The day of the accident Pedro failed to notice the omens that presented themselves throughout the morning. The birds didn’t wake him up, the street dogs, who barked and howled out of boredom and hunger, were absent. The gray thick wall that blurred the horizon didn’t announce rain or move away. The air felt thick, humid and still. Above all, the blue flames of the kerosene stovetop turned emerald green, before fading away when the fuel had been entirely consumed. Dora only managed to half-cook the arepas and boil water for coffee before a foul, persistent smell invaded the whole space under the tin roof where they lived.
Pedro’s understanding of nature became irrelevant when he moved to the city. The city was a different untamed monster. He had become blind to the signs of nature anyone in his village would have interpreted immediately. Dora was simply too worried about the cost of kerosene to think of omens and, instead, she automatically grabbed her purse to figure out how much was left before the end of the week.
Pedro drank his coffee and chewed the soft arepa in silence, grabbed the canvas bag with his work clothes and an old pair of boots, and left. The bus took about two hours to get to the construction site where he was installing window frames. In spite of the long journey, he felt joyful when he worked on sites surrounded by nature. The eucalyptus trees on the path to this particular area reminded him of San Antonio3 – soft grass, the distant sound of a river… He didn’t know what had happened to the river just beyond the city limits where he used to swim as a child, but this one near the construction site was more likely to be preserved for the benefit of the new, affluent neighborhood he was helping to build. There were plans for the first private club with a golf course on the outskirts of Bogota. Vast extensions of farmland and wild forests around the city were being converted into luxury homes as a way to avoid the risk of being invaded and turned into slums by people like him: displaced campesinos.
The constant banging, the rumble of engines and the noise of voices on the construction site never stopped nature, but Pedro failed to notice nature’s silence. He walked at a fast pace, worried about being late. It would mean a few pesos deducted from his wages at the end of the week.
The workers were already gathering in front of an improvised office inside a metal container where Ingeniero Rodrigo spent most of his day looking at documents, making calls and generally pretending to be busy. In Pedro’s eyes, on account of his boss’s gold-rimmed glasses and expensive watch, the engineer was intelligent and rich. He spoke with a strong coastal accent that made other workers joke about the Caribbean laziness he was prone to. But knowing they could be laid off and quickly replaced, they never challenged his authority or joked with him.
Pedro put on his old shirt and ragged pair of trousers, ignoring the old boots as the weather over the last few days had been dry enough to solidify the mud. He followed Antonio and Joaquín to the building where they had been working for the last few days. The panoramic views of Bogota would be framed like oil paintings on pristine walls facing the open Sabana de Bogota to the north, huge blue mountains far in the distance when the sky was clear.
(…to be continued…)
Footnotes
3. Columbia
Transadaptation Volume 7 – Via Ellipsis – Continuation of Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: An Unexpected Trip Down Memory Lane – Sarah-Leah Pimentel (South Africa)
February: Blow-up – Veronika Groke (Austria)
March: Futuros Murguistas – Alejandra Baccino Uberti (Uruguay)
April: The Nomenclature Man – Paulius Limantas (Lithuania)
May: Amanecerá y veremos – Adriana Uribe (Colombia)
June: Finding Light in Yerevan – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
July: The Last Judgement – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
August: Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Worm? – Narantsogt (Natso) Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
September: Second Steps – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
October: New Normality – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
November: Pandemic Love – Li Xiakun (China)
December: Beyond Comprehension – Rahaf Konbaz (Syria)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 6: Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2025)
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Background photo: Medellin, Colombia – Stacked – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash)
Insert photos from top left (clockwise): 1. Medellin, Colombia – A person – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash); 2. Bogota, Colombia – Time will tell – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash); 3. Medellin, Colombia – Waiting – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash); 4. Bogota, Colombia – Walking home – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash); 5. Bogota, Colombia – Taking a break – Carlos Martinez (Unsplash)