No one can suspect the infinite past that lies behind every picturesque landscape.
From the summit of a hill that, in a remote age, was a volcano, a smiling, fresh-faced young woman makes her way down, dressed in comfortable sportswear with a bikini underneath. She is alone, adventurous as ever, descending a rugged slope beneath the fierce heat of summer.
In this place of extraordinary beauty, she skirts havens of native flora and wildlife, follows natural paths under the curious gaze of animals, and enjoys the shade of the trees amid the songs of many birds.
At last, she reaches a part of the hill that commands paradisiacal views of the coast. It is then that she catches sight of a strange life-form standing at the edge of a natural pool nestled among the rocks of the hillside.
It is a man examining himself, discovering a body sheathed in chrome—an electrical, intelligent, incorporeal substance. He reflects deeply on human existence, yet can make little sense of his present condition. He cannot distinguish man from woman, plant from animal. He struggles to discern the differences, but finds them utterly bewildering.
He perceives them as sparks of life emerging from a uniform monotony, teeming throughout the immensity of the empty void. He neither understands nor feels any kinship with the chaotic designs that have brought forth so many forms of life around him.
He sinks into uncontrolled meditation, tangled reasoning, blurred thoughts, and contradictory insights.
He turns in a circle and surveys the place. No one is nearby. The summer sun at noon blazes down upon him. Lowering his gaze, he sees his chrome feet submerged ankle-deep in the crystalline water gathered in a natural pool fed by some spring in the hill. Defenseless, he blinks slowly, and with every blink his body grows at a dizzying pace.
After several hundred blinks beneath the intense midday light, the youth finally becomes a fully formed man, his skin entirely chrome.
Standing there, in the very place where he first appeared, his chrome body reflects the rugged surroundings. He opens his dark eyes and holds them open, ceasing to blink for a moment. His head is bald, his face hairless, without eyebrows and with chrome eyelids. He has a nose but no mouth; ears, yet no hearing. His hands and feet are flawless, but he feels nothing through touch, and the fierce heat of the summer noon does not affect him.
Then, in an instant of self-discovery and inescapable sensation, his eyes blink once more. In the span of that blink, he sees the unimaginable. A short distance away, he discovers a woman frozen with fear at the mere sight of him.
She stops on the opposite bank, the natural pool between them. Frowning, her eyes enormous, she studies the chrome-skinned man. She is stunned and terrified, uncertain how to react to such a being.
The few things she is carrying fall from her hands. A gentle summer breeze stirs her long dark hair. She folds her arms around herself. Defying her fear, she circles the natural pool and approaches him, driven by intense curiosity.
Emotion surges through him; he cannot help but marvel at such a presence. Two drops of mercury well from his eyes—thick, compact, chrome. Their own weight draws them down his mirrored cheeks with a soft screech.
The chrome tears roll across his face, pass his chin, and fall into the sand, where they bury themselves in a pair of small holes. The young woman sees it clearly. She covers her mouth with one hand, freezes, steps back, and frowns. Ten paces separate them. At last she decides to take the risk and starts forward again, drawing closer only after examining the fallen drops and the holes they have left in the ground.
As he watches her with rapt attention, something suddenly shatters inside his ears, and he is immediately bombarded by explosions of sound. He is forced to cover them with both hands as countless echoes drill violently into him, above all the relentless roar of the wind. Somewhat frightened, she watches while he withstands as best he can the assault of nature's deafening sounds.
It takes him a moment to quiet and control them. Then, after moments of torture, he smiles when he is finally able to distinguish birdsong, the melody of water caressing stone, and the sound of the warm breeze passing from one side to the other.
Open-mouthed and enthralled, he listens to it all, then turns his attention again to the woman drawing ever closer. He can make out the sound of her breathing and the rapid beat of her heart. Once more, he smiles. The young woman still regards him with fear.
Watching the wind play through her long hair, he finds it wondrous and is overcome with emotion. Another pair of chrome tears, reflecting the landscape, falls from his eyes. Startled by them, he examines the pits his heavy tears leave in the sand. Almost at once, two openings suddenly form in his nose, unleashing an intense invasion of scents whose existence he never knew.
The eruption floods his nasal passages. Suddenly he can smell the salt in the air and the sea. He catches the fragrances of the trees growing nearby. He inhales the exquisite pure air; it enters his body and wreaks organic havoc that burns within his chest for several moments.
At the pain, he hastens to clutch his chest with both hands. His face tightens; he coughs, inhaling and exhaling far too quickly. He tries to tame his breathing, to ease it, even to savor it. He smiles when at last he succeeds, calming his intake of oxygen despite the pain. Then his gaze returns to her, and she looks back with curiosity and fear in equal measure.
