INTO YOUR WORLD 1

PROLOGUE

"I only had the right to know of their existence and enter their world because I was chosen, because HE chose me. And this had happened to me just after I'd gone through some unavoidable upsets. I don't know either if it was surprising or fate. However, if one only looked at it from my point of view, I'd always think that I decided all this on my own.

So, I accepted the power he offered me and saw what he wanted me to see. At no time had he said his world was beautiful, he hadn't needed to. Beautiful but dangerous, as ancient as human's, and which possessed everything one had ever desired.

And I had to say that I've had various dreams in my life, but this reality went beyond them all.

But in the end, it didn't really matter. Only he did, his existence, that seemed forever torn between duty and desire, and that I was unable to ignore.

From the first moment I met him, and even knowing perfectly well the heartbreak that would follow, no regret crossed my mind, nor did I have any doubt about how I felt. And I never will, until my last breath. "

***

That day, the sky was cloudy as usual, but sunlight filtered through to illuminate the Amazon rainforest that stretched to the horizon. The green foliage glistened with moisture and countless animal calls echoed in every corner of this supreme realm of flora and fauna, still so mysterious and partially unexplored despite man's greed and progress.

On this day, as is almost always the case in the modern era, the sounds of heavy machinery and hard-working people rose into the air and disturbed the harmony of nature. It was a road construction site, where some twenty workers were busy building a road that was no doubt clandestine. Twenty workers dressed in burgundy-blue overalls that, from a distance, made them look like huge Smurfs.

The site foreman, a debonair man with a greying moustache, went here and there to give orders as much as to follow the progress of operations.

A red-haired worker, whose origins we could only guess at, was felling trees with his electric saw, disturbing and chasing away the monkeys, who shouted at him as if aware of the situation.

"Don't forget, Cory, to cut only what's necessary, it'll save us time," the foreman reminded him, amused despite himself by the vindictive cries the monkeys were hurling at his flamboyant-haired employee.

"Yes, boss," nodded Cory, answering the monkeys' angry glare. "And I'm sure these monkeys are part of what's needed to cut."

Cory had barely finished unplugging the tree he'd just felled when a huge metal clamp grabbed it and carried it away in a huge transport truck already well filled with long, thick trunks.

"Hey, look out!" cried the Irishman. "You could have hurt me."

An indifferent apology was his only response.

The driver's name was Bill, a factory worker fresh from Montana, always in a taciturn mood. You got the impression he'd never laughed in his life. That fun was a concept totally absent from his existence.

When this latest trunk was placed in the back of his truck, his walkie-talkie went off.

"Bill?

It was the foreman.

"Yes, boss."

"It's okay, you can make your delivery, we'll have lunch when you get back."

"Yes, boss," he replied laconically.

So, he set off as ordered.

Seeing the huge truck disappear at the end of the freshly compacted road, the worker driving the compactor laughed and triggered his walkie-talkie.

"The unfortunate clown is gone," he said, addressing the man closest to him, a worker named Mateo, who had come straight from the slums of Mexico, but had managed to find a way to survive, albeit illegally.

"Stop it, Tom, what you're saying isn't funny."

They both burst out laughing.

"Stop joking," said the boss, even though the tone of his voice showed that he totally shared their point of view.

When Bill returned, they took their lunch break as planned. They'd pulled out chairs from a huge bulldozer and each had taken a small lunch box. At the beginning of each week, before starting work, the foreman handed his workers a yellow envelope containing the lunch quotient. And every Friday, at the end of the day, the same foreman would hand them another envelope, still yellow, but this time containing their wages for the week, which was laughable given that they were still working on Saturdays. However, the road authorities, in their almost non-existent goodness, had decided to give them a day off, as every human being deserves, and that of course was Sunday. The pay was, of course, commensurate with the work offered, for nothing could be more lucrative for the greedy company directors capable of building this kind of road through such a beautiful, sacred and protected place than to employ people who would cost them as little as possible, people who had so few options that they had no choice but to accept hard work, devoid of any insurance.

In short, at least on this day, these small, over-employed and forgotten workers had a little something to eat, since this very day was a Friday.

"Ah, you jerks, I can't wait for tonight!" exclaimed Cory, his ungraceful face almost handsome as his smile radiated. "And you all know why?"

"Yes, we do, Irishman," replied the worker nicknamed Old Clown. "Alas for us, this is not our weekend."

"Who cares? I'm going to have a nice evening with Loreta."

Chenoa, Tom's friend, an Amazonian Indian who preferred to leave his people for the Western world when one of the priests who had visited his village unwittingly dangled the beauty of the modern world in front of him, stopped eating and frowned as he turned to the Mexican.

"Loreta from the Men's Dream pub? I thought you were happily married."

"Precisely, that's the reason for my marital success."

He let out a mocking growl.

"Let me give you some advice, kid. Never believe the nonsense of psychiatrists or those defenders of virtue that married people must be faithful. You have to let yourself go discreetly from time to time to feel good, and come home with enough money so that the wife doesn't harass you. Because let's face it, women value money more than their husbands."

"But if you're planning to spend your evening with Loreta, how much money are you going to bring home?"

The Mexican preferred not to answer, and in any case, there was no plausible answer.

"You're just being unfaithful," Bill said, with a face even more taciturn than usual.