A tale of fairymen

That time when we believed in fairies was the product of a loving childhood and trusting the world. Everything was about tales, adventures where I changed from pirate to princess with the blink of an eye, adventures where you took my hand and we flew without getting anywhere.

By the time of being a teenager, the confidence came off and I personally killed each fairy you allowed to decorate my childhood dreams. It couldn´t be magic without humanity. And you left me, you chose to live at the stars without caring about the abandonment.

I remember those years as an enormous emptiness despite the people living in my room. I painted black each hope that sat on my shoulders, I filled up with hate each glass as half-full, I covered my fingers with the sand that should have covered our summers. I cursed you and wanted to forget you. I cursed myself and wanted to forget me.

I don´t know when you got back those mythical creatures. I suppose it was when I realized that you never left me, that you were here looking after my steps and spoiling my mistakes. You gave me back to life and I brought you to my memories. You sent from the ethereal world a pair of wings that join by itself to my shoulder. You made me fairy on the moment that you resigned as an angel of light.

The colour of dream

Put on your wings

and sleep,

is time to dance.

You can draw memories,

sparkle

beyond the city.

It´s getting dark,

you are shining:

switching off the real world.

Thousands of butterflies

and a crystal´s desire.

A waterfall on the riverbank

freezes

endless sonatas.

Walk near the sea.

Rocking by the silence,

smile.

A gold moment

is giving back your life.

Forget about the costume.

You are free.

Paint the night.

21-03-2018

The days before

January 2020. The world starts excited a new year that it´s going to change as we know it. For now, it´s just January with no clear news about what´s happening in China.

The volunteers were coming back from the holidays in our related countries and the boiler was still broken since Christmas Day. The broken piece was already at home but they needed to put inside the boiler. I spent ten days in Spain and entering my room was like going into a freezer even when the sun was 'heating' it all day. On the ground floor, it was hardly noticed because the heating was coming from the house downstairs and it was also the kitchen, but upstairs it was unbearable. I could sleep because of the duvet, that seemed light but it wasn´t. To continue with life wasn´t possible. We also didn´t have hot water and, even boiling water, our biggest (and only) pot was still small. We could go to the showers of our organizations but they also had some problems.

In my office, there were four portable radiators that were given to us as soon as they realized how was our situation. After sixteen days, we finally had the boiler repaired... the hot water still took a few days to work as normal and the heating was giving some more problems.

After a couple of days, Sabine noticed some bedbugs on her bed (yes, bedbugs, you read well). But it wasn´t just her, they were in at least three more rooms. The landlord didn´t take responsibility but our organization organized fumigation for Monday.

On Saturday, Lenka, Sabine, Ádám, and I were watching Guardians of the Galaxy vol.1 (James Gunn, 2014) in the living room. When it finished, we stayed there, listening a hundred times the last song (Come and get your love by Redbone), we started a conversation and sometimes silences. We talked about our childhood memories (even when we are still so young), nightmares, lions, and kind bedbugs on Sabine´s room because she wasn´t bitten and later we discovered that actually, she was the one with more bedbugs. I only felt as comfortable as that night on a few occasions. It was our house. Home. It was our little family. It was beautiful and simple. Thinking about it after all makes it more special. Watching movies together on weekends is definitely being one of the things I´m missing the most.

And we still had to put some more suitcases.

On Monday morning we had to leave our rooms empty. It was really sad because we still had seven months of placement. To look at the bedrooms as hollow, as lifeless when it was still our lives...

The living room disappeared under seven volunteers' belongings, worried about what would happen if we would need to empty it too and where we were going to keep all of that. On Monday it was the first fumigation. On Monday it was the first episode of an ending story.

Our sea

The afternoons we drowned on the beach were never enough. It was one of those perfect friendships which end up broken on its own. We never talked about it. We never regretted it. Do you remember how it all began? I don´t although we should have been old enough to keep at least some images. Do you remember how it all finished? Me neither even though if it was important for us, we should strive to understand it.

Today I walk across the sand and I want to see you here, standing by my side, but I just watch the calm sea on the horizon. And the waves come, break, become diffuse at my feet and there´s no wave anymore, and I know that I can not see you even when you are walking at the same beach.

I remember when we were younger, swimming there all day. I can´t believe it´s the same sea. The coldness prevents me to go beyond the line of the knees. And I try day after day in spring and summer, even I bought a neoprene... but this is not our sea as we are not us anymore. And it doesn´t matter, and it´s not sad because it´s life, the life of two persons who love each other enough to let them go.

