Brian Stableford: After the Stone Age

Mina had tried everything: WeightWatchers, Conley, grapefruit, Atkins, hypnotherapy and pumping iron. When she decided, after three gruelling months, that the Stone Age diet was doing her more harm than good, she felt that she had hit rock bottom in the abyss of despair. She weighed sixteen stone five pounds, just six pounds less than the day she had embarked on the Stone Age with such steely determination. She had been desperate to give up for three weeks, but she had forced herself to hang on until the day of her annual appraisal. She had wanted to look her best - but she didn't have to look in the mirror to know that it had been a hopeless ambition.

"I couldn't even get down to sixteen stone," she complained - aloud, because one of the few advantages of living alone was that she could talk to herself without being thought mad. She had been taught at school to calculate in kilograms but she preferred stones because the numbers were smaller. She had no difficulty dealing with big numbers - working for the National Audit Commission kept her busy with lots of those - but they seemed far less intimidating in the multitudinous bank accounts of the public purse than they did on her hips and thighs. Counting in kilograms also made her think longingly of continental Europe, which she missed sorely now she couldn't bear to travel any more. She couldn't cope with aeroplane seats, let alone Mediterranean heat.

She felt that she couldn't cope with her appraisal either, but there was no way of avoiding that. What made matters worse was that she really ought to have had her line-manager's job herself, and probably would have if Lucy Stanwere hadn't had a figure like Paula Radcliffe as well as an obvious hunger for further success. The fact that Lucy was able to wear four-inch heels, allowing her to tower over those condemned by gravity to flat soles, might conceivably have been irrelevant to her rapid ascent of the status ladder, but Mina didn't think so.

"Well," Mina said to herself, "at least I can have a hearty breakfast, now that I've fallen off the Stone Age wagon." She gorged herself on Welsh rarebit and chocolate milk, reflecting painfully on the roles that anxiety and depression had played in her history of comfort eating.

Joaquín Revuelta Candón: Desde la espuma

Sobre la mesa, allí estaba la multi, parpadeando suavemente en la penumbra del despacho. Su superficie estaba inmaculada, pese a que había cargado multitud de datos en su buffer. Se reía de mí, con su recién descubierta inteligencia de marioneta desahuciada. Apuré el cigarrillo, lo apagué en un cenicero cercano y me froté los ojos, doloridos de tanto esfuerzo de concentración sobre las líneas de código que me habían tenido ocupado durante las últimas doce horas de mi vida. Me acerqué a la mesa de trabajo, sin perder de vista el área satinada de aquel engendro con aspecto de folio antiguo. Todavía nada: la impresión de que se estaba burlando de mí, de nosotros, del mundo de los hombres en general, cada vez era más acentuada.

Me senté ante la vieja TFT, crují los dedos, y comencé a golpear el aire sobre el teclado holográfico. De cuando en cuando, mi mirada se desviaba hacia la multi, esperando ver aparecer un dibujo, un iconograma, una pizca de texto que me permitiera descubrir un atajo hacia la intrincada espuma cuántica que contenía, algo que me abriera el camino hacia el universo de nanocomponentes que ocultaba en su interior.

Nada. El horizonte cegador de la blancura.

Intenté acceder a ella ejecutando un programa que se camuflaba bajo el aspecto de un simple rastreador de puertos de comunicación. Cero. Frustración. Sentimiento de culpa. La empresa confiaba en mí. Los directivos habían apostado fuerte, habían proclamado a los cuatro vientos que la multi sería la solución empresarial del siglo, que contribuiría a un ahorro en consumibles que dispararía la cuenta de resultados, que con su presencia en el mundo corporativo las talas de árboles se reducirían en más de un sesenta por ciento en todo el planeta... lo creíamos, lo creíamos firmemente y de todo corazón; jamás había estado en nuestro ánimo engañar a nadie.

Aidan Doyle: Mr. Nine and the Gentleman Ghost

Elisabeth gave her invitation to the valet and received a gilt-edged program in return. It welcomed her to the Bearbrass Gentle Ladies Society Monthly Ball. The valet glanced at Elisabeth’s satchel and then escorted her into the ballroom.

Bearbrass had been a sleepy colonial outpost until gold was discovered in the nearby hills. Within three years, it had been transformed into the largest city in all of the colonies. Elisabeth did not think of this as necessarily an improvement.

