The
Autobiography of J. G. Ballard (La autobiografía de J.
G. Ballard), en realidad es un excelente cuento dentro del género de ficción.
La idea es que alguien despierta una mañana para encontrarse solo en su casa,
en su barrio y en su ciudad, sin luz eléctrica. Todos han desaparecido.
On waking one
morning, B was surprised to see that Shepperton
was deserted. He entered the kitchen at nine o’clock, annoyed to find that
neither his post nor the daily newspapers had been delivered, and that a power
failure prevented him from preparing his breakfast. He spent an hour staring at
the melting ice that dripped from his refrigerator, and then went next door to
complain to his neighbor.
Surprisingly,
his neighbor’s house was empty. His car stood in the drive, but the entire
family—husband, wife, children, and dog—had disappeared. Even more odd, the
street was filled by an unbroken silence. No traffic moved along the nearby
motorway, and not a single aircraft flew overhead toward London Airport. B
crossed the road and knocked on several doors. Through the windows, he could
see the empty interiors. Nothing in this peaceful suburb was out of place,
except for its missing tenants.
Thinking that
perhaps some terrible calamity was imminent—a nuclear catastrophe, or a sudden
epidemic after a research-laboratory accident—and that by some unfortunate
mishap he alone had not been warned, B returned home and switched on his
transistor radio. The apparatus worked, but all the stations were silent, the
Continental transmitters as well as those of the United Kingdom. Disconcerted,
B returned to the street and gazed at the empty sky. It was a calm, sun-filled
day, crossed by peaceful clouds that gave no hint of any natural disaster.
B took his car
and drove to the center of Shepperton. The town was deserted, and none of the
shops were open. A train stood in the station, empty and without any of the
passengers who regularly travelled to London. Leaving Shepperton, B crossed the
Thames to the nearby town of Walton. There again he found the streets
completely silent. He stopped in front of the house owned by his friend P,
whose car was parked in her drive. Using the spare key that he carried, he
unlocked the front door and entered the house. But even as he called her name
he could see that there was no trace of the young woman. She had not slept in
her bed. In the kitchen, the melting ice of the refrigerator had formed a large
pool on the floor. There was no electric power, and the telephone was dead.
Resuming his
journey, B systematically explored the neighboring towns, circling them all as
he approached central London. He was not surprised to find the huge metropolis
totally deserted. He drove down an empty Piccadilly,
crossed Trafalgar Square in silence,
and parked outside the unguarded Buckingham
Palace. As dusk fell, he decided to return to Shepperton. He had almost run
out of fuel and was forced to break into a filling station. However, no
policemen were out on patrol or in their stations. He left behind him an
immense city plunged into darkness, where the only lights were the reflections
of his headlamps… (The Autobiography of
J. G. Ballard)
Shepperton |
Para
saber
Shepperton
es una ciudad en el municipio de Spelthorne, en el condado de Surrey en
Inglaterra, a 24 km. al sud oeste de Charing Cross, Londres, limitado por el
Támesis al sur y al este.
Piccadilly
es una calle en la ciudad de Westminster, Londres al sur de Mayfair, entre Hyde
Park Corner al oeste y Piccadilly Circus al este.
Trafalgar
Square es una plaza pública en la ciudad de Westminster,
Londres central, construida alrededor del área conocida como Charing Cross. Su nombre
conmemora la batalla de Trafalgar, una victoria naval británica en las guerras
napoleónicas.
Buckingham Palace es la residencia en Londres y la
sede administrativa de la monarquía reinante en el Reino Unido.
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J.
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