Thirty three years

Boarding the high speed convoy in Seville I wondered how Indian railway stations may be. I forgot my worries just when the cold sun in Madrid received me with its ancient smell, its joyful bath of sensations, all which made me remember a world that had been closed for a long time, at least as many years as I had been an outsider.

In the office we reached an agreement on the expatriation contract, and I was introduced to my new colleagues, and we had lunch and the judge Garzon was with a lady at the table by the side of ours. In the afternoon we studied the water project and we planned future actions to be taken.

In the evening I had three stand-alone beers before dinner with my brother and his two friends, and we ate a great amount of beef and drank a lot of red wine, and at the table by the side of ours there were two football players and two dames, and life was like a joke.

We had some scotchs at a local were we found again the players and their blue sexy girls, but there were also a lot of women of all kind and ages. I looked at their faces at quick colour lighting intervals, and I intimately caught the feeling of joy when live is a mixture of pleasure and oblivion.

I only heard the noise of music in the baffles, but the girls were involved in a dance that was insinuation to everyone, just provocation if you can afford to pay the bill. I was also happy in the midst of all these smiling folks, because these surroundings were unfoundable in my swampland exile, and it was good to leave it for the travel to the sea between Herakles pillars.

I saw myself reflected in their eyes, and beyond the eyes I found this happy but lost look, this empty but deep gaze that can be only found in the people enjoying Madrid’s night.

Next morning, drained and sleepy, I received the envelope at the reception desk. One way air ticket to Madras.

ANNA AND HER SISTERS

Before being introduced to Chris, I knew her sisters did exist, and they were altogether like a pineapple. However, I did speak to Anna, and in the midst of travelling, bus to downtown paradise, lift up to hell, I did steal such a skyline as her gaze, still believing to keep it mine.

For a long time I did enjoy heaven with Chris, but on the other bank I collected all kind of evidence, that her sisters were drawing a world not less real than our own live, than each horizon dissolving at sunset. But Anna did smile and made me believe, that although changes seemed to lead to chaos, there was implied a cosmos worth to be lived together.

Many a year since this, looking closely to a flock of storks flying over the swamp, I realise that the maze did develop to a cobweb, in which centre there was me, a treasure for the sisters´ food. God did conceive this my labyrinth once upon a time, in the same turn as gold, honey, and the pastoral symphony.