Hell Calling
Authors: Enrique Laso
Hell Calling
Enrique Laso
––––––––
Translated by Rachel Christina Hopkinson
“Hell Calling”
Written By Enrique Laso
Copyright © 2015 Enrique Laso
All rights reserved
Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.
www.babelcube.com
Translated by Rachel Christina Hopkinson
“Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.
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I
In spite of the short distance from the boardroom to the adjacent office, Carlos walked very slowly towards the person holding out the telephone to him. It was as if he didn’t actually want to take the call. He would not have been unhappy if time were to stand still, and he would never have to face putting the phone to his ear. Ever since he had been called out of the meeting with an urgent ‘Carlos, there’s a call for you from the hospital. Something’s happened to your family,’ he had feared, with an almost unreal sense of dread, the moment in which some stranger, most likely a doctor, would provide him with further details.
“Yes...”
“Is this Carlos Miranda?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“Listen... your wife and daughter have been involved in a very serious traffic accident. You should come to the hospital as soon as possible...”
He did not ask any questions, and he did not wait for any more explanations. He hung up the phone and looked all around him, at the familiar faces with puzzled expressions, and came to the sudden realisation that this moment marked the beginning of a journey that was to be long and dark.
Somehow, Carlos knew that everything that had happened in his life until that point was now rendered worthless: that the new circumstances in which he found himself were going to require him to take on a new identity, and that this new person he would become was going to find little in the way of support from his previous life experiences. It was quite curious that his mind was already anticipating the future; that his brain was now battling to adapt to an unforeseen situation for which he was not entirely prepared, but which his subconscious had already begun to process.
‘I don’t want to know the truth.’
And in spite of his longing to deny the impending evidence, it was becoming increasingly clear to him that the tragic predictions whirling through his mind were very shortly going to be confirmed, and then that series of speculations would have incalculable value, because speculation always leaves a small opening for hope. Once such hope had been dispelled, there was no longer room for anything but pain and suffering.
‘I don’t want to go to the hospital.’
He repeated these words to himself over and over again, whilst he walked up to his car; whilst he placed his hands on the steering wheel; whilst he drove through the ring-roads: ultimately, whilst his entire body imposed reason upon the infantile desire for denial.
Carlos was certain that the best thing would have been to freeze his life forever back to five minutes before, in the middle of that boring Monday afternoon meeting. That it would have been better to stop time and remain forever in the peaceful banality of the everyday.
II
His wife and daughter had died. All he was left with was the consolation that at least they hadn’t suffered, it had been instantaneous... or so they assured him. A stupid accident, almost ridiculous. They had been driving down from the mountains, and it had rained for the first time in over four weeks. This had caused a layer of mud to form on the road surface, making it especially slippery. At some point in the drive (he didn’t know where, exactly) his wife had stepped hard on the brake, and the car had skidded helplessly towards a drop.
It was curious, because Laura, his daughter, loved to ice-skate. He was certain that, initially, she would have found it fun to watch as her mother lost control of the car and how it skated, just like she used to do on many a Sunday.
It was not the first time that the two of them had gone to the mountains alone together to spend the day. Many weekends, he would stay at home finishing some report for the following Monday, or simply reviewing various kinds of data and statistics.
Sometimes, Carlos would share in those family moments, but his mind never stopped being at work, and he hardly paid any attention to what his wife and daughter said to him. He was a high-flying executive like any other, so absorbed by his work that his mind hardly had time to be distracted by anything that wasn’t completely related to it.
Now his wife and daughter had died, and a sort of abyss of the unknown now opened up at his feet. In spite of the immense distance that had been continually growing between him and his family, he was comfortably settled into that impregnable, iron hard security of the everyday; the kind that had to last forever, and never give in to any change whatsoever. Or that is what he had believed until that cursed and fateful Monday.
As curious and despicable as it may have seemed, it had been only
since
the accident that Carlos had begun to realise just how much he loved and needed them both. Until that moment, they had always been there, and he had never taken any notice.
Since that day, his frenetic and stressful pace of life, more in a mental sense than physical, had been steadily winding down, as if it were being slowly and inexorably supressed by an ever-increasing weight until any attempt to struggle or change became impossible. Carlos sensed intuitively, almost like an impartial observer detached from his own existence, that a new era of anxiety and inactivity was approaching, and that everything he had experienced up until then now counted for nothing, because where he had been was nothing like where he was going.
And thus were the thoughts going through his mind, trying to speed up the passage of time, in search of something that he couldn’t quite identify.
It was also curious that at the exact time of the accident, Carlos had been holding a picture of his wife, Alicia, that was on top of his office desk, and after a few seconds looking at it, he had noticed a look of pain in her eyes, as if she had a migraine. Then he had thought no more of it.
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III
E
steban, his father, watched him calmly, from a position of peace and tranquillity that only came from the experience of having an unbreakable iron-hard faith. Although he was also very affected, he knew that the world never stopped turning for those who followed Him.
