched. A day that was not called to occupy a prominent place in history, but that within the vast annals of iniquity, there was place for a small justice. Because in a remote biblical country a defense minister was forced to resign, accused of the massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.

CHAPTER III. THE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

   Once upon a time there was a woman –He started. The flames, like burning hands massaging my knees, were a pain reliever against the stubborn cold of the harsh winter, already yielding. Protch, who had placed himself so that he did not prevent their warm tongues to lick me, smiled. The clear morning was changing tiresomely into afternoon-... who uttered her first cry, without irreverence, in the presbytery of what is an old cathedral. Thus, sheltered in St. Magnus’ red sandstone of the tears of November which struck with fury outside, when the century was a small child barely weaned, the first beggar arrived at this dingy room of horror, Earth, claiming her right to see the light where she would like to. She was a girl of matter that never neglected energy; a woman like women are: lucid, serene and courageous. She could have emerged in a warm home or on the treacherous streets that were awaiting her, but in her freedom she decided to be born in a temple, as if it were written that only in the most sacred enclosures all explosions must burst, and she was like a creator for those who came later, mother of us all, as the Universe. The erratic souls, which empty and abandoned, ever to her have gone, always saw her woman among women, a lady. When her tiny steps ever bend the arc of any street, the taciturn passer-by stops to contemplate her, with a respectful look. In the view of her venerable way of walking and her wrinkles man is shaken by the weight of the first woman, of every story that mentions her.

CHAPTER IV: FIFTH MOTIF BY VERÔME

   In Miguel’s country people have two surnames, because the mother also brings her blood. Though it is true that the surnames of women end up being lost, that is the custom in this country and I like to know it. A man that has always come his way without apparent disorientations, and who has always believed in freedom and beauty was born there one day. With him, the path of the last three has changed and it is true that the last four have chosen it.

CHAPTER V: SIXTH MOTIF BY VERÔME

   Opulent and surprising, Cape Town attracts tourists even today despite the Apartheid which continues covering this southernmost country in Africa with shame. With its exotic Table Mountain, making depression towards the basin of the city, prosperous and beautiful as all that presses is sometimes. And there a man smart and tender was born, with marked feelings of kindness and loyalty, intelligent and generous, not always understood by his parents.

CHAPTER VI: THE PRINCE AND THE KING

   The road back was done with a calm mood and still some doubts. John was again driving his orange Volvo, while a drizzle fell on that day of a moribund January. Blessed rain. It had saved his life. He did not know whether today it would be sunny, but there were rays of enamel in his heart and still some hesitation. He had suddenly met the man of his life, and it was true that he once again felt alive on the day that he should be dead. Let it rain. Thus the wet streets reminded him that happiness had emerged out of those tears. He could be going crazy, but he was going to his job with intentions to quit it and go to the street. You only live once, he thought, and he had only been happy twice: in Basutoland, with Mthandeni, in harsh conditions, and last night, making love to a beggar.

CHAPTER VII: THE BALD PEOPLE

Once upon a time there was a beggar who was born in a wooden cradle, because the spirits of the universe, always indecipherable but always fair and wise, wanted to confuse his birth and wrote that he should travel his lane as a tree. And he had a crown and he had roots, and very strong roots, which provided him the essential nutrients for his sap to bring him dignity, and if it is true that even the clouds of respect one day made a nest in his crown, it is also true that on one occasion, as it happens to all the trees, his sap decayed and his wood dried. And if his story seems to you to be the hardest, it is true that trees need to first consume, in order to later sprout some flowery leaves.

CHAPTER VIII: SEVENTH MOTIF BY VERÔME

Bare and dismal, haggard and dusty, empty and treeless, Knights Hill is neither very high nor too much at sight, but has no more access than a shortcut, I dare not even call it a path, full of mud and pebbles that starts in Knights Bridge and reaches the top. Luke climbed it seeing that the night would be hazy and a shred of fog began to rise when he reached the top. Before concluding his road, he seemed sorry for what he had not done but wanted to do. Let's say that he finished the path by instinct, because he continued believing in this creed that said that there are inferior human beings and other superior, and he should give them a lesson. When he stepped on the top he discovered a tent on the east and did not see any more. It was my mate Lucy’s tent, who wast not afraid that everybody could see where she slept every night. In the descent toward Umbra Terrae Boulevard, there were no roads but a safe paths downhill, there were some elms where Mistress Oakes and Olivia's tents were. Those of Bruce and Miguel and John’s were also on the way down, but on the southern side. Once he arrived at the top of the promontory, he started to cry out loud as a demoniac.

CHAPTER IX. THE DAUGHTER OF THE EARTH

   November stripped of the slow flakes of mist with which Knights Hill dressed, giving beggars some privacy, while paradoxically Luke was almost naked, and a white ghost shook his heart to put it in its right place after the battle. Morning mist turned into shy dew, with icy face occasionally from frost, some shred of wind and a gentle drip of rain that persisted for the rest of that month. The rays of the red-haired woman, like a splendid sun that could end up settling in his insecure fallen leaves, were melting his frozen heart. Lucy approached him with determination, and before she could say anything, he began.

CHAPTER X. THE POISONOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE COURT

   Protch didn’t lack courage that morning of Wednesday, February 16. He had taken Nike a coffee to the library, where he had led him that morning. And sitting next to him, he heard him finally sigh.