A dozen chandeliers clung to the ceiling and paintings imported from the empire competed for space on the walls. An orchestra of more than twenty musicians waited on the stage at the far end of the room.

Mrs. Rittiker, the president of the Bearbrass Gentle Ladies Society, greeted Elisabeth at the entrance. She was a short, stout woman in her early fifties and wore a purple chiffon gown with a plunging neckline. “You’ve come without a chaperone again,” she said. “If I were half the gentle lady I pretend to be, I would be thoroughly scandalized.”

Elisabeth laughed. Although ostensibly the Gentle Ladies Society served as an organizer of social functions, the society’s inner council was devoted to recovering the lost knowledge of the ancient gentle ladies. She had known Mrs. Rittiker all of her life. She handed over the satchel. “Fresh from the book mines.”

Mrs. Rittiker opened the bag and took out a book. She brushed a speck of dirt from the cover and smiled when she read the title: The Gentle Ladies’ Guide to Midnight Apparitions. “No one has your talent for finding books, Elisabeth.”

She replaced the book in the satchel and handed it to a servant. “Take this to my carriage.” She took Elisabeth by the hand. “There are some handsome young men waiting to see you.” Mrs. Rittiker led her over to the other guests and a dozen young men formed a line in front of her.

Elisabeth suppressed a sigh. The only reason she came to the balls was to meet Bertie, and he was always irritatingly late.

“This is Horatio Lightfellow,” Mrs. Rittiker said. “He arrived on this morning’s zeppelin from the empire.”

“Charmed to meet you,” Lightfellow said. “At some point in the evening I would be most happy to inform you of the latest fashions in the capital.” His gaze strayed to Elisabeth’s hair. She had been born with hair made from gold.

René Avilés Fabila: Los fantasmas y yo

Siempre estuve acosado por el temor a los fantasmas, hasta que distraídamente pasé de una habitación a otra sin utilizar los medios comunes.

Henry Kuttner: The secret of Kralitz

I AWOKE from profound sleep to find two black-swathed forms standing silently beside me, their faces pale blurs in the gloom. As I blinked to deal my sleep-dimmed eyes, one of them beckoned impatiently, and suddenly I realized the purpose of this midnight summons. For years I had been expecting it, ever since my father, the Baron Kralitz, had revealed to me the secret and the curse that hung over our ancient house. And so, without a word, I rose and followed my guides as they led me along the gloomy corridors of the castle that had been my home since birth.

As I proceeded there rose up in my mind the stern face of my father, and in my ears rang his solemn words as he told me of the legendary curse of the House of Kralitz, the unknown secret that was imparted to the eldest son of each generation—at a certain time.

"When?" I had asked my father as he lay on his death-bed, fighting back the approach of dissolution.

"When you are able to understand," he had told me, watching my face intently from beneath his tufted white brows. "Some are told the secret sooner than others. Since the first Baron Kralitz the secret has been handed down——"

He clutched at his breast and paused. It was fully five minutes before he had gathered his strength to speak again in his rolling, powerful voice. No gasping, death-bed confessions for the Baron Kralitz!

He said at last, "You have seen the ruins of the old monastery near the village, Franz. The first Baron burnt it and put the monks to the sword. The Abbot interfered too often with the Baron's whims. A girl sought shelter and the Abbot refused to give her up at the Baron's demand. His patience was at an end—you know the tales they still tell about him.

"He slew the Abbot, burned the monastery, and took the girl. Before he died the Abbot cursed his slayer, and cursed his sons for unborn generations. And it is the nature of this curse that is the secret of our house.

"I may not tell you what the curse is. Do not seek to discover it before it is revelled to you. Wait patiently, and in due time you will be taken by the warders of the secret down the stairway to the underground cavern. And then you will learn the secret of Kralitz."

As the last word passed my father's lips he died, his stern face still set in its harsh lines.

Moacyr Scliar: Milton e o Concorrente

Milton ainda não abriu a sua loja, mas o concorrente já abriu a dele; e já está anunciando, já está vendendo, já está liquidando a preços baixo do custo. Milton ainda está na cama, ao lado da amante, desta mulher ilegítima, que nem bonita é, nem simpática; o concorrente já está de pé, alerta, atrás do balcão. A esposa – fiel companheira de tantos anos – está a seu lado, alerta também. Milton ainda não fez o desjejum (desjejum? Um cigarro, um copo de vinho, isto é desjejum?) - o concorrente já tomou suco de laranja, já comeu ovo, torrada, queijo, já sorveu uma grande xícara de café com leite. Já está nutrido.