The young woman ventures a smile when he smiles at her. It moves him so deeply that another pair of chrome tears escapes from the inner corners of his eyes. As before, the heavy drops fall like pellets into the sand and bury themselves. Before he does, she notices that the chrome on his eyelids is slowly beginning to crack.
Almost immediately, chrome flakes from his hands and feet. Cracks race across his entire metallic body, fissures reaching even his face. Breathing still hurts, and the noise leaves a ringing in his head, but little by little the discomfort fades. He hears her footsteps as she approaches and catches the sweet scent of her skin.
His chrome eyes travel over the young woman's silhouette, and once again he is stirred by the sight of that beautiful living creature. She watches him fearfully, though less so than before. She draws nearer. Five paces remain between them, and she crosses that distance with an innately sensual grace.
The polished metal covering his body continues to splinter. The woman jolts in surprise and alarm as the fissures break the chrome apart and peel it from his body. The pieces strike the sandy ground with a heavy thud. She retreats several steps, hearing the man's moans of pain as he falls to his knees. Yet even in agony, he never takes his eyes off her.
His skin burns unbearably. She sees it and is overcome by helplessness. She closes the distance between them and stands directly before him, though she has no idea what to do. Whatever she does, she cannot spare him the intense pain he feels—a pain that is, in fact, growing worse.
Though it feels as if a thousand pincers are tearing at his skin, he never stops watching and admiring her. She stares in shock at the shattered chrome strewn across the ground like broken mirrors, and the sight fills her with tension. After a while, the pain subsides. Relieved, he rises and stands before her. His body feels strange, unbearably sensitive—scalded by the sun and chilled at the same time by the breeze.
He examines himself and discovers himself anew: stripped of chrome, his naked human skin exposed. He smiles, jubilant and happy. He is still unaccustomed to hearing or breathing; everything is too sharp, too vivid, too colorful. He casts it all aside and focuses on her.
The astonished young woman can scarcely believe it. He takes the last two steps forward, leaving behind the metallic debris of his first body. She does not retreat, but her face is an image of absolute panic.
For some strange reason, she trusts him. When they stand face-to-face, the man dares to reach out. He touches the skin of her shoulder, then her face, and caresses one arm; he cannot bring himself to stop.
She allows him, smiling as she feels his touch; some of his caresses tickle her. With his thumb, he traces the young woman's lips. She closes her eyes, transported by such tender affection, which reaches into her very soul.
She feels the impulse to embrace him and does not resist it, wrapping both arms around his neck. They hold one another with feeling. She strokes the back of his head and his face; he caresses her back. For a while they gaze at and admire each other. Unable to contain herself any longer, she pulls him close. Their lips meet, and they kiss passionately.
He is startled and overwhelmed; his tears soak cheeks that are still chrome. They kiss intensely. He strokes her hair while feeling the beat of her heart against his own.
Suddenly the young woman draws away. He tries to kiss her again, but she turns her face aside and looks at him from the corner of her eye. He wipes away salty, inhuman tears and does not release her. They regard each other tenderly. Faced with her rejection, the man feels something inside him dissolve and come undone.
Something wells up from within him, forcing its way through and making his heart pound ceaselessly and uncontrollably, with greater warmth than before. Adrenaline surges in waves through the rest of his body, flushing red the skin of a face that had once been pale. He blinks twice.
The young woman moves farther away and releases him. Saddened, she retreats one step, then two, then three, her face crumpling into inconsolable tears. The man, no longer made of chrome, watches helplessly as she backs away faster and farther. Then, to his horror, he sees rigid chrome spreading over his skin once more, like an unbreakable, frigid liquid submerging him.
He tries to move toward her, to reach her, but cannot leave the spot no matter how hard he struggles. He stretches his arms forward as if to propel himself, yet every attempt robs him of still more movement.
The man sheds chrome tears, blinks, and surveys his surroundings. He no longer hears a sound or detects a scent; the sunlight no longer warms him. His eyes turn downward, and between his chrome feet he discovers a sunflower that was not there before.
At once, desperately, he searches again for the young woman, but she is nowhere in sight. Only her inconsolable sobs echo across the hill—sounds he is no longer, and never again will be, capable of hearing.
Now all that remains in his eyes is a pair of blind orbs, eyelids held open forever, reflecting an unforeseen emotion—eternal, helpless, infinite—crystallized for all time in thick tears of chrome.
THE END