Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios could barely make out the silhouette of the doctor who it pulsed the heartbeat with his fingertips on his wrist. He imagined next to him the woman with the big black eyes with whom he shared the last years of his life. He felt her close to her, very close to her. He wanted to hug and kiss her, as he did on the day of the farewell when he renounced power and traveled to Santa Marta, but identical to the elusive freedom he only breathed the humid air of the Caribbean Sea that was waiting to take him on a boat, very far away. of the land in which he fought. "If my death contributes for the parties to cease and the union to be consolidated, I will go down to the grave in peace," he said in his will to Colombians. Little by little, what seemed like a dream came true. The sunken eyes, the haggard face, the body flaccid by illness, were barely left in the memories because on the back of a chestnut he marched through the clouds towards the sun, to illuminate the men along the paths that would lead them to the freedom. He heard the clicking of horses from afar, and saw the dust that they raised on the plains of Casanare, led by skilled horsemen who carried machetes at their waists. Manuelita was erect on a steed. He remembered her in the moonless nights when he prepared the hammock, defending him from the mosquitoes and the enemies that always stalked him, even when he was on the brink of death raving for the freedom of America. He made a stop during the journey, as his horse galloping away from him took him away from life and led him to death; and from there to glory. Soon the darkness stalked him. He broke out in a cold sweat and felt Reverend's hand clenching his pulse. Ignorance, misery, the internal struggles of his followers, the Bolivian constitution, the September night, the Spaniards who harassed him, the caudillos who used his name, annihilated him more than the disease itself. Death consumed him in life, while the doctor watched him helplessly.
Terreno wanted to know everything about that man. The
ideobibliotrón transported him to Bolívar's youth and learned of the ascent
that he made with his teacher Simón Rodríguez to Mount Sacro, where he swore to
fight for the freedom of his homeland. He met Terrena tracing the paths of
history the moment they triggered the anti-time computer. He saw her chatting
with the black slave who breastfed the hero in place of her mother, while
Hipólita happily cried Simón's joyous entrance to Caracas.
On the part of her, Terrena took advantage of a neglect of
time, and dressed as a peasant she walked with the liberators of that time. She
knew the sufferings of women for their children killed in the fighting,
accompanying the soldiers at night who ripped through the wind with the sound
of guitars. For a few moments she completely forgot that she came from a
different world. Still, the time machine didn't fool her. She found her man
playing the role of doctor, determined to save Bolívar's life with his
knowledge. As a woman, she was handed over to a feudal lord before marrying a
young peasant in love with her at that place in history. She listened to
Manuelita recounting the delights of the Liberator with Petión, the general of
the slaves who gave ships and weapons to liberate the peoples with the
condition of freeing the slaves; and she looked at him sadly in front of a
bonfire in the midst of his companions because only years later General José
Hilario López would fulfill the word promised to the black who supported him
financially at the beginning of the liberation feat.
Each one in his role, heard the claws of a young man who
amused himself hunting the indigenous people to cut their hair in triumph.
Later they saw him as an old man with a top hat on his head, sitting on an
old-fashioned rocket, and with shields and flags of many countries in the sack
that he had grasped with his hand on one of his shoulders, chewing gum,
laughing out loud, because he possessed scientific advances held by the other
hand. "It seems," Bolívar said, "to have been destined by
providence to plague America with hunger and misery in the name of
freedom."
After dying to the life of history, they thought to return
to the future from which they came, convinced that scientists were wrong in the
analysis of the data collected in the thousands of years that studied the
origin and development of homo sapiens that existed on the planet land of the
solar system of the Galactic Way, as bloody wars between his heirs threatened
to destroy it. If this was true, the anti-time machine had placed them in a
trap, because they were helpless since the ideobibliotron helmets were placed
on their heads, and therefore they would not descend from the human race.
Rather, it seemed that they would be destroyed in a nuclear hecatomb. Fortunately
the man emerged unscathed from the wars mundials.
Centuries before, man created computer machines to make
others that occupied a privileged place in consumer society, and through these
they scrutinized nature and discovered the genetic laws that transformed the
way of life of humans. If parents wanted certain qualities for their children,
they got it by altering their genes. The labor pains in the woman were
overcome. Man could be God himself. Misused these advances almost make him an
alienated being because in the laboratory test tubes he made serial men
specialized in whatever he wanted, and robots could also replace him.
It seemed like a chimera to get freedom. They saw it by
another name in another time. He no longer used soldiers or horses or cannons.
His weapons were laser beams and he frequently altered the media with
proclamations of freedom.
They returned to the present of the future holding hands.
Thus they learned about the ideals for which Bolívar fought, and they imagined
him happy to see them contented.
The show was over.
