PrologueA Chapter by Manon EileenIn this chapter, we are introduced to Cecilia, who lives in Panama. Her world is about to change immensely.Cecilia took a deep breath of the fresh, thin mountain
air and threw her head back, closing her eyes. She spread her fingers and put
her arms in the sky. She felt the wind blow through her fingers and she opened
her eyes again. She saw the bright blue sky and the high, castle like clouds.
She saw the sun and she relished the sensation of it on her skin. From where she was standing, she
could see out over the whole of Panama, and in the far distance, she could see
the Pacific Ocean. If she could, she would build a little house right here, on
the summit of the Barú volcano. The sight took her breath away every time she
ventured out on the mountain. Usually, Cecilia would take her
younger sister, Cruz, to climb the sleeping volcano with her. She couldn’t come
today, though. She had to help their parents with a sick goat. Getting the day
off was a rarity for Cecelia and whenever she got that freedom, she grabbed it
with both hands and wouldn’t let go. It was her only chance to find the
pleasure she so longed for every day. Being there, on the mountain, gave her a
feeling of freedom she never experienced anywhere else. Having to go through the thick, damp
rainforest of Barú, the climb up the mountain was an arduous one and it took
Cecilia six hours just to get to where she was now. She left very early and
because of her good mood it took her less time than usual to get to the summit.
But if she wanted to get down in time, she would have to leave again soon. It would take less time to get down,
about four hours. She would probably still be in time for dinner. Her parents
always had dinner early. Or at least, much more early than the other people in
their village. Her parents were one of the few
people in town with a strawberry farm, and now, early spring, the seeds needed
to be sown, old plants had to be removed, and the remaining plants had to be
checked for pests. It wasn’t a big farm, and her parents could manage it with
the help of their 6 children, but during the harvest season they got a lot of
help from the other villagers. Cecilia
looked out over Panama for the last time that day, sighed deeply and turned
around. Her mood suddenly turned. She hated that she could only stay on the
mountain for such a short time. It was time to return to Santa Rita, one of the
many tiny villages strewn over the volcano’s fertile hills. Cecilia made her way down the
mountain in about four hours, as she expected. She looked at the sun; it had
already lowered a lot and was hanging only one hand’s breadth above the
horizon. That meant there was only one hour of light left. Santa Rita lay on
the hills of the volcano; actually, it wasn’t all that far from the top of it, maybe
10 kilometer as the crow flies. She walked along the Rio Chico, a
river consisting of only rainwater, which flows through Santa Rita. She could
already see the village below her, through the trees. It was not much farther,
around twenty minutes. Still
following the river, stepping on the moist forest floor, she entered the
village. There were small clay houses here and there and she knew the
inhabitants of each of them. There was one television in the village, in the
church that also served as a school. The television was an old one, perhaps as
old as fifty years. But it worked perfectly fine. Well, as fine as you can
expect of a fifty year old machine. The inhabitants of Santa Rita didn’t
care much for the technology of the outside world and the television was mostly
ignored. Sometimes the people of Santa Rita heard stories about transportation
devices that could levitate, but they had never seen one, not even on tv. They
found such stories incredible. They still used cars here, in Santa
Rita, possibly still in the whole of Panama. The few they had in Santa Rita
were used infrequently. It was very hard to repair damaged cars because
carparts were hard to get by in these parts. Most people were inside at this
hour, just before dinner. It was a time for being with the family, and no one
would disturb another family during dinnertime. It was even considered a sacred
time of the day, by the more superstitious. Dinnertime, a holy event. Cecilia
chuckled. A few chickens were clucking in a
pen beside one of the houses and when she looked, she saw one of her neighbors,
an elderly woman with stark grey hair and a back that was hunched quite a bit. “Hola, Cecilia! Esta bien?” her
neighbor called. “Si, si, I’m fine!” Cecilia replied,
waved, and continued walking. Again, she chuckled. Nobody really
spoke Spanish anymore these days. At least, not the younger people. About eighty
years ago, the Middle and South American
countries had become allies of the Northern American countries and the United
Nations of Europe. Not long after that, English had
been made a second language. The UNE had already taken on English as their
first language years before that. Considering that they had like forty
different languages there it must be a lot more easy to communicate now,
Cecilia mused. Still
walking, she passed more houses, some overgrown with moss, others under big
palm trees. She loved this place, even if she would rather be on top of the
volcano most of the time. The people were nice, she felt safe and at home. This
village was her everything. She passed the church and school.
