The mist was very thick between the canyon walls that morning, it almost reached the entrance of the mine, - the activity in the forgotten area must have been intense that day - thought Aurora, to the south the clouds could be clearly seen and their usual ochre color, forming an almost uniform layer.
-The sky was blue, with clouds that were sometimes white and sometimes gray - her aunt Julia used to tell her; she never saw them, it was a story her grandfather told her and him, his grandfather and so on, in reality, nobody knew if it had ever been like that, they were just stories.
For her, the sky had always been the same, ocher and with clouds of a darker and darker ocher, until it became brown, just like the mist that covered the forgotten area, as the diggers called it, like her brother Ivan, it was forbidden to go there; only the diggers, who worked in the mine, could get that close. According to what his brother said, the air of the forbidden zone could not be breathed, at least not for long, because one would get sick and die, luckily the winds that circulated through the canyon, kept the mist away from La Villa.
-Aurora, are you all right? - she heard her mother's voice behind her.
She turned around and saw about ten feet away, at the foot of the rock she was sitting on.
-Yes, mom, I was just looking at the sky, -Aurora answered -Do you think it was ever really blue, like aunt Julia says?
-Stop wasting time on nonsense and go back home, we have to prepare lunch for your brother who has a shift today at the mine-, without saying another word, she turned around and started walking towards one of the small cabins in La Villa.
a Villa was a small hamlet, located on the side of the west wall of the canyon, about three hundred meters from what was once the bank of the river that once ran through the depths of the canyon; those who lived there were called The Diggers, as they were dedicated to extracting minerals from the mine, located about five kilometers north, in the vicinity of Axia, the largest of the five hundred and thirty-two industrial cities of Orbis.
Although the inhabitants of Axia knew them as Diggers, in reality, among them, the Diggers were only the mine workers, a hundred or so men, ranging in age from thirteen to thirty, who were something like half of the adult male population of La Villa. The rest of the population was engaged in other activities, mainly growing grain, raising goats and chickens, and trading with the villages outside the canyon, some few also bringing in goods from the nearest habitation town.
By far, the diggers were the main source of income for La Villa, the minerals they extracted, were delivered to Orbis, to be processed in Axia, in return, Orbis supplied clean water and electricity to La Villa, in addition to paying a salary to the diggers, providing machinery and financing the infrastructure works that were necessary, besides providing the materials for it.
Aurora opened the decaying door of her house and as she crossed the threshold, she heard her mother arguing with her brother in the kitchen.
-I don't want you to accept that they assign you to deliver the material to the Orbis people-, her mother shouted heatedly, -you are going to have to go to the forgotten area and I don't want you to get sick-, continued the lady while she muffled her voice.
-Mom, they are going to pay me more, we will be able to buy more seeds and Mrs. Rina's house, -Ivan answered vehemently.
Mrs. Rina was one of Aurora's neighbors and her family, she and her husband lived alone, a few houses away from theirs, but Mr. Samuel, that was the name of Rina's husband, had died a few months ago in an accident in the mine and now she was moving to a neighboring village to live with her family.
-I don't care, we don't need anything else, your father was delivering ore in the forgotten area for a week and got sick with pneumonia, he was about to die, -said the woman while she waved her hand in front of her son showing him her thumb and index finger pressed together.
At that moment Aurora entered the kitchen, her mother looked at her and stretched out her arm to point to the kitchen counter, she told her -Take the basket and go get some eggs Aurora, after breakfast you will go to the store to get some oil and feed for the chickens-.
Without saying a word, Aurora took the basket and left to go to the chicken coop, a small hut of five feet by five feet, that her father had made with some pressed wood that the people of Orbis had given him, she picked up the eight eggs that were in the trough and went back to the house.
Breakfast passed without touching again the subject of Iván's work, when he was leaving to wait for the transport, his mother said to him with a sad gesture, -Iván, don't accept to go to deliver material, please- her face looked disjointed. Iván did not answer anything, he hugged her and walked off in search of the old dump truck in which the diggers were taken to the mine.