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Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Bablecube
ISBN-10: 1507116551
Pages: 70
Copyright: 2015
ISBN-13: 9781507116555
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Just what motivates a writer to write, anyway? Is it a need to expiate past experiences, an apprehension for the direction of the future, a need to slough off inner thoughts not aceptable to voice out loud?
The Cathedral plays out in a real-life futuristic city constructed around a mall which provides everything, including stores, clinics, restaurants and bookstores. The suburbs are called “passageways”and go from the city to the end of civilization, out where the city ends, and war begins. Sandoval and Sandra are hunted for trying to exit La Catedral Mall without making a purchase, a capital offense in a world where buying is a religión. “Buy for your future. Buying is our future.” Chants a muezzin-type crier over the sound system of the mall named La Catedral which may have been a synagogue in the past. Sandoval gets to the city limits and there sees people who try unsuccessfully to enter, where he finds he can no longer be the person he was and seeks refuge in his father’s writings which spoke of another past, another world.
A meld of science fiction and social commentary. A novel for the new millennium.
Excerpt
At the Mall
Buying is healthy. Buying is living. Buy more! Buy even more! For your future, for posterity! Buying is the future!
The announcement was blaring over the loudspeakers as Sandra and Sandoval shopped at La Catedral Mall. It was called La Catedral because before being converted into a shopping center it had been a cathedral. It is said that before it was a cathedral it had been a mosque and before it was a mosque it had been a medieval synagogue. It was the oldest building in the city and had been converted into the most modern. The two were going to leave but saw in the exit queue there was a guard who was searching bags of those leaving. Those who had not purchased anything were not allowed to leave.
"Come back Ma'am, people don't come here to play. They come here to buy. "
"But I came to buy shoes and they don't have my size."
"Well then, buy something else."
"But I don't need anything else."
"Ma'am, you need to buy, and the country needs you to buy. See, there are people waiting in line. Rules are rules. If you don't buy, you don't leave here."
Others were told by the comptroller they had not purchased enough.
"Look, this time I'll let you pass but if you keep coming to La Catedral to buy one loaf of bread we won't let you come back in."
"But what if I bought two?"
"Not even two. Buy shoes like this lady."
Both of them turned around to find something else to buy.
“We can’t keep coming here you know. I’m getting so tired of this. Every time they want you to buy more and more. All the stores around here are closing because people don’t have any money left.”
“You know very good and well there isn’t any other way. If we aren’t seen here at La Catedral it’s like we were dead.”
The living were divided between those who bought every day , sometimes two times a day, where in the morning the woman would come alone or with the man, then evenings with their children . Behind them were those who would buy up to the 22nd of the month because that is when their money would run out. The poorer ones would only buy up to the tenth or eleventh of the month. If you didn’t show your face by the 20th people would not talk to you as much. Fewer and fewer people would talk to you.
On the 25th, the discounts would begin and would end on the 1st of the next month.
Buy folks! Buy a little of everything! Buy some oranges, some saffron, buy some freezers, buy MP3, buy hors d'oeuvres and buy shoes! Purchasing is the future!
“And this here, what is it?”
“It’s a widget.”
“So, what is a widget?”
“It’s completely recyclable.”
“But what IS it?” asked Sandra excitedly, while Sandoval was losing patience.
“It is what it is, nothing. But it’s recyclable. And they’ll let you leave. You pay me 10 and I’ll give you a receipt for 100. When you go out you can leave it there and I’ll sell it over again. See? Recyclable. ”
“Well, it does have its charm. I like it,” said Sandra, the big spender.
“It…ba...”
“But what if they open the box?” The doormen are getting really insolent.”
“If you go out door A7 you won’t have any problem. The doorman has been bribed.”
“Yeah, everything is for sale.”
“And if you don’t buy it, it isn’t worth anything.”
Smoke babe. Buy tobacco and wine. Cancer is good for the economy. If you get cancer you will receive a bonus so you can buy more. For your complete indulgence we have now opened a hospital on the tenth floor.
At first La Catedral had only two floors, but additional, connecting buildings were built. Office buildings, schools, hospitals, government offices, everything was accessible only through La Catedral. You just had to go in through the businesses and buy, entering and leaving.
“OK give me a widget.”
“A widget for the gentleman.”
An elderly man was in the café across from there, an old man of eighty years who had heard everything and never forgot anything.
He remembered seventy years prior his father had purchased his life with the money he had and that he himself had saved his own by offering his body. It seemed to him that everything had gone back to how it was during war time.
To buy is to live. Dead people don’t buy. To die is to cease to buy. That is why our hospitals have the best doctors in the world. So you can stay alive and keep buying.
The Elder knew all of this by heart now. Sandoval focused on the old guy who in a few hours would save his life and thought he was ugly and disagreeable. He hated him even worse as he thought that one day he would be like him. Or worse, more frail, sick, less sturdy. The old guy would sit there every day from eight am when they opened La Catedral and all the businesses at the same instant, and he would leave at twelve thirty at night when it was closed.
“Buy! And if you already bought, buy something more. There is always something you need or want. Something that will make your life better until your next purchase. Buy more. And you’d better buy in La Catedral.”
Two police ran after a woman whose panties showed above her pants. They were red panties over white fabric. Part of her rear was exposed to the air. Two women walked their babies in blue strollers, both the same. They looked like sisters but they were not. Sandoval contemplated. Sandra purchased.
Shop till you drop! And if you get tired, buy something more. Buy something to re-energize you. Buy pills to wake you up. Buy more and more for your children’s economic future.
The old man
The old guy had an expression that he had seen it all and that pissed off Sandoval completely. “He thinks he knows everything”, he thought to himself. “He can go to hell.”
“Sandra, I’m fed up. Let’s go.” The old fellow observed Sandoval and threw him the look of comprehension which made Sandoval more nervous.
“How many shoes do you need girl, you didn’t inherit a chain of shoe stores. I can’t deal with any more shoes. There are shoes everywhere.”
“And what about your cds?… shit!” said Sandra
When the bad guys arrived, the old man’s father had been in a bad part of the world. The bad guys wanted to eradicate his race. That seemed like something normal to them. The old man’s father had married late, at age forty six, to a woman twenty years younger. He realized in time what was coming and asked his best friend, who wasn’t a member of the same race they intended to annihilate. He was told it would be best to go into hiding until the war was over, or until the killers cooled down.
Either this would blow over, or they would lose, or something else. The old man’s father gave all the money he had to his friend and the friend found him an acquaintance that was willing to rent him a secret basement that he had out on a farm, for triple the price of course. At the time this seemed logical because he had the money and due to the danger. But one thing more, said the owner. I will have access to all the females. The females were his mother, his wife and his two daughters. Nobody thought at the time that his son would also be considered a female six months later. The “female” most desired. The payments were made monthly through his friend. Signed by his own hand. The old man’s mother died two years after the war was over. His father absorbed it all and lived to the age of ninety five and six months. The owner of the basement was awarded a commemorative plaque for having saved the old man’s family. The old man hated the whole world but he couldn’t talk about what had happened to him; even less after two months of having relations with the basement man – that is what they called him – especially since he started to like it. And when it was all over and he was fourteen years old it was the best memory he took from the basement, the way the man caressed him when his parents were no longer able to love.
Buy folks! Buy today! Buy tomorrow! Buy today for tomorrow! And tomorrow for later, all on credit, all for twelve payments! Buy for the future!
Such is life, thought both the old man and the young one at the same time. That is what life is and there is no way to think it could be anything else. The old man thought of wars, hypocrisy and butts. The young man thought about boobs and plastic surgery.
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