Chapter 9 - The Shift at Mercamadrid
Mercamadrid at 3:30 in the morning was a freezing, chaotic hell of diesel fumes, grinding hydraulic forklifts, and the overwhelming, briny stench of dead sea life.
It was the largest wholesale food market in Europe, a subterranean city of concrete and ice where four million tons of produce, meat, and fish were sorted, hauled, and loaded onto refrigerated lorries before the rest of the capital had even begun to dream.
Standing in Loading Bay 14, knee-deep in melting slush and crushed ice, stood Alejandro.
He wore heavy rubber overalls that smelled of gutted hake, an oil-stained fluorescent vest, and rough cotton work gloves that had long since soaked through with freezing seawater. His hands were raw, purple, and cracked with bleeding chilblains. His once-immaculate dark curls were shoved beneath a stained wool beanie; his hollow cheeks were caked with grime and sweat that froze the instant it hit the arctic air blowing through the open loading docks.
"Morales!" a gruff voice barked behind him.
A burly dock foreman with a clipboard kicked the corner of a wooden pallet near Alejandro’s boots.
"Stop leaning on the hand truck, you useless sack! We have six tons of Galician cod coming off truck four! If those crates aren't stacked in cold storage unit B by four-fifteen, I’m docking two hours from your shift!"
"Yes, boss... right away, boss," Alejandro mumbled, his voice raspy, broken, and stripped of every shred of pride.
He bent his back—the back that had spent fifteen years resting against Italian leather executive chairs—and hoisted a forty-kilo wooden crate packed with wet ice and dead fish onto his shoulder.
The weight drove an agonizing shock of pain through his lumbar spine. The melting salt-water dripped down his neck, soaking through his thermal undershirt, chilling him to the marrow.
He earned eight euros and fifty cents an hour.
His entire world had shrunk to a rented four-meter-square room in a shared tenement flat in Usera, where six immigrant construction workers shared a single broken shower and a gas burner that sputtered yellow smoke.
His phone had been disconnected two weeks ago when the prepaid balance expired. He had no idea where Claudia was. He had heard a rumor from a truck driver that she was sitting in the preventive detention wing of the Alcalá-Meco women’s prison awaiting trial. His parents had changed the phone numbers at the workshop in Toledo; when he had attempted to mail a letter to his mother, the envelope had returned two weeks later stamped in red ink: RECIPIENT DECEASED TO SENDER.
He was thirty-eight years old, and he was a ghost.
As he hauled the fifth crate across the wet concrete floor, a loud horn blasted through the bay.
A gleaming, brand-new electric refrigerated transport truck rolled smoothly into Bay 15. The vehicle was magnificent—whisper-quiet, painted in pristine pearl-white and royal blue, bearing the proud, gold-embossed emblem of the logistics division:
VEGA INTERMODAL S.A.
Alejandro froze, the heavy wooden crate trembling on his shoulder.
The driver’s side door opened, and a young logistics supervisor stepped out, holding a digital tablet. The man wore a clean, insulated uniform, a company-issued smartwatch, and smiled with the confident, healthy dignity of an employee who received twenty-four paid vacation days, comprehensive dental care, and an annual profit-sharing bonus.
Beside the truck, a large flat-screen display mounted to the bay pillar flashed the morning corporate news bulletin broadcast across all Vega logistics hubs:
«Record Growth: Vega Holding Corporation announces a 40-million-euro expansion of its European cold-chain infrastructure following the successful recovery and leadership of President Camila Vega. The company celebrated its historic quarter with a 15% across-the-board wage increase for all warehouse personnel.»
On the screen, a high-definition photograph of me appeared.
I stood on the sunlit terrace of the remodeled Velázquez penthouse, looking radiant, healthy, and majestic in an emerald-green silk dress, holding a flute of champagne, flanked by the Mayor of Madrid and the Minister of Industry.
My eyes on the screen looked straight out into the lens—calm, victorious, and untouchable.
Alejandro stared at the screen.
The crate on his shoulder slipped.
Forty kilos of ice, salt, and dead fish crashed onto the concrete floor, shattering the wooden slats, scattering gray cod across the filthy, grease-stained floorboards.
"You idiot!" the dock foreman roared, lunging across the bay and shoving Alejandro hard in the chest. "Look at what you did! That's prime stock! You're cleaning every single fish off this floor with your bare hands, Morales! And you’re working the Sunday double shift for free to cover the breakage!"
Alejandro didn't argue. He didn't scream. He didn't invoke the name of the family that had once ruled Madrid high society.
He slowly sank down onto his knees in the freezing, fish-guts-covered slush.
With fingers that had once signed multi-thousand-euro restaurant bills and stroked expensive watches, Alejandro Morales reached into the dirty ice, picked up a cold, slimy cod by its tail, and began tossing it into an empty plastic bin.
May you like
Tears—hot, bitter, and completely useless—fell from his grime-streaked face, freezing as they hit the ice between his knees.
Above him, the digital screen flickered, my radiant smile glowing in the dark, illuminating his ruin until the morning sun finally broke over the horizon.