Milton ainda está nu, o concorrente já se apresenta elegantemente vestido.

Milton mal abriu os olhos, o concorrente já leu os jornais da manhã, já está a par das cotações da bolsa e das tendencias do mercado. Milton ainda não disse uma palavra, o concorrente já falou com clientes, com figurões da política, com o fiscal amigo, com os fornecedores. Milton ainda está no subúrbio; o concorrente, vencendo todos os problemas de transito, já chegou ao centro da cidade, já está solidamente instalado no seu prédio próprio. Milton ainda não sabe se o dia é chuvoso, ou de sol, o concorrente já está seguramente informado de que vão subir os preços dos artigos de couro. Milton ainda não viu os filhos (sem falar da esposa, de quem está separado); o concorrente já criou as filhas, já formou-as em Direito e Química, já as casou, já tem netos.

Milton ainda não começou a viver.

O concorrente já está sentindo uma dor no peito, já está caindo sobre o balcão, já está estertorando, os olhos arregalados – já esta morrendo, enfim.

Vicente Huidobro: Tragedia

María Olga es una mujer encantadora. Especialmente la parte que se llama Olga.

Se casó con un mocetón grande y fornido, un poco torpe, lleno de ideas honoríficas, reglamentadas como árboles de paseo.

Pero la parte que ella casó era su parte que se llamaba María. Su parte Olga permanecía soltera y luego tomó un amante que vivía en adoración ante sus ojos.

Ella no podía comprender que su marido se enfureciera y le reprochara infidelidad. María era fiel, perfectamente fiel. ¿Qué tenía él que meterse con Olga? Ella no comprendía que él no comprendiera. María cumplía con su deber, la parte Olga adoraba a su amante.

¿Era ella culpable de tener un nombre doble y de las consecuencias que esto puede traer consigo?

Así, cuando el marido cogió el revolver, ella abrió los ojos enormes, no asustados sino llenos de asombro, por no poder entender un gesto tan absurdo.

Pero sucedió que el marido se equivocó y mató a María, a la parte suya, en vez de matar a la otra. Olga continuó viviendo en brazos de su amante, y creo que aún sigue feliz, muy feliz, sintiendo sólo que es un poco zurda.

George Saunders: Sea oak

AT SIX MR. FRENDT comes on the P.A. and shouts, "Welcome to Joysticks!" Then he announces Shirts Off. We take off our flightjackets and fold them up. We take off our shirts and fold them up. Our scarves we leave on. Thomas Kirster's our beautiful boy. He's got long muscles and bright-blue eyes. The minute his shirt comes off two fat ladies hustle up the aisle and stick some money in his pants and ask will he be their Pilot. He says sure. He brings their salads. He brings their soups. My phone rings and the caller tells me to come see her in the Spitfire mock-up. Does she want me to be her Pilot? I'm hoping. Inside the Spitfire is Margie, who says she's been diagnosed with Chronic Shyness Syndrome, then hands me an Instamatic and offers me ten bucks for a close-up of Thomas's tush.

Do I do it? Yes I do.

It could be worse. It is worse for Lloyd Betts. Lately he's put on weight and his hair's gone thin. He doesn't get a call all shift and waits zero tables and winds up sitting on the P-51 wing, playing solitaire in a hunched-over position that gives him big gut rolls.

I Pilot six tables and make forty dollars in tips plus five an hour in salary.

After closing we sit on the floor for Debriefing. "There are times," Mr. Frendt says, "when one must move gracefully to the next station in life, like for example certain women in Africa or Brazil, I forget which, who either color their faces or don some kind of distinctive headdress upon achieving menopause. Are you with me? One of our ranks must now leave us. No one is an island in terms of being thought cute forever, and so today we must say good-bye to our friend Lloyd. Lloyd, stand up so we can say good-bye to you. I'm sorry We are all so very sorry"

Mario Benedetti: El Otro Yo

Se trataba de un muchacho corriente: en los pantalones se le formaban rodilleras, leía historietas, hacía ruido cuando comía, se metía los dedos a la nariz, roncaba en la siesta, se llamaba Armando. Corriente en todo menos en una cosa: tenía Otro Yo.