The church and school shared a building, and it was the biggest building in
Santa Rita. It could house many people. Mass was on Sunday’s, early in the
morning. School was on Saturday’s and Sunday’s (after mass), the week was for farm
work. Cecilia’s home was on the outside of
the village, where they had a patch of land for the strawberry farm. It was relatively far away from the rest of the
village, but Cecilia knew that her family didn’t mind. Even though everyone
loved their neighbors, they felt they had more privacy this way. Cecilia
approached her family’s house, a somewhat larger house than most in Santa Rita.
Her mother had put beautiful potted flowering plants all over the porch, and
with the weather getting better, they were starting to bloom. Stepping on the veranda, she saw two black eyes peeking through the corner of
the opaque glass of the wooden door, where a piece of the glass was missing.
Not a second later, Cecilia’s 9-year old brother Adrián threw open the door, and
leaped out with his arms thrown in the air. “Cecilia! Finally, you’re back!” He
came to a halt just in front of his big sister, jumped and threw his arms
around her neck. He had always been small for his age, and he was probably
never going to be taller than Cecilia, and that while she hadn’t grown tall
either. Cecilia ruffled through his black hair and put him down. “It’s been less than a day, silly,”
she said, with a grin. “Come on, let’s go inside. I’m hungry! Has mama started
cooking yet?” Adrián nodded and took her hand, and
nearly dragged her inside, impatient as always. “It’s already finished, we were
waiting for you!”Adrián said. Cecilia cringed, knowing that her
mother would not be pleased with her. She strongly disliked having to serve
cold food. Stepping inside, she smelled the coconut rice her mother often
served, and some sort of fish. Her three brothers, two sisters and parents were
already sitting at the table, with two chairs empty. Adrián shot to the chair he was probably already
sitting on before, and everyone eyed her. Cecilia was placed at the head of the
table tonight. No one really liked sitting at the head, because that meant you
had to say grace before dinner. Cecilia was fairly sure her parents were aware
of this fact. She took a deep breath and walked
toward the table, aware of the awful silence. She wasn’t that late! She was
feeling more was going on. She sat down at the head of the table, smoothed her
slightly smudgy pants and folded her hands in her lap. She looked at her father’s face; he
was frowning and inspecting her own face. Then, his face lit up and he smiled,
showing all his teeth. He laughed his thunderous laugh and everyone else
started laughing as well. Cecilia was baffled, she looked around, confused. “What!” Cecilia exclaimed. “You should have seen your face,”
her older brother Fausto said, wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye,
“you’d almost think you were about to get killed!” Everyone roared in laughter. “Oh Cecilia, sweetheart,” her mother
said, “you have no idea what day it is, do you?” “Well, obviously I don’t!” Cecilia
said, frustrated. Again, everyone roared in laughter.
Then, her mother started singing and soon, everyone all the brothers and
sisters joined in. Cumpleaños Feliz, Te deseamos a ti, Qué los cumplas en tu día, Qué los complas feliz It
was her birthday! She totally forgot. Cecilia blushed a deep red and rubber her
clammy hands together. She looked up and saw her family watching her. “Thank
you,” she whispered. Her
mother stood up and walked over to her. “Come
here, silly girl!” She said, opening her arms. Cecilia stood up and walked into
her mother’s embrace. Her mother hugged her tightly. When she let her go, she
walked back to her seat and sat down again. “Now, let’s eat!” she said. Everyone
started filling their plates eagerly. Cecilia was still trembling a little, and
waited until everyone had filled their plates before she started to fill hers. “How
is the goat doing?” she asked. Her
father chuckled. “The
goat is doing fine. There was nothing wrong with him to begin with!” Her father
grinned widely. “We just wanted to give you the day off, so you could go up the
volcano!” Cecilia
felt a warm feeling in her tummy. She loved her family so much. She felt
foolish for forgetting her own birthday, but she had had a terrific day and she
knew her parents really couldn’t miss her during the day. She teared up a little. “Thank
you so much, daddy,” she said silently. She poked into her food with her fork
but she was so choked up she couldn’t actually get any of the food down. She
then decided she had to eat the food her parents worked so hard for and forced
herself to swallow the small bites she took. Then,
all of a sudden, someone threw open the door, causing a loud bang, and came
barging into the room. It was their closest neighbor, Lucio Fernandez. He lived
only a 5 minute walk from their house, but from the looks of him, he had run
the distance. His black hair hung disheveled over his sweaty forehead and his
dark eyes bulged. “You
all have to come with me, now,” he said, breathless, “quick!” Everyone
just stared at him for a moment, at a loss for words. “What
are you waiting for!” Lucio shouted. “Get up! Come, now!” Cecilia’s
father rose from his chair so quickly that the chair fell over backwards.
