THE TABLE SAW

Julian Hernandez's main concern was how to rid himself of the disease that threatened to turn him into a mindless corpse.

Largely, no one took notice of him, and those who did stared at him for a long time. He could almost read their minds and hear the questions being thrown because of him —

Who was he?

Why did he look so haggard?

Was he crazy?

Of course, he was crazy enough, losing his mind over how best to rid himself of the virus and unable to get the fact that he was walking around with a leg that rotted even more with each breath he took.

For most of the afternoon, he moved about endlessly and in terror, afraid that the police would be looking for him after his killing spree at the hospital, done out of necessity. There were protests in the streets of the city, and he kept away from places where people would see him, or even scarier, smell him.

He continued like this, before going to rest under a bridge, tired. There, he pulled up the trouser and saw that the infection had gone