Twilight's Flash Fiction / Relatos cortos crepusculares

Wavicles 1 Ernst thought it was a matter of perspective. The problem that arises when we rely on our first impressions for our deductions is that it prevents us from discovering what lies beyond them. A clear example of this is the question: is the Earth flat or round? Well, it depends. The deduction at first sight is that it is flat. And indeed, it is flat for an ordinary observer living anywhere on the planet. But when that same observer becomes an astronaut and travels far from Earth, their perspective changes. The same thing happens with the concepts of wave and particle. Do waves and particles exist? Well, it depends. Someone observes a phenomenon and gives it a name: wave or particle, because its manifestation resembles something we already experience in nature. For thought, a fork is a fork and a spoon is a spoon, so if a fork transforms into a spoon depending on the experiment, it feels contrary to the way we think.   Ondículas 1 Ernst pensaba que era una cuestión...

From Gaza to Ukraine She had been born in the Gaza Strip, although part of her father’s family had emigrated to Ukraine when she was just a baby. All that time, she had dreamed of traveling to the country where her father was and embracing him so tightly that the hug would last for a whole year. At last, the long-awaited day arrived. She ran down the steps of the plane, eager to reunite with her father. But what she actually found was devastation. Moments before landing, a bombing had taken the lives of thirty people — her father among them. In the face of such pain, fear took refuge in the girl’s heart, and she suddenly felt fragile and alone. That fear began to grow and grow, until it became so immense it filled all the space around her, turning everything it touched into silence, drowning out the deafening roar of the weapons. And the silence spread everywhere. Pain gave way to calm, and everything seemed to belong to another world.   De Gaza a Ucrania Había nacido en ...

Wavicles Ernst Young got up early that day. Like his great-great-grandfather, he was obsessed with uncovering the nature of light and electrons, a nature elusive, coquettish, and unattainable like Edelweiss. In 1801, Thomas Young had devised the double-slit experiment to try to demonstrate the wave nature of light, in contrast to Isaac Newton’s proposal that it was particle-like. Ernst thought that perhaps the problem had arisen from the naivety of both scientists’ thinking. In reality, his great-great-grandfather’s deduction of the existence of waves, and Newton’s of particles, was a trick played by nature. Neither waves nor particles existed. There was something else that manifested differently depending on the experiment. It was like day and night: the same Earth spinning, but revealing itself in different ways. What Ernst sought was not one or the other, but that which remained hidden behind both disguises. Ondículas Ernst Young se levantó temprano aquel día. Como su tatarabuelo...

The Corner of Oblivion Once upon a time, there was a corner that, according to itself, everyone ignored. Thus, its existence unfolded in the most absolute solitude. It did not miss anyone’s company, for it had never known anyone until then, and so it lived happily. One day, by accident, someone happened to end up in the corner, and after examining it with disdain, prepared to leave. The corner grew frightened upon seeing someone there and, before that someone could walk away, it asked: Who are you? And how did you get here? The someone tried to explain what had happened, but their throat refused to emit any sound, because, among other things, they remembered nothing — and they too grew afraid. It was then that, providentially, another stranger dropped into the corner. — Listen. I am the guardian of the room. This happens every day. And every day I must explain it. You are the Corner of Oblivion. And here come the souls who, because of their actions, must forget in order to contin...

  Indigo I now know for certain that nothing exists outside my mind. It was an unexpected discovery. One hot summer night, while gazing at the star-filled sky from the garden, all the objects around me suddenly began to take on an intense indigo hue, and then the sensation plunged into absolute blackness. Something told me that this profound blackness was what lay outside my mind. People, objects, events, experiences—they were all products of my mind; they had no existence beyond it. But my mind, too, was a projection manipulated by the indigo that filled everything. Gradually, objects and colors returned to my sight and, strangely, among all the stars in that night sky, the indigo glow of one distant star stood out with extraordinary clarity. Índigo Ya sé con certeza que nada existe fuera de mi mente. Fue un descubrimiento inesperado. Una calurosa noche de verano, contemplando desde el jardín el cielo plagado de estrellas, súbitamente todos los objetos que me rodeaban fueron adqu...