Cecilia watched it bounce twice before it lay still on the floor. She focused
on her father again, whose face was starting to redden while he gripped the
table tightly. Her mother rose as well, as did Cecilia’s two oldest brothers. Paulina,
Cruz and Adrián got up as well, although more hesitantly. By
then, everyone stood beside their chairs except for Cecilia. She felt her nails
bury into the skin of her handpalms. Her father stepped toward the door and put
an arm on Lucio’s shoulder, and he waved his arm toward the door. When her
father opened the door, Cecilia saw the sky had already darkened to the navy
blue of the evening sky. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
Then, she got up. In the distance, the dark, solemn
church appeared, dark clouds obscuring the moon. The lights in the building
were turned on and the light shone on the church grounds, revealing the big
group of people standing outside of the church. They were trying to go in, but
apparently the building was already full, because people were also trying to
look into the building through the windows. They stood on little stepladders
and husbands had lifted their wives on their shoulders, and the wives reported
what they saw. People looked nervous, and most had dark frowns on their faces. Something bad had happened, Cecilia
thought. Only bad things attract such crowds. The family and Lucio rushed to
the church to join the people at the church. “What do we do, daddy?” Cruz asked, looking at
the crowd with fear. She apparently felt the negative atmosphere too. Her father looked back, but didn’t
stop walking. He and Lucio walked at the front of their group. “We ask what is going on. Cecilia,
Fausto and Nico, I want you three to fan out and ask people what is going on.
Paulina, please keep Cruz and Adrián in your sight and wait here. Your mother
and I are going to try and get into the church.” Fausto and Nico stalked off toward
the crowd with Cecilia’s parents, leaving Cecilia and the other children.
Cecilia felt lost; she didn’t know what to do or where to go first. She gave
Paulina, Cruz and Adrián each a tight hug. “I’ll be back in about 10 minutes.
Don’t go anywhere!” she told Paulina. Paulina just nodded and made Cruz
and Adrián sit down on the ground. Adrián found a little stick to poke Cruz
with, who took the stick, broke it and threw it away, upsetting Adrián. That wasn’t
something she would usually do, she loved playing games. It must have been the
tension in the air. Cecilia turned her back to her
siblings, and looked out over the crowd. What was going on here? People were
running around, seemingly without a real destination, as if they were in total
and utter panic. It frightened Cecilia. The feeling
that something bad had happened got stronger at that moment. Her stomach
knotted and she got a lump in her throat. The idea to have to ask people what
had happened embarrassed her. She hoped her parents and brothers
would find some useful information soon, so they would get back before Cecilia
could even start asking people. She could tell her parents she thought it was
better if she stayed with her siblings. Cecilia turned around to look at her
sisters and brother. They were still sitting on the ground, watching the
people. Adrián had a confused frown on his face, Cruz was picking a little twig
apart and Paulina looked up at Cecilia, her face questioning. Cecilia stepped
toward where Paulina was sitting and sat down beside her. She took her hand and
squeezed it tightly. Adrián creeped toward Cecilia and
sat down next to her, then rubbed his head against her upper arm. Cecilia
stroked through his hair. Cecilia saw her older brother first.
Fausto was returning to them, with a concerned look on his face. He sat down
next to Cruz and took her in his arms, hugging her tightly. Cruz looked up to
him, confused, and started to push him away. She was right at that age where they
don’t want to get to close with their family.
Fausto didn’t let go, and nearly crushed her in his embrace. Cecilia looked at his face closely.
His eyes were red, it looked like he had cried. “Fausto… What is going on?” Cecilia
asked hesitantly. “You didn’t ask around?” he replied. “No… I decided not to, I thought I
should rather stay with them.” “That’s probably for the best. We’ll
wait for mom and dad to return, alright?” Fausto closed his eyes for a moment
and let go of Cruz, who looked annoyed. “What did you do that for!” she
asked, agitated. “You’re a silly girl, Cruz,” Fausto
said. Cruz took one of the twigs she had
been fiddling around with. She poked it into Fausto’s skin until it started to
turn red, but he just kept smiling at her. Their parents looked much like
Fausto did when he returned about 20 minutes ago. No, Cecilia thought, they
looked worse. She noticed Nico walked behind them. He too looked… Devastated. Fausto
hadn’t said much in that time, he had just continued to hug his siblings. Her parents and brother reached
them. “Get up, kids, we’re going home,”
her father said. Cecilia noticed more people were
leaving the church, all with hopeless looks in their eyes, all as devastated as
her brothers and parents looked. She didn’t dare ask what was going on. She’d probably find out soon enough, anyway.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know at all. When they reached the house,
Cecilia’s mother went to put a bleary eyed Adrián to bed. The rest of the
family sat down around the dining table. “Cecilia, could you please make us
some tea?” her father asked. Cecilia nodded and walked to the
kitchen. She went about filling the water boiler solemnly, all the while
wishing the thing would break, so that it would give them a reason not to have
to talk about what happened yet. It didn’t break though. Staring at
the boiler, Cecilia was listening to the popping bubbles of the cooking water.
