Madrid
Left foot on the ground. The red light helps me to catch my breath. Pedaling is ecological. It shapes the legs and tones the arms. The immune system is strengthened and cellulite disappears. My brain is oxygenated and my economy is strengthened. They are all advantages.
The afternoon is dressed in orange orange. But not that orange painted with worn watercolors. Today the city yawns a sunset one hundred percent polar mint. The worldly good would say that it's freezing cold, but since today I woke up with my ego up, I metaphorize whatever I want. What's the problem? If reggaetones invent words, why shouldn't I be able to do the same?
Continuing with my descriptive reggaeton, I will say: Parents, infected by the last rays of the sun, let go of their children's hands, offering them a small quota of freedom, and if the opportunity is good, they hide their frozen fingers in their quilted coats. Mothers, sacrificed souls par excellence, hold the chubby little hands of the damned little devils, with a strangling protection. I can't tell if they do it to keep their young warm or because if the little girl were to run downhill she would surf the icy Gran Via until she fell face first into the refrigerated pond of the Retiro.
-Child ! If you don't stop jumping I'll tie you up and you'll stay here until the pigs fly away ," growls a lady with true maternal authority.
A reportable threat? Probably yes. Although nowadays there are no known children with enough courage to reveal themselves before the effectiveness of the diplomatic and maternal flying flip-flop. Anyway, it is six o'clock in the evening and the cold tears the complexion. My grandmother used to say that until the fortieth of May do not take off your hat. I'm not ready to take off anything but the freezing of my eyes. At this rate we will arrive in August with our socks pulled up to our hips. Just thinking about the never-ending winter makes my brain tell my fingers to zipper up my coat until it stops. Or shave my chin. Both options are on equal footing.
I smile alone. My inner world is a complete mess. Sometimes I cry, sometimes I get angry, sometimes I feel whole, sometimes I cry again. And so on until the wheel turns again. I don't complain. There was a time when it was even much worse. I cursed from the first sun in the morning until the night was lost, exhausted from so much lamentation. For years I suffered the depression of not being loved by the one who should have always protected me. Those who love above everything and everyone. Of course, there is always an exception that breaks the rule and here I am to prove that the unbreakable is also fragile.
On Elvira's advice I entered churches and even prayed to the Immaculate Conception as a saint and as a mother. I spent hours sitting on the hard benches of churches and cathedrals breathing in the comforting coolness of their stones. All to find an explanation for the incomprehensible abandonment of a mother. It never came. One summer I painted my bangs blue, I didn't shave my armpits, and I even got a place with the teacher Anselmo. All to find out if my failure came from the factory or was acquired. What other reason could there be for a girl's abandonment? I am not sure if the sensei and his three courses for the price of one helped me reach my spiritual awakening or if my grief dried up from crying so much. The truth is that since I lost my grandmother To?i I only shed tears for her sweet memory. She does deserve my broken heart. My friends say that I have let go of everything that does not serve to focus on my present self. I am not convinced they are right. Pain is dodged or let go. There is shit that gets washed away, some we let fly, and the last ones, we hide under the heavy carpet of misrepresented sympathy. My mother is that dust that I pile up under a heavy Persian cloth and that one day when I find enough courage I will blow until my lungs become a balloon eager to explode.
-Let's go in! It's beautiful.
Two teenage girls with open coats that show more than what they wear push each other before entering the great fashion salon of called Primark. In this store the short of funds like me, we get the euros become chewing gum. And that's and its magnificent Gran Via. It welcomes us all with eagerness and equality. Men and women of the most varied wander distractedly admiring its immense shop windows. Italians with Gucci glasses mingle with the heads of Muslim women who are forced to march ahead of distinguished ladies squared from head to toe thanks to Mr. Burberry. Head contortionists holding obese bags. Consumer frivolity walks hand in hand with nervous photographers, and historians, eager to capture the thousand and one romantic anecdotes that whispers only to a few.
Houses with too much history in common rest their hundreds of years on whitish walls with the aroma of cinnamon and roasted chestnuts. In front of me a transparent fa?ade of immense Greek columns shelters a single purse of a certain Luis something that mischievously waits for a carefree passerby to come in for ?Zas! Pluck his VISA, MasterCard and, if allowed, his grandmother's inheritance. A short distance away a boy in a Real shirt crosses the threshold of a sports store accompanied by his friend in a maroon blue shirt. The second is a Bar?a fan. Both smile, unable to recognize the political differences imposed by some. , an affectionate city if ever there was one, stands out its great difference is in that special chant that its inhabitants highlight every four words. The Ejke . Ejke we are going to do. Ejke we are like that.