El Otro Yo usaba cierta poesía en la mirada, se enamoraba de las actrices, mentía cautelosamente, se emocionaba en los atardeceres. Al muchacho le preocupaba mucho su Otro Yo y le hacía sentirse incómodo frente a sus amigos. Por otra parte el Otro Yo era melancólico, y debido a ello, Armando no podía ser tan vulgar como era su deseo.

Una tarde Armando llegó cansado del trabajo, se quitó los zapatos, movió lentamente los dedos de los pies y encendió la radio. En la radio estaba Mozart, pero el muchacho se durmió. Cuando despertó el Otro Yo lloraba con desconsuelo. En el primer momento, el muchacho no supo qué hacer, pero después se rehizo e insultó concienzudamente al Otro Yo. Este no dijo nada, pero a la mañana siguiente se había suicidado.

Al principio la muerte del Otro Yo fue un rudo golpe para el pobre Armando, pero enseguida pensó que ahora sí podría ser enteramente vulgar. Ese pensamiento lo reconfortó.

Sólo llevaba cinco días de luto, cuando salió a la calle con el propósito de lucir su nueva y completa vulgaridad. Desde lejos vio que se acercaban sus amigos. Eso le lleno de felicidad e inmediatamente estalló en risotadas.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: The familiar

PROLOGUE

OUT of about two hundred and thirty cases more or less nearly akin to that I have entitled "Green Tea," I select the following which I call "The Familiar."

To this MS., Doctor Hesselius has, after his wont, attached some sheets of letter-paper, on which are written, in his hand nearly as compact as print, his own remarks upon the case. He says:

"In point of conscience, no more unexceptionable narrator than the venerable Irish Clergyman who has given me this paper, on Mr. Barton's case, could have been chosen. The statement is, however, medically imperfect. The report of an intelligent physician, who had marked its progress, and attended the patient, from its earlier stages to its close, would have supplied what is wanting to enable me to pronounce with confidence. I should have been acquainted with Mr Barton's probable hereditary predispositions; I should have known, possibly by very early indicators, something of a remoter origin of the disease than can now be ascertained.

"In a rough way, we may reduce all similar cases to three distinct classes. They are founded on the primary distinction between the subjective and the objective. Of those whose senses are alleged to be subject to supernatural impressions — some are simply visionaries, and propagate the illusions of which they complain from diseased brain or nerves. Others are, unquestionably, infested by, as we term them, spiritual agencies, exterior to themselves. Others, again, owe their sufferings to a mixed condition. The interior sense, it is true, is opened; but it has been and continues open by the action of disease. This form of disease may, in one sense, be compared to the loss of the scarf-skin, and a consequent exposure of surfaces for whose excessive sensitiveness nature has provided a muffling. The loss of this covering is attended by an habitual impassibility, by influences against which we were intended to be guarded. But in the case of the brain, and the nerves immediately connected with its functions and its sensuous impressions, the cerebral circulation undergoes periodically that vibratory disturbance which, I believe, I have satisfactorily examined and demonstrated in my MS. Essay, A. 17. This vibratory disturbance differs, as I there prove, essentially from the congestive disturbance, the phenomena of which are examined in A. 19. It is, when excessive, invariably accompanied by illusions.

"Had I seen Mr. Barton, and examined him upon the points in his case which need elucidation, I should have without difficulty referred those phenomena to their proper disease. My diagnosis is now, necessarily, conjectural."

Thus writes Doctor Hesselius; and adds a great deal which is of interest only to a scientific physician.

The Narrative of the Rev. Thomas Herbert, which furnishes all that is known of the case will be found in the chapters that follow.

CHAPTER I

FOOTSTEPS

I WAS a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted with some of the actors in this strange tale; the impression which its incidents made on me, therefore, were deep and lasting. I shall now endeavour, with precision, to relate them all, combining, of course, in the narrative, whatever I have learned from various sources, tending, however imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its progress and termination.

Steven Meretzky: Time traveler

Time traveler's thought: "What's the password?"

Santiago Eximeno: Escombros

...basílicas de escombros, levantadas trombas

 de fuego, sangre, cal, ceniza.

Rafael Alberti

tuve la certeza de que, una vez muerto,

me violarías.

