A slave with many masters

Antonio is a slave who has many masters and each one demands him without taking the others into account.

The house that he has rented, his car and the loans that the bank has given him for trips and other whims, are very demanding.

• I don't give a damn that Iván asked you to attend his party at school on Thursday. You know you have to go to work and don't tell me stories.

There are times when Antonio's masters agree to say the same thing, and he obeys.

• Did you want a state-of-the-art car and said you would do what it takes to have it? Well, here you have me, now you are my slave.

• Were you convinced that to be happy you would need a house with a garden and independent parking, with more than six bedrooms and three bathrooms? Here I am and you are also my slave.

Other masters of the same species said similar things, and now it occurs to him that it was not necessary to make such a long and demanding slavery commitment.

Those are not the only masters: he has customs and beliefs that lead him to clean lashes for those days of his life.

• To be comfortable in the world, you have to judge everything other people do, one of his custom-masters told him recently: the neighbor is a cretin who thinks he is smart, he is always wearing a tie, when in reality he is a small-time seller.

• My eldest son this and that, my brothers, don't see my partner anymore, I don't know what adjectives to use to define her.

Other master-beliefs also lead him to mislead the world, using a thought template that has the following structure:

"If such a thing were not as it is, it could be such and then the result would be different"

This applies to the smell of dogs and the spots that the moon has, which politicians promise and the structure of a black hole that is believed to be in the center of the Milky Way.

Antonio is a very obedient slave and despite the corporal and psychological punishments that his masters give him every minute, he tries his best to comply with all of them.

There are many slaves on plantations and cities, in factories and even, living in mansions, doctors and professors.

Every day one sees them dragging their heavy chains and shackles, and behind them, a long line of masters cracking cruel whips on their backs.

Moreover, despite the apparent resignation, a growing rebellion is perceived in the air. Some say they have seen slaves looking inward.