She heard her father talking or rather, whispering, with her two elder
brothers. Her mother had returned from putting Adrián to bed and she too sat
down at the table. It was strange to realize it was
still her birthday. Only an hour before, everyone had been happy and excited
for having fooled her. Now, that was all gone. Cecilia took out seven mugs from the
cabinet and walked over to the table to put them down. Paulina and Cruz both looked very tired, but
from the looks on their faces they still didn’t know what was going on, either.
Her parents looked at her patiently, waiting for her to get back to the table. She walked back to the kitchen and
took out their big teapot. She filled it with the cooked water and got out the
tea strainer from a drawer, and put in some black tealeaves. Now, it was time
to join her family at the table. Her hands were shaking a little. She poured the tea in the mugs, but
she spilled some. She stepped toward the
kitchen to get some paper towels to clean it up. “Cecilia, never mind that. Please
sit down, now,” her father said. She sat down on her chair with a
thump. Her father took a deep breath and
rubbed his hands together. He closed his eyes and folded his hands. Then, he
opened his eyes again. “Children. I don’t know how to tell
you this, or if I even should. But I think everyone on this world has a right
to know. That, of course, includes you. “What happened tonight…” Cecilia’s
father sighed deeply. Her mother took her father’s hand and squeezed it
tightly. Cecilia noticed tears were running down her cheeks. She continued with
a quavering voice where her father ended. “One of the people in the village
was watching the news channel in the church after dinner. He found out that
three days ago, the UNE had announced something terrible,” she said. She wiped
away the tears from her cheeks, but her tears quickly formed new streaks over
her cheeks. “Are you all aware of the tension in
the East?” she asked. Cecilia nodded, as did her
siblings. “Well then. As you know, Chinasia
has been bent on conquest for a long time. The only part of the world that
thought they had a chance of stopping them was the Middle East. After the
Muslim Wars in the 21st century, it took the countries in that area
a long time to recuperate. But these days, they are as strong as they ever
were. Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and all other smaller countries,
there, formed the alliance now known as the Middle East. Only three months ago
the Middle East decided it was time to attack Chinasia, and stop them from their
conquest.” “Chinasia was probably about to attack
the Middle East themselves,” Nico said. “Yes, you may be right,” their
mother continued. “However, I think the Middle East decided to go by the old
principle that ‘offense is the best defense’,” she moved her left hand to
rearrange her long, black hair. Cecilia’s father seemed not to be listening to
the story as he was staring in the distance. Cruz looked confused and a little scared.
Paulina had her eyes closed and her hands folded, as if she were praying. She
could be praying, for as far as Cecilia knew. Cecilia’s mother closed her eyes
for a moment and sighed. She then continued her story. “It appears the attack was not one
that we are very familiar with. No guns or bombs were involved.” “What does that mean?” Cruz asked. “It was a biological attack,” their
mother answered. Cecilia felt her heartbeat quicken. “What kind of biological attack?”
she asked. Her hands were starting to get sweaty. She had been taught about
biological attacks in school. It had happened only once before, in the Muslim
Wars. She started to understand why everyone was so extremely upset. “They don’t know.” “How can they not know!” Cecilia
exclaimed, frustrated. “Well, it’s nearly three months
after the attack was launched. We only found out about this news now, while the
UNE announced this news only three days ago,” Fausto said with a frown. “That’s right, Fausto. We’re late to
receive this news and they were late to announce it,” their mother said. “The
UNE nor the Americas know what they’re dealing with. Apparently, neither does
the Middle East. The UNE also announced that the attack backlashed. Chinasia
has suffered significant losses, but the disease has spread to Russia, and
about three days ago… First deaths of the disease were reported in the Middle
East. “That means that it won’t take long
until the disease will spread to Europe. Perhaps that has already happened.” Cecilia couldn’t take her eyes away
from her mother. During the Muslim Wars, careful precautions were taken to make
sure the biological attack would remain contained. “Aren’t they able to fix it?” she
asked, confused. “It appears they aren’t.” “But,” Cecilia said, hesitantly,
“that would mean…” “Yes, mi niña.” “And it won’t be long,” their father
said, out of the blue. He was still staring into nothingness. He too had
started to cry, silently. © 2010 Manon EileenReviews
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3 Reviews Added on December 7, 2010 Last Updated on December 7, 2010 AuthorManon EileenUtrecht, NetherlandsAboutMy name is Manon Eileen, and I’m a 21-year old from The Netherlands. I study Clinical Psychology and Criminology at the Utrecht University, but that’s not enough to keep me busy! I read.. more..Writing
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