Waiting

Miguel, could you please answer the mobile at some point. I´ve told you that I won´t send any email for just three stupid things, but you are still making me wait. So I decided not to continue with the work unless you call me back. And we have only two more weeks! Oh, change the message on the answerphone, please, I already know this.

09-05-2017

Above

Words are said

without any conversation.

It is called lie

when true hurts.

We don't shut up,

just fear of the right thing.

The opposite direction

towards the dream's way.

War? Post-war?

The world is not getting crazy

but those who are called humans.

Humans?

Protection available

for those who meet the forbidden.

They called it justice

while sleeping assisted

by the men with the dagger.

Give no name,

they don't deserve it.

No glance to their eyes,

don't listen to them.

They seem pets.

They are vampires

waiting for your blood.

Santa´s present

December brought cold, of course, but the umbrella and the sunglasses should have been with you always, it could be hailing and the second after just a hurricane or a lovely sun heating your face.

An interesting fact about Bournemouth is that you can not be sure where the city ends and the next one starts: there is Poole on one side and Christchurch on the other. That month's trip was to the second one. There´s not much to see but two shocking places: the ruins of a Norman castle (the origin of the city) and a big church close to the river bank where we enjoyed the practice of the Christmas concert.

I remember with special caress the party with the department mates and each one of the games. I remember the three farewells to Aalto, the social work students on an internship in my project, as if we shouldn´t say goodbye. I remember the festive mood on the streets making me fight with insomnia.

And let´s talk about that, it´s not just that they really like to wear horrible jerseys with Christmas decoration, or the postcards placed in long corridors everywhere where you can basically buy something, it´s also that on the 26th, bank holiday, there are no trains because Santa is using them, or that the self-pay machines talk with you using his voice asking you about how are you going to celebrate those days. It was a really interesting cultural experience.

On the 24th, I went with Ádám to Salisbury. It´s a city we really like and there was also a Christmas market, was enough to take the bus and enjoy the city. However, some places were flooded because of the river and the market wasn´t really big and original. The good point of that was that he bought a watch that was going to use to cook, he said, but...

There was a huge sun on the 25th but without heating. Santa Claus could have given us some coal saying that wasn´t happy with our behavior but was crueler, and so with the poor insulation that you could feel the wind with the windows closed, he decided that it was the perfect time to have the heating broken on a bank holiday, that wasn´t the kind of gift we were expecting... We went for lunch at our organization and was emotional to be there with those people and receive the red hat. In the afternoon, I went for a walk through the beach before coming back to the freezer that my bedroom was becoming.

I returned to Spain on the 26th after a rainy morning in London. I left Ádám leaving on the kitchen to have some heat from the oven. That wasn´t really bad for all the things that were going to happen in January.

Fortress of crystal

The darkness monster could catch her everywhere except there.

Was there any explanation? Marta sat down on a bench seeing the cars passing. The noise of engines was flooding everything and, however, she could still listen to the sea at the distance: constant and mysterious. But what was really concentrate on was her heartbeat strength. She smiled. Arrived only four days ago to that coastal village. Was enough. Finally, she was alive.

She got up and approached the cliff rail. Closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She allowed the saltpetre smell to penetrate her lungs, to invade all her cells and block it to go back. That was the real life! She took distance, one metre, two, three... walking resolutely and with her head held high. Her porcelain skin was shinning as never did. She could live there but her real life was waiting for her in the city. She took a step forward and left her castle.

Cleaning

Her showers lasted, on average, two minutes depending on having the hair washed or not. It wasn´t just an ecological topic. She hated how the films took so long in that moment of emotional freedom that was supposed to happen with the water sliding down the body. The water drowning in the water. She got even more annoyed with the superfluous writers who decorated the occasion trying to make it sentimental when it was just a way to say that the character was fucked. It didn´t make sense for her that about the purification of the soul, the metaphor was that, a banal comparison unable to take away any problem.

She didn´t time it. Neither had proposed to keep it as a routine but as soon as opened the tap, the speed of her movements was taken the control. Always ended up with red eyes due to the soap. Maybe it was the hurry. Maybe...

Communal living

By the noise of its footsteps, it seemed a monster of indescribable measurements. Her room shook as if was warning about the end of the world. Sometimes she felt the imperative need to hide inside the wardrobe with the headphones on and let the hours run by. But that was stupid, there wasn´t any giant leaving in her house and didn´t know what´s about an earthquake. She just had to open the door and shouted at her flatmate that it wasn´t needed to let everyone know about his departure because no one was interested in stealing in his room.