Pegasus 2 Pegasus had no doubt who it was. It was Roc, guardian of the forests. Pegasus's defiant gaze overcame the resistance of the imposing winged figure. Roc took to the skies and allowed them to continue their journey, but before leaving, he broke the spell and allowed time to resume its course. However, when Siegfried became himself again, three hundred years had passed, and his eyelids had fused with his eyes. Blind and disoriented, he was overcome by despair. Once again, it was Pegasus who remained by his side and gave him the strength to complete the journey and meet Ingrid. When they reached their destination, Pegasus described Ingrid's extraordinary beauty to him in exquisite detail. She, in an act of infinite compassion, approached Siegfried and gently caressed his eyelids with her hands. Miraculously, at the touch of Ingrid's hands, his eyelids separated from his eyes and opened wide. Siegfried knelt before Ingrid and kissed her hands. Pegaso 2 Pegaso no dudó d...

  Pegasus 1 He rose before dawn. He had spent the entire night awake, restless about the journey he would undertake at daybreak. In his mind, over and over again, he reviewed the route that would take him to the County of Rowling, where his beloved yet unknown Ingrid of Thule awaited him. About a hundred leagues from his lands, the county was covered by forests as ancient as the world itself, home to mysterious beings spoken of in old legends. When the first rays of the sun turned the palace towers to gold, Pegasus was already waiting, his bridle prepared. A servant held the saddle while Siegfried gently stroked the mane of his travelling companion in gratitude. With the servant's help, he mounted Pegasus. Rider and horse: the perfect symbiosis between two noble souls. No one could quite remember when Pegasus had come to occupy a place of honor in the palace stables. The oldest members of the court said that Siegfried's father, when he was a child, had forged an unbreakable bon...

Those Who Receive Me and Those Who See Me Off We are wave-beings, concentrations of waves moving through space. When we interact, it is our waves that interact. Over time, those waves change their characteristics, and perhaps that is what we call aging. There are unwritten laws that never fail. The wave-beings who received me when my collection of waves first became visible are the same wave-beings who will see me off when my waves oscillate at a frequency at which they can no longer be seen. Although the appearance of their waves may suggest otherwise, they are still the same wave-beings. Quienes me reciben y quienes me despiden Somos seres-onda, concentraciones de ondas que se mueven a través del espacio. Cuando interactuamos, son nuestras ondas las que interactúan. Con el paso del tiempo, esas ondas cambian sus características, y quizá a eso lo llamamos envejecimiento. Hay leyes no escritas que nunca fallan. Los seres-onda que me recibieron cuando mi conjunto de ondas se hizo visibl...

  Wilhelm I write these memories from my current existence, now retired, after a life spent as a telecommunications engineer in Spain. I have come to believe that each moment contains both the beginning and the end of multiple parallel existences—realities we unknowingly inhabit. We are unaware that we live intertwined in infinite loops of possible lives, each born from a single decision made at a specific point in time. In my case, when I was just a baby, my parents were forced to move to more prosperous areas of Spain, hoping for a better life. However, in those times of limited opportunities, they were unable to improve their situation even in the big city. That was when my father suggested to my mother that they move to Germany. After a long and painful conversation, she admitted she wasn't ready to live in another country. I remember her tears, her despair, and my father's silent frustration. In the end, they decided to return to our small village, thereby choosing their...

Walking Through Hell Hell is an infinite space and, in its endless hunger, it devours feelings and reduces the soul to nothing. Peace, always a blessing, hides behind the dense fog cast by hell’s shadow, until it disappears without a trace. Nothing escapes its gaze, cold as steel, nor its relentless designs. Like a black hole, it swallows everything around it and reduces it to memory. As one moves deeper into hell, the path thickens, the trails of the mind grow darker, understanding fades, and the only place left to us is solitude. Such is dementia. And the only space, also infinite, that can devour it is love. Transitar por el infierno El infierno es un espacio infinito y, en su infinita ansia, devora los sentimientos y reduce el alma a la nada. La paz, siempre una bendición, se esconde tras la densa niebla que proyecta la sombra del infierno, hasta desaparecer sin dejar rastro. Nada escapa a su mirada, fría como el acero, ni a sus implacables designios. Como un agujero negro, engul...