I admire the sky again before the traffic light. Yes grandma, I'm in for grapes. You know me.
Turning my head, I lose myself in the haste of a girl who almost loses her backpack as she passes through the doors of the Callao subway station. She seems in a hurry. The aroma of pizza still lingers in the empty delivery bag I carry in the carrier of my bike. I haven't had lunch and my stomach is growling like my neighbor's cat on the fifth floor.
-Pull!
The driver of the black Audi shouts at the Ibiza in front of me who apparently has gone for the same grapes as me. I start pedaling, joining the Castellana promenade. Enjoying a bit of nature before I get home is healthy. When I get through the gate I'll abandon the worn Converse in the hallway, lie down with my feet attacking the clouds, and drink my two-minute soup on setting four from my old microwave that...
-Ejke come on, you almost killed me!
Arms hold me in the air. I accept the grip to jump over the saddle without hurting myself. The bike falls to the ground. Strong hands hold me so I don't fall.
-The orange lane is for bicycles," I say, shaking out my sweater rather annoyed.
-I'm sorry.
The thick voice answers me and I'm about to reply when the blackest, most intense eyes I've ever seen rise above an open map.
-Are you all right? -He asks, helping me pick up the scattered bike. His hands collide with mine on the handlebars.
-I was distracted. I look at it again to confirm my suspicions. My first opinion was wrong. He's not handsome. He's damn handsome.
My courage and my voice leave me. His dark pupils are staring at me as if I were research material.
I managed to get nervous.
She is wearing black pants and a black sweater. The tousled strands of her hair give her a casual and remorselessly sexy look. His strong hands hand me the bike. I smile like I'm stupid. No. Confirmed. I am a fool. One who just gave heaven a pathetic sigh.
-Are you lost? -He doesn't answer me. I repeat the question while I point to the map he holds in his right hand. Where? I'm from , and you? do you speak my language?
If it weren't for the fact that I'm more common than asparagus, they'd say he's just as dumbfounded as I am. He looks at me as if I were an endangered specimen.
-I am American. And yes, I speak Spanish. Although you just hurt my immense polyglot pride.
Her mischievous smile ignites my dead parts. And I say dead because I have been without a partner for so long that the meadows of my sexuality are a deforested and dry forest.
-I was looking for the Ritz Hotel.
-That's the one," I say, pointing to the building in front of him.
-You're blind. -Can I buy you something? Coffee? Tea? Chocolate? I owe you.
-It's nothing," I say, steadying my balance on the bike and crossing my legs to quell the heat of the moment. Wasn't the thermometer reading five degrees?
-A beer? A juice?
-It's not necessary," now my voice adds to the numbness. Good for me and my lack of dignity.
-They say they put out the best pies," her eyes sparkle with amusement as she lifts the corners of her lips in a mischievous smile. I just lost my panties in the trees of my dead forest. I'm pathetic.
-Are you sure? I'd like to make it up to you. You've taken quite a hit.
-Technically, I didn't fall. And yes, I'm sure. You don't owe me anything. I was going for grapes, too.
-Grapes?
-An expression from here," I answer, playing down the importance as I hide my suffocated cheeks. It's gotten so hot all of a sudden.
He keeps studying me up and down. One more look from those nocturnal eyes and I accept the juice, the cake and three nights of unbridled sex.
-Thank you for excusing me," the voice is as deep and robust as roasted chestnuts in winter. I sigh hungrily. All of him is a mouthful ready for me to sink my teeth into.
-To you. I mean you for stepping on me. I mean, thank you for not crushing me. Which doesn't mean I think you're fat, you're clearly not wasted.... Aying, I mean... I've got to go.
I turn around with the dye of the bimbos bathing my cheeks. I walk with the bike rolling beside me. When I regain my balance, maybe, I'll even hop on.
Since when did it get so hot? I take off my helmet and hook it to the handlebars. I turn back a little to look around. One last look. Something overhead and unimportant. I don't want him to catch me being... shit! He's looking at me.
-Goodbye! Goodbye..." I raise my hand and answer as if it were the most normal thing in the world. I'm a complete idiot. I walk at a fast pace. I don't turn around again. Today I have completed my idiocy maximus tutorials.