Sodium chloride

A handful of salt is slipping through the ground, going down the crust, crossing the mantle, getting close to the core and going back to the ground. It was sodium and chlorine. Now is the frost covering the windows from the village house. No one looks through it, but the spiders are walking on the roof. They are checking on the ants' parade at the worktop. The cock crows but is still soon for the sunrise. A man from the city trying to sleep in the cottage is looking for his earplugs on the night table, between the bottle of cognac and the packet of cigarettes that he didn't want to buy.

The stars are not lighting the earth because are so far away, but it seems like salt spread throughout the sky. The lights in the street aren't working either because by that time of the night it is so cold and better to be at home. So the mayor decided not to have lampposts. And so on it's been forty-seven years and the mayor has a lot to fight with.

The dawn will be in the morning and the frost is turning into dew. It can't evaporate yet because the baker has to come, but the goats and the children are already howling in the field. The cows moo and the bells of the church are pealing. No one cares about it because now life is different.

The river flows strongly because the mountain is sick of snow, which is white, like salt. Or like that ash coming from the earth to the sky.

Dear sock on flat 10

Madrid, 19th January 2022

You've been there for more than a year and I was wondering if you are not interested in moving away. I mean, it's not that I want you to leave, but you have already borne a historical snowfall and a warm summer, you've been the sparrow's tissue and witnessed parrots invasion, no to mention the way you ended up there... I saw the fall with these eyes!... and it wasn't small.

I've seen you mouldy recently, and I'm started to be afraid that you can get alive and move to my window. I'm so sorry but I can't allow you to do so. I've been watching you for so long and I can't get more involved. Am I selfish? Yes, probably. Look, I know about the legend of the washing machine eating socks, yes, it's true, maybe not a legend anymore. Okay, it's also true that they didn't come to save you and there wasn't a report about your missing. But you can not keep living like this.

I can understand that you don't want to socialize with other socks. What about going for a walk with doves? Or, better, you can go to the cinema with divorced gloves, because we talk a lot about lost socks in the washing machine but no one mention that gloves are alone sometimes. Consider asking children for help. I'm just a worried neighbour, don't take this personally, please.

Kind regards and you'll tell me your decision.

Intuitions (and poor titles)

To combine words in a game that seems to lack of logic. It's an inside voice that dictates consciously even when I can't find the sense yet. It has to be born. Maybe I would only be able to understand it after a while. Or never. But it has to be like that. But I want it to be like that. Inexplicably life.

To burn its meaning, turn it upside down and let the wind carry the ashes. They can come as a whisper or as a scream. Will find their tone sliding through my fingers: caressing the skin and scratching the nails. Sometimes I have to cradle them so won't rush over the cliff; others, are retained on a blood frame to drive their fears away.

To create a structure as strong as it can attract the attention on its own and you think that have already caught me. As weak as it can keep the rhythm and I can trust on what is beyond the musicality. The substrate is that door to the adrenalin. The staircase takes you to endless possibilities that are fighting in the attic.

To question the great number of adjectives and the concreteness of each sentence. It's the need for naming to begin its existence and stay away from the darkness, to define its limits to be a frame and support the pieces of a puzzle that may won't ever be completed, maybe varnishing before understanding that there are portions which do not fit, but still deserves a place.

To allocate a picture. It's to wander through memories and recognise as the unique possibility that picture that wasn't planned for a post like this. Sometimes it's frustrating if it's drawn as a marriage of convenience. Maybe just a matter of time to know each other. If they have ended up together it wasn't by chance. There is a thread, invisible to eyes, not to heart.

To enter into the poetic prose category. Because it is a world of darkness where it's possible to identify shapes and colours. Because it runs away from rhymes and hugs the aesthetic beauty that shouts in the depth. Because there is a marked path and the obligation of reading it as the consumer wants. Because it's intuition and, especially, the fulfil need of telling.

Words

Have lost its worth. I mean, you can play with them as you want and build bigger units. You can think about them day and night, or even try to avoid getting too close. Of course, you can remove them from your lips and tag them with your teeth. You can lock them in a remaining whisper or have them shrouded by the shouts which are getting you hoarse.

And keep flowing. Are still the vomit and the breath taking you to the cliff. But this time there is no possible rescue.

