Mind the Gap is a collection of fiction short stories. They vary in style, themes, tone, characters and length. The aim is to provide a different lens colour to look to reality. It's also the sandbox where I tried different voices, where I experimen...
Chronicle from a former earthian found in the new Library of Alexandria in Mars.
"Our little planet is populated by some despicable creatures worth the darkest children's nightmares. Among them we have trolls and vampires. I learnt to spot them very young. How I did it? I rejected blinding myself.
I met trolls at school although, at that time, they wouldn't accomplish much, limited by an environment that prevented them from going too far. I fought the first one when I was eight years old. I was arrogant and impatient, she was deceptive and sadistic. On a rainy day she conducted one of our classmates to the center of the deserted football field, under the promise of revealing an amazing secret. Too naive to see the trap or too tricked by the unusual attention, she accompanied the troll under the umbrella. The troll ran, the victim froze.
There were we all, staring at the unprotected figure drenched under the rain. I quickly became sick of it, I couldn't figure out what disgusted me more, the troll's deed or the crowd's passive stand. With an unbrella in my hand that I had taken from somebody without asking, no time for niceties, I ran to the sad figure raising it over our heads. There were tears mixed with rain drops falling from her cheeks, her eyes hurt by betrayal. She had grown up five years in five minutes of waterfall. I tried to comfort her but it was useless, she didn't need it anymore. Simple Daisy had transformed into a dangerous Darlingtonia. Bless her! When we reached the roofed side of the field, the crowd swallowed her up, reciting words of consolation, forcing her to smile so they could feel fine and go back to normal again, ignoring the breech in their twisted reality. She wouldn't buy it. I left.
I grew up with a vampire at home. Most of the time he was latent, adaptable as a chameleon, his words soft as cotton sugar. In the occasion when he was active his despising words burned like cigarettes. I remember one particular time, his breath close to my right ear, his predatory game trying to make me confess the crime. I was guilty and I knew it but I also knew mine was a minor fault and he was taking advantage to use his fangs. It was an unequal psychological fight and I was secretly furious. Secretly? He knew I was stubborn and righteous and both traits would play to my disadvantage. He didn't want an early confession that would deprive him of the fun. I hated him because I could see it and I couldn't run away. It went like that for years but, as Friedrich says, what doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.
In our times trolls are hidden in the fog of the webnet. They disguise their identities and attack mercilessly, even with gluttony, to people who can't defend themselves. They create digital waterfalls that drench their victims' peaceful minds. They grow like moss, parasites of the creative ones. In the streets they look normal, some of them even pass for charming people, harmless citizens in the real world, antic relics of a prehistoric world in the virtual one.
And vampires have taken the world reins. They are turning wrong what is right with a passive crowd as accomplice. This time it is me who is observing the madness and forging my way out. I would never try to rescue so many Daisies willingly marching to the abyss".
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