Dinosaurs

That afternoon we had left the cinema and, kicking at how many cans we met on the street, at one point I asked Mike how he believed the dinosaurs had disappeared.

In the movie we just watched, dinosaurs ate cavemen; which is completely false because either there were dinosaurs and there were no men or there were men and there were no dinosaurs as our teacher had told us.

Before he answered me, I wanted to know if he believed that an asteroid or something similar had caused the disappearance of those giant animals. «Nonsense», he told me. «Do you think it was going to happen that they were all together at the time? »

I admit that I didn´t know what to answer him. I was silent, thoughtful; until, after a big left foot hit an empty cardboard box —we had the precaution of looking before in case there was some good stone inside, that would not be the first time that some bastard had played the joke—, I added more information to him and reminded him that in class we had been told that this asteroid or whatever, formed on Earth a cloud so huge and so hot that the poor monsters could not bear it.

Mike stood up and smirking said to me, «what about the other animals and trees that lived at the time? The cockroaches? That´s a phony baloney! »

I still was sat on the fence. Agree; I give up, I said. But tell me, according to you, how did they croak? «Think twice. Haven't you seen how Mr Holiday's cow died? Micobres got into she, she got a fever, her muzzle swelled, she got wounds in his mouth, she stopped eating and caput! There is nothing more to explain. »

For a time I agreed with him; because something like this had happened to the ferrets of my uncle, my mother's brother. Moreover, on one occasion, at home we raised a hedgehog that I had encountered; we had spoiled the screwed up, but without knowing how or how not, one day he appeared dead and when I took him to Mr Cocker, who was an amateur vet, he told me that the distemper had killed him.

Today, in these endless days of confinement, I have been reminding myself several times of the theory of my mate. What if it were true that those extraordinary beings had succumbed to the invisible and silent action of insignificant micobres? Could it be that, in the not too distant future, we were all annihilated by a force not yet discovered by science?

From my Borstal.

LDR