Rapha left the hospital convinced of the idiocy he had committed; the washing of the stomach had been an experience he did not want to repeat ever again. He had had a hard time convincing the psychiatrist that the autolytic crisis had ceased and that he would take things differently, facing the problems of his life.
He arrived home, but an unpleasant surprise awaited him, the door was smashed in, only kept closed by local police stickers that read “Do not cross”. The interior was a bit messy, he was too tired to tidy up, he wanted to sleep, so he left the mess for later and blocked the door with a simple chair. He went to bed leaving his bedroom in the dark, with the blinds completely down and the opaque curtain extended, as was his custom. As he entered the dream, he couldn’t help thinking of Alice who had made a deep impression on him, he knew she was unreachable, she would never notice a guy like him. He fell asleep whilst fantasizing how he could get that woman’s attention.
He rested for several hours, although, despite being in a deep sleep, distant voices woke him up. He was drenched in sweat, hearing voices again, but this time closer. He opened the bedroom door and the voice was louder, he couldn’t understand what’s being said, but yes, it was here in his flat, he deduced that someone had snuck into the house taking advantage of the broken door.
“A burglar!” he thought worriedly.
He had some computer equipment worth more than fifteen thousand euros, he was going to find out about the “crook”, he took a heavy lamp from the bedside table and went quietly to the kitchen where the noise was coming from. He entered and found the individual on his back, as he was not that brave, he wanted to avoid a confrontation, he didn’t hesitate and gave him a strong blow on the head. The delinquent fell to the floor unconscious and a trickle of blood that flowed from his head, quickly invaded the kitchen floor. The sight of so much blood frightened him.
“I’ve killed him,” he thought.
He knelt down and turned the body over, leaving it on its back.
“Shit, it’s the neighbor!”
I didn’t even know his name; I only knew him from "hello" and “goodbye” in the corridor. He took the thief’s pulse and didn’t find it, he wasn’t breathing, and he was indeed dead.
He panicked and a thousand thoughts sprang to mind: the police, the arrest, the trial, the prison…
“Keep calm, Rapha,” he thought aloud.
He could claim it was self-defense, that he was under the influence of strong medication, plus what the hell was he doing to the neighbor in his house, snooping around? But what if he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t a doctor. The best thing was to ask for help, so he picked up his cell phone and dialed 112, the line was busy. He tried again with 061, the line was busy, then he dialed 092, this one did give a call, although they didn’t take it.
“What a shameful country,” he thought.
He tried 091, a recording told him to call back after a few minutes. He decided to focus on 112 and dialed again, busy, he was pressing redial for a few minutes and nothing.
The man looked more closely at the neighbor, and from the pool of blood that had run through the kitchen and the increasing paleness of his face, he knew for sure that he had died. He decided to go down to the street to ask for help, and as soon as he left the doorway he ran into a man.
“Help me,” he said.
His interlocutor replied in a bad mood:
“What, are you blind too? Another one with the little joke? Well, fuck you!”
And he walked away, tapping away from the sidewalk with his long white cane.
Rapha didn’t understand anything, suddenly he noticed a strange commotion and when he paid attention, he noticed the landscape, it was dantesque. A multitude of vehicles had collided with each other, others had merged by great impacts, unrecognizable, some were smoking, others were burning, and others were embedded in the shops and commercial premises. A car from a well-known French manufacturer hung dangerously from the slope of an access ramp to an underground parking lot.
People were constantly asking for help and assistance. They moved clumsily and senselessly, stumbling over the untidy tangle of cars, twisted irons, vehicle parts and pieces, fenders, mirrors and torn doors, various scrap metal scattered on the asphalt.
Some people were engulfed in flames, others lay motionless on the ground, bloodied, and others skidded and fell comically into the roadway from the layer of oil and debris spilled by the wrecked cars. Others, frightened, remained inside the wrecked vehicles. Some pedestrians were huddled together, crowded around, forming a strange gathering, like a melee at a rugby match.
He was deeply impressed by a bus that had collided with one of the busiest stops, crushing and running over a large group of citizens, sowing the sidewalk of mutilated bodies in different formats, amputated limbs and viscera bathed in blood.
In another area of the street, he observed a woman fall down a flight of steps, remaining motionless on the ground. Another man was seen sinking into a construction ditch, another stumbled over a carpet of glass from a broken shop window, cutting his hands and arms several times. Suddenly a smoking vehicle exploded, knocking out the people around it and causing a deadly shower of scrap metal and debris that reached another group nearby.
He turned his head to look down the street and the scene was similar all over the avenue, with several fires causing a smoky fog.
Rapha was petrified by the surprise, what had happened, no matter how much he thought about it, he didn’t know what was happening. Surprisingly someone collided with him and took him by the arm, with great anguish he begged and pleaded for help. Another stumbled behind him and grabbed him by the waist, crying out for help. A very close individual braced in the air and managed to grab him by the other wrist, while a boy of about seven years of age hugged his thigh, and almost in unison, in front, a mature lady of about fifty years of age hugged her neck tightly. Rapha was trapped, surrounded and while everyone was shouting, he tried to get away with it without success. He could not move, they were hurting him and he felt very overwhelmed, he tried to reason with them but they had entered into a kind of collective hysteria, everyone was talking at the same time making communication impossible. He couldn’t stand it anymore, more people were coming, so he chose to lose his balance and throw himself to the ground dragging them all. He managed to get some of them to let go, where it was easier for him to get rid of the rest and roll a few meters. He got up quickly, sore and eroded, and turned the corner.
He was trying to get over the shock when suddenly someone collided with him again and grabbed his arm tightly while imploring and pleading for help. He recognized him right away, he was the manager of the supermarket on the ground floor of his building.
“What’s the matter with you, neighbor? What happened?” he asked.
“I can’t see, I can’t see anything, there’s no light, everything is dark, I can’t open my eyes,” he said.
“What do you mean you can’t see, something has fallen inside you, some liquid or sand?” Rapha replied as he looked straight into his eyes.
His eyelids were closed and somewhat swollen, his eyelashes were like a welded together yellowish, viscous paste that oozed from his tears.
“No, the blinding light, the blinding light!” he repeated nonsensically.
Rapha still didn’t understand anything and the man was saying incoherent things.
“What blinding light? Calm down and tell me everything so that I can help you,” he said.
The manager calmed down a bit, told him how he was in his supermarket,