Everything was the same in that town. Day after day, life went on without any difference. People in the morning were going to church, some were going home, few were going to work and many were going to the central square to sit there under the bushes. There, the older and younger people would gather, playing cards or talking about daily matters.Either activity was the same. The men of that town were incapable of feeling any enthusiasm, of showing emotion; they were just poor farmers who sowed their miserable conucos and gathered their fruits which were not enough to cover their needs.

Source

In those afternoons, the usual matters were appearing and the men, emaciated by hunger, were talking about the future with a helpless fatalism:

_They say the government will send us food next week. This time it's going to bring more things than last time which was only rice and beans and we spent a month eating only that: rice and beans.

They were saying the news as if waiting for anyone to ratify it, but no one was saying anything. Everyone knew that the news was coming to the village in the form of rumors. People listened to them, then distorted them and then spread them around the corners. For years, the people of the village had learned to keep quiet, to hide their thoughts, and to alleviate hunger. What abounded in those streets was melancholy and a silent inner struggle.

Source

_They say that now the invasion is coming. That they will enter as they have entered other countries to get us out of this crisis. Yesterday they saw some foreign ships on the coasts, also last week a fleet of planes flew over our skies that in an instant disappeared. They say they are European military aircraft. A cousin's friend told him that last week there was movement in the country's barracks and in the palace of government.

Those words were no longer surprising. Nor did they make any gesture when any of them began to reproduce the scene of confusion:

_They say that some soldiers rose up and left the barracks. They said that some soldiers had risen up and left the barracks. Some military bases had been attacked, and in the capital the people were stunned by the screams, the noises of the weapons and the thick smoke that covered everything.

Source

The men remained silent, some looking ahead, others to the side, always avoiding the gaze of the speaker. Not the slightest gesture of joy or rebellion escaped the mouths of the men, who remained silent and sometimes bowed their heads. The immense almond trees did not move; the wounded dogs licked their skeletal paws, and the dust of the earth rose like a dry cloud.

After those morning talks, some went back to work, their brows brows browsed and despair glued to their faces. On the way, each one of them silently thought of the misfortune they were suffering in the village. The earth had been giving nothing for years, only dust and stone. The animals they raised were dying of hunger because they had no food to feed them. Since the government had arrived, the oil companies had left the village, leaving only the concrete structures that were slowly falling down. The only fun they had was going to the church and the square. In the church, while the priest spoke, the men remained silent, their eyes glued to the floor, in a solemnity that was cold. There, with their faces pale and confused, the men listened to miracles, hope and faith.

Source

Later in the evening, when the men returned to their homes, before going to sleep, they looked at the empty refrigerator, the cold stove, the unused utensils. They drank water, many liters of water to reduce hunger, to distract it. Before going to bed they prayed, they asked for the rumour to become true. No matter how many lives the invasion cost, they were dying anyway. Then the men would look up to the sky and not ask for food, not for work, only for the longed-for invasion. And there, about to catch their sleep, men were thinking and reproducing the foreign penetration:

_"I'm sure armies of Marines will come. They'll shoot all the corrupt people in the government. They say it's going to happen this week and the priest says you have to believe. Have faith.

And so time passes, day after day, overwhelmed by the reality around them. In silence, the men of that village make the rumour their hope, their truth.

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Written by: @nancybriti

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