They were people whose lives were slow, who did not see themselves growing old, or falling sick, or dying, but who disappeared little by little in th… - Gabriel García Márquez

and realized that death was not only a permanent probability, as he had always believed, but an immediate reality.

There had never been a death so foretold.

Then, for more than ten days, they did not see the sun again. The ground became soft and damp, like volcanic ash, and the vegetation was thicker and thicker, and the cries of the birds and the uproar of the monkeys became more and more remote, and the world became eternally sad. The men on the expedition felt overwhelmed by their most ancient memories in that paradise of dampness and silence, going back to before original sin, as their boots sank into pools of steaming oil and their machetes destroyed bloody lilies and golden salamanders.