Alas - said Nike finally — how happy you can see them. My parents were very beautiful. Although I never met them. What they lived must have been worthwhile. That you can see in their faces: she is seen happy and he is seen spellbound. And they are escorted by my grandparents, my dear Thomas Martin and Deborah. Thank you for bringing them to Deanforest and place them where I put my parents.

PART TWO: OF TENDERNESS AND OTHER BASILISKS CHAPTER XI: THE HARMFUL ANIMAL

   I left Baphomet with dizzy ideas and my head as a turbine where a hangover was future water which was grinding mercilessly, an intoxicated course of a burning river where it seemed to be swimming, disrespectful and foolish, an army of crazy ants. It looked as if they were dancing senselessly, an almost macabre dance, but rather than perish in the fire, they grew eccentric as they invited their congeners to an orgy of lava and anarchy. The silhouette of the world and reason loosened while sliding down the alcohol toboggan of that night of July. And without any firm handles, I was about to fall and drown. My life was a watery slope that did not allow me to see the edges and I slipped rapidly into a chasm of pain and terror, in the vacuum of not distinguishing my terrified silhouette in the midst of the images that were dizziness and suffocation, a shadow fleeting in paths that had not had any news from me, in which I had not left either steps or footprints in the 29 years I would be three days later; that wandering throughout existence with no injuries or joys, as an automaton who obeys orders, with no criteria for questioning them; which in a bend of supreme boredom can throw away his life steeped in treacherous elixirs that delayed reflection but killed, as a criminal, without one being aware of its rancor.

CHAPTER XII: THE SLAP

   The night and I seemed to be ill of the same disease, unexpectedly shrouded in a similar tone of poisoned pallor. It was as if a novice painter was painting it an unhealthy, unrealistic white, but in his large stains he was neglecting one of the corners of the horizon, since the natural black still persisted in some areas of the south. Who knows if I managed to survive because I was taken in that direction? That candid apprentice had erased Scorpio, but later they would tell me that some adjacent constellations remained, such as Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer, from which Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda hid, the head and the tail of the snake, which perhaps had slid ffrom his hands, where they had possibly decided to jump just to end up meeting me.

CHAPTER XIII: TWO BITES

   I was still drowsy, for I thought that after coffee I went back to sleep a bit, and perhaps, in a stormy lethargy, I woke up suddenly, perhaps screaming. I guess that it would be 9 o'clock in the morning. At that time, the vision of a new face attacked me as unexpectedly as a storm of warm wind. The newcomer was a man who would be, in addition to more or less my age, of a stature similar to mine, or perhaps was somewhat shorter. Brown hair and brown eyes, a beige corduroy jacket, brown trousers and  boots, and a pretty dirty clear shirt which, however, seemed to retain the light of day. He seemed a tree trunk well clinging to the earth. So I saw him for the first time, retaining the first sun in his worn clothes and his radiant smile. He smelled a bit of sweat and enough of dirt, but his soul struggled to peek through his filth. Still drowsy, my thought lost its clarity and I failed to guess his name when I greeted him:

CHAPTER XIV: HUNGER

   It could not be otherwise. Every day I woke up earlier and the frightened light of the last dawn of July already penetrated through the southeastern crack, stroking my right eye as an amnesty. I began to balance the past. My fear was different now. The belief already helped me that Nicholas Siddeley was mortally wounded; but from then on I had panic that he was resurrected. I had woken up with time enough to reflect, this day 31 at my usual time, more or less 7 o’clock. I sensed that John was late to get up and if there was a coffee that day, −every day, but the first, there was, but I never took it for granted- his arrival would delay. But dawn was not the only light. Even powerful and luminous, I still thought I would have to decide whether I had fallen in love with Luke. Curiously I had already decided that before him it had been John. I never rejected what my heart was telling me; it never shocked me. But I thought it was better to be sure before making similar mistakes in life again. I decided with no apparent reason to stand up and get out of the tent. Everything was dark and there was no one still up. I pretended I didn't want to see Luke in the vicinity, Protch. I chose to lie to myself and I thought all I needed was to stretch my legs.

CHAPTER XV: SCARCITY

   A drowsy and clueless ray, whose goal was surely not me, woke me again, inviting me to open my eyes in the morning. August was already a burned bread smelling of seeds and cereal. The smell of the Kilmourne seemed to reach my canvas and even the river, like my life, fermented. The tent was a furnace where suddenly I noticed an unexpected loaf of bread. When lifting the blankets I saw that they had introduced a new book: Great Expectations. I had never read Dickens, but I knew the argument. I would have surely seen it in the movies. I didn’t open it then because heat now came to settle and the day was intensely hot. Mentally, I had put myself the date of August 6 to return, and already the days escaped my fingers. I knew I was going to miss them much and started to meditate how I would continue without them. But at 8 coffee came to me coffee and something much more expected: Luke’s face.

CHAPTER XVI: THE WISDOM OF THE EARTH

   It was rivers of light which, touching every crack, woke me up that day at about 10, and I had no courage to oppose their burning force. I unbuttoned the crystals of sleep and I stretched with hope and some sadness: I had only four dawns left with them. That day I intended to get to know then better exploring their permanent camp site. In addition, health made me signals so I dared to take it. Untangling those threads I was, when there came my daily coffee. It was Miguel again. He came with a blue linen jacket and a shirt of the same color. Later he gave me breakfast and good morning, and resumed the conversation from the day before as if we had left it unfinished.