David Foronda

Durante cuatro días consecutivos los niños me llamaron a casa, aprovechando momentos en los que su madre se encontraba enzarzada en agrias discusiones con su nuevo novio —o, al menos, esa fue la reconfortante imagen que forjé en mi mente—, con la intención de involucrarme en una aventura que los profesores les habían propuesto en el colegio. Durante esos cuatro días, sonriendo en mi interior por ser el afortunado padre elegido, escuché con atención sus diálogos entrecortados a través del teléfono y sus exposiciones desordenadas del asombroso acontecimiento que se avecinaba. El último año se habían agrandado las distancias entre nosotros, y si bien procuraba verlos un fin de semana sí y otro no, Laura ponía todo su empeño para que esos pocos instantes de intimidad resultaran lo más incómodos posible. En el fondo ella mostraba una actitud defensiva, hasta cierto punto comprensible, intentando no perder el afecto de unos niños demasiado pequeños para comprender lo que había sucedido entre nosotros. Habíamos perdido nuestra condición conjuntiva, y ahora representábamos a dos frágiles figuras, papá y mamá, mutuamente excluyentes.

Atraído por la excitación de los niños, busqué informa­ción acerca del lugar, y descubrí que la visita que prepara­ban en el colegio tendría como destino unos refugios sub­terráneos que databan del principio de la Guerra Civil. Situados en la sierra para proteger a los ciudadanos de los bombardeos, habían sido objeto de una restauración exhaustiva gracias al esfuerzo desinteresado de varias per­sonas con conocimientos de albañilería y pintura. Desde el Ayuntamiento se pretendía ofrecer visitas guiadas a grupos de escolares para recordarles el terrible espíritu de la gue­rra. A primera vista no me convencía como opción más atractiva para el fin de semana, pero no dudaba que los pro­fesores habrían sabido vender con suficiente habilidad el producto a unos alumnos ávidos de nuevas experiencias.

Dediqué un par de tardes, al salir del trabajo, a comprar­me unas botas de montaña y una pequeña mochila, ya que desde donde nos dejaba el autobús hasta el lugar de la visi­ta tendríamos que caminar algo más de un kilómetro. No conocía el terreno de primera mano, pero todo me hacía suponer que necesitaría un equipo adecuado. Me sentía ale­gre, ajeno a los problemas cotidianos, dispuesto a disfrutar de la compañía de mis dos hijos en un ambiente agradable y, de paso, compartir con ellos algo de la historia de nues­tro país. Siempre había escuchado las historias de la guerra que me narraba mi padre con cierto desinterés, debido más a la repetición a la que me sometía cada día que a otros motivos. Ahora, sin embargo, veía la posibilidad de trans­mitirles a mis hijos algo del legado de nuestra familia de forma indirecta, y una cierta nostalgia de aquellas conver­saciones apenas susurradas en el salón —mi madre prefería no recordar nada de aquellos tristes años— me embargaba sin que pudiera —ni quisiera— hacer nada para evitarlo.

George R. R. Martin: The Pear-Shaped Man

The Pear-shaped Man lives beneath the stairs. His shoulders are narrow and stooped, but his buttocks are impressively large. Or perhaps it is only the clothing he wears; no one has ever admitted to seeing him nude, and no one has ever admitted to wanting to. His trousers are brown polyester double knits, with wide cuffs and a shiny seat; they are always baggy, and they have big, deep, droopy pockets so stuffed with oddments and bric-a-brac that they bulge against his sides. He wears his pants very high, hiked up above the swell of his stomach, and cinches them in place around his chest with a narrow brown leather belt. He wears them so high that his drooping socks show clearly, and often an inch or two of pasty white skin as well.

His shirts are always short-sleeved, most often white or pale blue, and his breast pocket is always full of Bic pens, the cheap throwaway kind that write with blue ink. He has lost the caps or tossed them out, because his shirts are all stained and splotched around the breast pockets. His head is a second pear set atop the first; he has a double chin and wide, full, fleshy cheeks, and the top of his head seems to come almost to a point. His nose is broad and flat, with large, greasy pores; his eyes are small and pale, set close together. His hair is thin, dark, limp, flaky with dandruff; it never looks washed, and there are those who say that he cuts it himself with a bowl and a dull knife. He has a smell, too, the Pear-shaped Man; it is a sweet smell, a sour smell, a rich smell, compounded of old butter and rancid meat and vegetables rotting in the garbage bin. His voice, when he speaks, is high and thin and squeaky; it would be a funny little voice, coming from such a large, ugly man, but there is something unnerving about it, and something even more chilling about his tight, small smile. He never shows any teeth when he smiles, but his lips are broad and wet.

