A Sunday in the town of Corcubión, and the bimonthly feria has been set up in the main square and adjoining streets. There is a fractal-like structure with an elliptical awning inside which cattle farmers and black marketeers basically traffic their wares, and the busiest hours are between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m. To one side there are secondhand clothes and shoes; farther off, on one of the streets that leads away into the town, farm implements and agricultural machinery, and, at the venture’s heart, a couple of marquees in which people eat octopus and tripe. The tourists drink wine, as do the locals—country folk doing deals. Antón walks between the stalls, avoiding the secondhand computer stall he sometimes visits. I need a couple of ropes for barnacling, he says to Amalia, who runs the “Wicker etc.” stall. They haggle briefly and agree on a price for a pair of 15-millimeter ropes, which he slings over his shoulder as he leaves. His feet are very cold. A ray of sunlight falls on his neck, nosing around in the folds of his clothes. He ends up buying a thick sweater with a red and green lozenge pattern, and a pair of fleece-lined gum boots, both from a Peruvian trader. Rock on! he says as the man gives him his change. Then he hears a voice behind him: Fuck me, it’s the Prof! What’s up? We’re going for a drink, I’ll get you one. He turns to find Anxo, who is wearing a plastic poncho, and he says, No, thanks, must dash. Come on man, one drink! Can’t, another time, Anxo, all right? Christ on a bike, Prof, what’s the hurry! More shitheap computers to fiddle about with? No, no, I’ve just left the computer on at home, I’m downloading this film and I want to see where it’s got to. If I get home late I’ll end up messing around with that and I’ll be in a rush to get my stuff ready for tomorrow, bound to fuck something up—we’re off barnacling first thing. Anxo puts his bag down and says, No worries, early bird catches the venereal disease, off you trot, first, though, check out the films I just bought, got them from the black guy over there, bargain. And he takes out a handful of cartoon DVDs. They’re all for the kids, they go ape for this stuff. What about you, what you downloading? Oh, it’s the nuts, it’s this movie from the ‘70s called The Omega Man, I saw it on TV ages ago, just the once: Charlton Heston’s the last man alive and this gang of zombies come after him, but they only come out at night, so he can go around the streets all day, go into shops, which are untouched, helps himself to whatever he likes, and when the tank runs out he just jumps in another car, fan-fucking-tastic, I swear—there’s some shots of the city from above, the place has been trashed, there’s paper and all kinds of crap in the streets, and Charlton driving along one of those big avenues with the top down, and I swear, it looks like the sea, seriously. Fair enough! says Anxo. Reminds me of the Prestige oil spill, the sea was such a mess after that, too. Tell me about it, says Antón. I almost feel like I want another spill to happen, seriously: the fish stock hasn’t suffered, and all this compensation everyone’s been getting, millions! Don’t say, says Anxo, you and everyone. All right, well, let’s find a time for that beer. I’m there! And Antón goes up the road to the Ford Fiesta, which he left parked in the ditch at the foot of the mountain road that leads to his house, a forest track that, the higher you go, becomes progressively overgrown and foggy. He arrives home and tries on the lozenge-pattern sweater and the gum boots, Rock on! He leaves them next to a pile of stripped computer casings. Antón’s closest neighbors are Braulio, 200 meters to the north of the property, and the Quintás family, 150 meters east. Forest separates them. The red roofs are all that can be seen of them. Antón’s dream would be to live in a cement box right on the cliff edge, as close as he could get, but since the recently passed Coastal Law building has been prohibited in such places. He checks on eMule: 100 megabytes until The Omega Man is his.