“Carlos... son... you just need to give it time. Time’s the only cure for such terrible situations...”
Carlos looked at his hands. They were covered in mud and a few blades of grass. That earth, stuck firmly to his hands thanks to a little dampness, gave a different perspective to his brief existence, although not as brief as that of his little daughter.
“I don’t know, Dad, I don’t know...”
“Everything seems so difficult right now, and that’s normal. When your mother left us, I had the same feelings.”
“No... I’ve also lost Laura. You’ve never lost a child.”
His father sat up, and looked out towards the horizon. The sun was now dim in the distance, and looking rather like half an orange that was in the process of being swallowed by some careless giant. He needed to control his impulses: to not get into a competition with his son: to contain the pain that that last comment had inflicted. He must avoid all conflict, manage the situation and help his son who, right now, was not capable of discerning anything with any level of clarity.
“It’s a shame you don’t believe in God... I’ll pray for you anyway, and will ask the whole Community to do so as well. They’re all concerned.”
“You know that in my own way... I appreciate that all of you...”
“I know son, I know.”
In the beginning, when he was very small, Carlos had been a good Christian, and had even spent two years helping out at the local church as an altar boy. Then the doubts crept in, and during the long nights spent staring out of the window towards the sky, towards that infinity, his small self found only questions, and practically no answers.
“You should go away somewhere, do some travelling. Remember when your mother left us to go to heaven, and we took a long trip up to the North? Do you remember?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“And we both had the opportunity to smile again, and look forward...”
Esteban came closer to him and stroked his son’s hair, which was messy and unkempt. Carlos felt the same warmth in his father’s fingertips that he used to feel when his father made the very same comforting gesture many years before, when Carlos was just a little boy. Back then, that was enough to soothe him, or give him encouragement. Now, everything was different.
IV
His hands were resting on the table. He had been in this position for over an hour, almost motionless. His gaze lost, his mouth half-open. The papers had been building up in one corner, and every now and then he looked at them with an air of boredom, as if those sheets, so crammed with information, had absolutely nothing to do with him, because in all reality, that’s how it was. And all the links that had been keeping him chained to his office had disappeared with such incredible speed, it was as if they had never been of the slightest substance.
‘Who am I?’
The sense of loss was so noticeable that, on occasion, he would look in the mirror and hardly recognise himself. Then a wrinkle, or childhood scar, would reappear, taking him back to a time before any of this had happened, and reminding him that the face he was looking at was indeed his own. His eyes had become sad, and all of his movements, where previously decided and definite, were now doubtful, and lacking in the slightest authority. Observing him from a certain distance, one could come to think that his body was a discarded and forgotten puppet, with only one remaining string, thus rendered virtually useless.
“Carlos... Carlos! You can go home... Or rather, go home, please. There’s no reason for you to come back until you’re completely better.”
“No, no... I prefer being here...”
“As you wish. You know we’re all here for you if you need anything. “
“Yes...”
“We don’t want to force you to be here... Not in this situation. We don’t want you to feel obliged...”
“I like being here. There’s no better place for me to be right now.”
Luis remained silent for a few seconds, observing his colleague with a certain sadness. In reality, he didn’t know what to do, or how to help him.
“Forgive me, Carlos. You can do whatever you want, really. I’m an idiot. You can come in when you want, and leave when you feel like it...”
“Thank you, Luis. You know I appreciate it; that I appreciate all of you. I’ll be better in a few days. I’d go crazy, stuck at home.”
Carlos closed his eyes. He listened carefully, and heard his secretary typing: a gentle and monotonous sound. He felt faint. It was all so absurd. His life had been absurd for a long time, but now it had taken on hints of the almost ridiculous and nonsensical.
He opened his eyes. He looked out through the open door of his office, where he could gaze down the long corridor leading towards the lifts, with countless doors on either side. Doors that led to other offices, to other lives... He heard a young woman in the administration department; the muffled sound of her laughing in the distance, near the water-cooler, so separate from his own universe.
‘What can people be laughing about...’
V
He drove the car drove downwards with ease; he barely had to touch the accelerator. The mountain was beautiful, green, and radiant. The day was bright, with a sun generously giving off its light. Carlos thought about them. In the end, the trip had not been a good idea. But he had been shut up in the house, and he needed to let off some steam somehow. It seemed as if the mountains had been calling to him for a long time: as if it had not been entirely his own idea coming here.
‘It’s good not knowing the exact place.’
At each turn, a sort of vertigo encouraged him to go over the edge, most of all on the most dangerous bends, in the places where the road opened out to sheer drops and steep slopes. It was a constant invitation.
‘Slowly, Carlos, take it easy.’
Then there was a straight, which ended in a ninety-degree turn. And he accelerated. The vehicle immediately sped up. Carlos had the idea instantaneously, and just before going headlong over the edge, he braked... and the car stopped sharply.