Of course you know him. Everyone knows a Pear-shaped Man.

* * * *

Jessie met hers on her first day in the neighborhood, while she and Angela were moving into the vacant apartment on the first floor. Angela and her boyfriend, Donald the student shrink, had lugged the couch inside and accidentally knocked away the brick that had been holding open the door to the building. Meanwhile Jessie had gotten the recliner out of the U-Haul all by herself and thumped it up the steps, only to find the door locked when she backed into it, the recliner in her arms. She was hot and sore and irritable and ready to scream with frustration.

Salomé Guadalupe Ingelmo: Volverá el aroma al guardián de las espinas

La nieve cae sobre la fila de sombríos hábitos que son engullidos uno a uno por la boca insaciable, ferozmente abierta. Cae sobre las ramas retorcidas de los robles, sobre las tumbas desatendidas, sobre las inscripciones amordazadas por el musgo y los líquenes, sobre las cruces abatidas. Y él sabe que los monjes no son monjes y que la abadía en ruinas de la que apenas queda una ojiva hambrienta no es una abadía. Y sabe que en esas tumbas no yacen cuerpos, que los cuerpos siguen caminando lejos. Pero el poeta no puede apartar la vista de una en particular, una en apariencia idéntica a las demás y sin embargo tan diversa… A su alrededor no crecen zarzas y ortigas sino rosas. Tuvieron color un día, durante un breve espacio de tiempo, pero ahora ya nadie podría adivinar cuál fue. Aunque intenta ocultar su rostro bajo la capucha, la fría piedra llama. Él abandona la fila interminable. Se acerca a la lápida resignado, como se acerca siempre a un amor que se resiste a creer eterno. No ha pasado tanto tiempo, sin embargo apenas es visible ya la familiar fecha.

Ella coloca una cruz sobre el 15 de marzo en el calendario. Aún hace frío. Hace siempre frío en esa casa. No puede seguir esperando un milagro de la primavera; él jamás abrirá las ventanas.

Sabe que las rosas nacen sujetas a un destino de muerte. Su fugaz belleza le turba. No logra disfrutar de ella mientras dura: no deja de pensar que han de marchitarse y ese pensamiento envenena el gozo del momento. Cuando las mira, aun lozanas, él sólo consigue ver pétalos resecos. Por eso las cultiva una y otra vez sin demasiado entusiasmo. Y cuando sus pétalos comienzan a volverse plomizos y a caer pesadamente víctimas de ese juego macabro de las preguntas, no se sorprende. Se dice desde el primer día que de ellas habrán de quedar sólo las espinas. Los pétalos resecos yacerán alrededor de las flores desnudas, deshojadas. Se acumularán en montones tristes. Y él, sin necesidad de contarlos, sabrá que, una vez más, por supuesto son pares. Por eso proyecta salvarlas y salvarse. Proyecta protegerlas y protegerse de la insidiosa primavera.

La tormenta de nieve la sorprende cerca de la cima. Los pedazos de hielo arrancados por el viento le hieren los párpados tiernos. A través de los remolinos blancos, no muy lejos, vislumbra una forma gigantesca, un enorme arco de piedra, el ingreso a un gélido jardín perennemente en calma, lleno de rosas de hielo. Crecen en hileras ordenadas, unas tras otras, todas igualmente bellas y perfectas, igualmente eternas y eternamente dormidas. Al fondo, el poeta vestido de monje siembra nuevas cosechas. Mete la mano en un saco que cuelga de su cuello y lanza el contenido a puñados sobre la mullida nieve que cubre el suelo. Las palabras escritas en tinta negra trazan improbables parábolas en el aire y caen sobre el manto blanco como atraídas por una fuerza irresistible. Por unos segundos sobre la insólita página se leen herméticos mensajes que sólo el jardinero puede entender, pero el frío es tal que las inusuales semillas inmediatamente empiezan a palidecer y se convierten en nuevas plantas de hielo.