Javier Calvo - Wonderful World

When she gets to the floor where the bookstore is, she finds hundreds of Stephen King fans lined up in front of the counter where the first copies will soon be available for sale. The fans on line are mostly wearing promotional T-shirts and caps for different Stephen King novels and films, and heavy metal bands. One of the fans is wearing a full-body bunny costume, the kind they sell at the souvenir shops. Some of them look at Valentina with terrified expressions and move aside as she comes through. She advances with erratic steps to the end of the line.

A couple of minutes pass. A pair of salesgirls wearing the store's two-tone corporate vest hand out promotional T-shirts for WONDERFUL WORLD to the fans on line. With the same bucolic suburban scene and the same inscription, WONDERFUL WORLD, that adorns all the display stands and banderoles. When she gets to Valentina's spot in line, the employee looks at her with a concerned smile and offers her a large T-shirt.

“I only have sizes L and XL left,” the salesgirl starts to say, but she stops short when she sees Valentina's face. Who is now gnawing on the inside of her cheeks to mitigate the feeling of danger. “Okay, kid,” she adds in a slightly annoyed tone, “you don't have to get like that.”

One of the fans in the line is dressed as a zombie. He has white makeup on and his hair is covered in some sort of green gel and he has a fake scar on his neck that seems to be trying to indicate that he recently had his throat slit. Another of the fans on line has the frighteningly outdated hairstyle and pointy fake ears that characterize those born on the planet Vulcan. Some of the fans chat in low voices, as if they were in some sort of religious setting, and make jokes that can only be understood by Stephen King fans. Photographers, and even a couple of local television cameras, mill around the line taking photos of the fans. In her spot at the end of the line, Valentina Parini can feel her heart rate speeding up and she starts to see strange kaleidoscopic figures in the margins of her visual field. A minute later someone cuts a ribbon like the ones at the openings of official buildings and a burst of applause is heard accompanied by camera flashes. The line begins to advance as the first shoppers acquire their copies of Wonderful World. The first buyer holds his copy up over his head like people do when they've just won a sports trophy.

“Excuse me,” the person behind Valentina Parini in line says to her. “The line is moving.”

Valentina Parini has once again begun to rock back and forth. The number of fans that look at her strangely and distance themselves has increased in the last few minutes. After a moment, Valentina leaves her place in the line. The Christmas noises seem to come from everywhere and nowhere. The canned corporate carols. Valentina walks toward the desk where smiling employees with two-tone vests are ringing up sales. She takes a copy from the desk and hugs it against her chest.

“Hey,” says a fan who's buying his copy right then. “Where are you going? Get back in line.”

Valentina Parini snatches the book out of his hands and then tries to do the same thing to another fan near her, but the second fan holds on tightly to his copy and pushes Valentina.

“Excuse me,” says one of the employees to Valentina. “You have to wait in line. You can't do that.”

Valentina looks at the fan that pushed her with a face filled with hate. One of the employees puts a hand on Valentina's shoulder, and she turns and pushes him so hard against the desk covered with Stephen King's new novel that he falls onto the table. Knocking down all the piles of copies. Shouts are heard.

“Get out,” screams Valentina. As the walls of the bookstore begin to spin around her. Or maybe she's the one who's spinning. “I'm the only one who can solve this. Leave me alone.”

Most of the Stephen King fans have opted for moving away from Valentina, who seems to be about to lose her balance. A security guard approaches the scene with his walkie-talkie in his hand. Pushing aside a giant rabbit that is actually a person in a full-body rabbit costume. Valentina kneels on the ground, still hugging the book against her chest. Someone approaches her and she hits them in the crotch with her copy of Wonderful World. The employees in charge of selling Stephen King's new novel are explaining what's going on to the security guard, who looks at Valentina with a frown. Some of the press photographers are taking photographs of the girl kneeling on the ground. Someone asks if all this is part of the launch of Stephen King's new novel.

“Fuck,” says the Stephen King fan who has the outmoded hairdo and the ears of a Vulcan. “A real nutcase.”

On her knees on the ground, hugging her book, Valentina Parini bares her teeth threateningly. And in that precise moment, as the clocks in the Plaza Catalunya mark twelve on the dot, the lights in the store begin to flicker. A moment later they go out. The book section where the launch of Stephen King's new book is taking place is completely in the dark. Someone screams. After a moment, most of the Stephen King fans gathered there start shouting in terror.

Eric Yanel observes the upper part of the anonymous building uptown that houses the Hannah Linus Gallery with an anguished expression. Planted in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of the building's fire escape. He is wearing tall rubber boots and a protective jumpsuit, the kind people wear when working with toxic materials. On his jumpsuit there's a silk-screened schematic drawing of a lightning bolt cutting an insect in half and the words “ARNOLD LAYNE, WOOD PARASITE SOLUTIONS.” Behind him is Aníbal Manta, disguised in an identical, but much bigger, jumpsuit. The biggest protective jumpsuit Yanel has ever seen in his life. They're both wearing backpacks and have gas masks hanging from their necks. They're both standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the first-floor fire exit, which is directly connected to the offices of Hannah Linus's gallery. A few minutes before midnight on the Night of the World Launch of Stephen King's New Novel, and the street is deserted. The building is dark. The gallery occupies the first three floors, and the rest of the building is all offices. A company that promotes Barcelonian cuisine in the Far East. A company that subcontracts telephone customer care companies for the sale of telephone services. And the offices of a board game distributor on the top floor. The entire building is empty. Each corporate space is protected by its own alarm system. And the winter moon floats lazily over them all.

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?” Aníbal Manta says finally. He looks at his colleague disapprovingly. “What's the point of us dressing like this if you're gonna show up with that face?” He shakes his head. “Why don't you just wear a sign that says 'I'm a criminal'?”

Eric Yanel doesn't look as if he's shaved in many days. The skin on his face has that crusty look of someone who's barely gotten out of bed for days. His traditional long blond wave of hair has turned into something closer to a twisted Mohawk. Rigid and greasy at the same time. His nose and eyes are red, like he's been crying. Now he sighs. He looks over his shoulder at Manta, who gives him a sign to wait. A pedestrian has just turned the corner and is now approaching along the sidewalk. Carrying a couple of department-store bags filled with Christmas gifts and walking with his head bowed, absorbed in the little clouds of steam of his own breath. Manta waits for him to get far enough away and lifts a thumb toward his partner in crime.

“Now,” he says. “And make sure your hands don't shake. I'm not in the mood to have you fall on me.”