QUEEN’S DAUGHTER DAVID SUÁREZ GÓMEZ Queen’s Daughter David Suarez Gomez COPYRIGHT Copyright © 2017 David Suarez Gomez All rights reserved. ISBN: 1540750558 ISBN-13: 978-1540750556 www.emigala.com For Ivonne Puga, My princess, my soulmate; my muse; and the consummation of all I am. From the beginning, all my words were for you. “Even the humblest [bureaucrat] is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation and orgiastic triumph.” –George Orwell, 1984 “Our fctions are killing us, but if we didn’t have those fctions, maybe that would kill us too.” -Salman Rushdie, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights “The moment I saw her I say in all truth that the vital spirit which dwells in the inmost depths of the heart, began to tremble so violently that I felt the vibration alarmingly in all my pulses, even the weakest of them. As it trembled, it uttered these words: Ecce deus fortiori me, quie veniens dominabitur mihi.” -Dante Alighieri, Vita Nuova PROLOGUE I never knew if it was fction or if it could be evidence. We have learned that every certain thousand years we forget what has happened before and reinvent new beginnings, nearer to us, of a story that was never born where we mark it, even if we believe so, and even if we build a castle of cards that justifes grand and wise theories—that always end up refuted—simple ways to make us feel safe in a universe that is not only chaotic but also meaningless. I never knew if there was any truth to the memories of this pseudo-hero—whom we can just as easily call a villain in the end—found in a corner, like damp paper, almost dissolved, consumed, just barely reminiscent of the fgure of a paper plane that the wind might have taken to the corner where it would be safe. But, regardless, whatever the memories may be, it’s my opinion that they deserve to be published. Especially in this time in which everything that is thought or felt at every moment is susceptible to be taken to a public space to earn raised fngers that serve as support, product of the ephemeral banality, to determine the ascent or descent in a ladder of an imaginary society, which we cannot really prove to be out there, or even that there even exists a space for that out there. Let us quote: “It was true. I had told him, even though it was futile: everything was over at that point. What was evident was not seen and that way the monster could run loose in the city, taking as a snack, every once in a while, an infant, sometimes an adult, and occasionally a whole passenger train. Why should I tell him about John Bureau? Why let him know of the secret society, more secret than any with a protractor? Athena's Owl, was that it? But I never told him about the dancing magician, his intellective creator. That, I reserved for the most secluded grave in my family mausoleum. “And wise as he was, even though young—which is no contradiction in any way—he found the dark, hidden room, the one he drew à la Escher, never thinking of Kaluza-Klein. And he discovered the text of the Scribes of Estonia. However, he never discovered that in the additional dimension, the hidden one, he could fnd the story of the dancing magician and his adventures, his pathogenic spells for fetuses like John Bureau that would have truly prevented, or in its case exterminated, the sequels of totalitarianism. “In spite of the struggle, convinced that everything was over, I decided to run away and seek refuge in the middle of a mountain forest, where I found Regina Magna, my enchanted princess, my dream… in her arms I cuddled for a decade, maybe more. A thousand years? And I laid silent waiting for the sunrise of new times, impossible though they may be. There I lay; surrendered, without knowing if my queen was the last invention of my feverish mind or the material realization of the dream of a useless but fun life.” The author of these lines was, of course, Rich Summit. The author of these lines was, of course, Rich Summit. Jacob’s mentor. Jacob being David’s alter ego, my friend, the fun prophet. Ricardo De la Peña ONE “JACOB GOLDSTEIN,” I said to the guard. He had seen me hundreds of times. He had checked the photo in my badge against my actual face at least half of those times. In his mind my badge was the actual Jacob Goldstein—I was just the fesh and bones doppelganger. He knew my name. But he needed me to say it for the report. He seemed excited. In spite of the many drills for apocalyptic scenarios that sadistic security ofcers drew up and subjected us to every month, nothing ever happened. Nothing ever happened to the people who deserved it. Getting to escort a disgruntled employee out of the marble building must have made the security guy feel important—must have been the greatest excitement he had faced as a federal government building security guard. He kept grabbing his Taser, as if readying to shock me should I choose to launch and take out all my frustrations on my boss, the Manticore. My peaceful smile must have disappointed him. I hurried to pack my stuf in the U.S. Postal Service box. Books, mostly. A picture of my parents. A couple of music compact discs which were in themselves a violation to statutes designed to prevent compromising the integrity of the bureau network. Luscious Jackson would be proud if they heard that, I thought as I placed their two CDs in the box. Some documents that’s always good to have handy. My Chicago Bears cup. But my most prized possessions were a postcard and a very dangerous book I had found in my research in the library; a book that described how our world had reached this sorry state—at 2 DAVID SUÁREZ GÓMEZ the hands of a single powerful evil wizard and his cohorts; a book describing how John Bureau had taken over. The postcard was a photo my cousin Diego took on a Saturday afternoon in Newport Beach, California. I hadn’t seen skies like that in ages. The District of Columbia was miserable. No one had bothered to tell it that spring was supposed to have sprung. But the weather was the least of D.C.’s problems. Crime rates? Not even close. The one problem the city had was that it lived in denial about having lost the war. The District of Columbia—and the Republic for which it stood—had been taken over by a powerful and evil wizard who had infltrated and corrupted the system. And of course, the system was so corrupted that even to mention the possibility of its imperfection meant being ostracized, labeled as unpatriotic, as a traitor, a commie, a terrorist sympathizer. Yes, the evil wizard John Bureau had the city, the Republic, the world at large by the balls. But for all I cared, John Bureau could have it all. To hell with him. To hell with it. To hell with trying to save the system and make a diference; with trying to be a hero or a martyr. To hell with playing the game; with trying to make my mother proud about her son serving the Republic. All I cared about was that beach in southern California. Jacob Goldstein, yours truly, had had enough of false and ill-motivated heroics. Jacob Goldstein had had enough of John Bureau, and was now walking out of the marble building, carrying a United States Postal Service box full of mementos, escorted by a security ofcer who looked as serious and patriotic as if he was storming the beach of Iwo Jima. Let him have his moment of glory. He wouldn’t get many other chances. Let him escort the dangerous thought criminal Jacob Goldstein Campe y Cos. Jacob was done working for any form of government. Jacob Goldstein Campe y Cos was moving to California. TWO AS I WALKED out and was greeted by a dire drizzle, I thought of the last straw, the event that gave me the fnal push so I would plunge into the abyss. I had contemplated leaving my secure government job for a long time. If you look at the abyss long enough, you’ll get cold feet. But then this event, these series of events, rather, pushed me of the edge. I met a homeless woman near Georgetown. She was completely derelict, in her late forties or early ffties. Her hair was so flthy that natural dreadlocks had formed and her skin was tan with dirt and she smelled like Moloch had peed on himself when a heavenly host beat the crap out of him. She was a sad shadow of a person, alternating between panhandling and rummaging dumpsters for discarded pizza crust and sausage clinging to the stick in rancid corn dogs. I later learned her name was Ms. Dale and that she had come to her sad state not long after her daughter Jena died. Jena was only ten years old at the time of her death. She was playing hopscotch and Hula-Hoop at the same time. Her game unfortunately led her to the edge of the sidewalk where she slipped right at the moment a government delivery truck speeding to deliver the fve ffteen pouch made a left turn fatally close to the kerb.