Because now are empty. Because have chosen to dig their own grave instead of watching you dress them up with old clothes. Have chosen the migration as a new way of living, maybe inspired by those who previously were shaking their hands, maybe banished where their voices can come to a generational singing. Because are so tired of being murders with missing witnesses.

Playwright

Someone asked me a few weeks ago if I was a playwright. Without thinking I answered: no, well, Sin con tacto was the first one but... error!

According to the Spanish Dictionary, a playwright is that author who writes dramatic plays. That could explain why my immediate answer was negative because it was a comedy... a tragic comedy but comedy. But being realistic, I must be part of that category. And I say must because it's something to be proud of. Definitely. And I say category because to name things is to give them an entity even when we do not always like labels. Because here it means to keep going.

Another thing is to be considered a novelist. Yes, I'd published a book five years ago and I'm now (and who says now is also talking about four long years) working on three more, but, while they are stored in a couple of notebooks and many online documents, without anyone having a knowledge of it apart from trusting my words as no one has access to those pages, I don't think I could include myself in that layer. And I say include myself because to know where you are and where you would like to be, is to be interested in making progress. And I say layer because it is a profession even when some people try to diminish its value.

It's true! I finished writing Sin con tacto by October, but, since I'm working on two more projects that I'm already talking about with someone else and I'm confident that will be played at some point, I can temporarily define myself as playwright.

The secret life of socks

They blamed the dog and the cat alternatively despite being as good as gold. The first almost didn´t bark and the second was sleeping the whole day under the sofa. And even so, each time someone picked the laundry, they attended the discussion very regretful, probably because both had dreamed to play with them. But no, they weren't the guilties for the disappearance of the socks in that house.

The sweet Laura thought that they were doing as her parents, that one was tired of living together and had moved to a richer neighbourhood. Her friends from soccer told her that if there was a money situation, it was for sure that there was a third sock. Her Spanish teacher warranted her that they were punished for not doing their homework, and so on, if she didn't want to vanish like them, she already knew what to do.

David was convinced that they were hospitalized due to smelly poisoning, an option that the girlfriend of that moment definitely confirmed. Of course, considering the jungle that was supposed to be his bedroom, it wasn't that strange that, instead of lost, they had hidden by their own choice.

Flora justified to them, yes, it was their time to live alone... as she would have liked. She was jealous, with her two days contract and the ridiculous salary... But at least, she had more than those who went to uni. She imagined the socks living in a small village by the mountain, eating the food they were growing, breathing clean air, greeting the cows every morning,... and the snowfalls leaving them isolated, the lack of internet and the sixteen kilometres to socialize with someone of their age... were just resignations of a happy life.

Virginia swore that she put it all together on the washing machine and if someone had complaints, it was the perfect time for them to learn how to use it, it wasn't that difficult! She betted that they went around the world due to her house boredom. Oh, Greece, they should have been walking around the temples from those gods. No, no, a romantic trip to Paris, not like those going to Benidorm for the honeymoon because "everyone does". She was just hoping that they didn't bring any souvenirs because it was something else to clean.

Matt, that didn't have a voice in that house anymore, considered that they were on strike because of the extra hours. Yes, maybe they didn't fight enough to keep that working but it was a matter of two. Two!! Anyway, the papers were already signed and there wasn't anything else to talk about, isn't it? Yes, we keep walking about socks, what if not?

The grandmother Antonia was determined to blame those from the tv. She was sure that after switching it off, they came across the screen and misbehaved as the one from the soap operas. And at the same time, eating some chocolates because she didn't like them so much. No, she didn't, of course...

The neighbour of the fifth, that always had to give her opinion because she was living there for so long and, yes, that means to have some privileges, had the theory that they were voluntary on a trip searching for a seamstress, because being as cute as they were but with those holes, was almost a crime. She wouldn't have minded fixing them, it would have been just a minute, but as she wasn't welcomed there anymore...

The postwoman, that was just bringing a parcel but as was already there they insisted her to give also her verdict, didn't understand why they were discussing so much, it was very simple: they must have fallen from the stall and they weren't going to see them again anymore.

Silently, in one corner of the balcony, the washing machine had been consuming those little cloth pieces. Oh, if someone decided to accuse her... They would have learnt what was about the end of the world. No, now, seriously, she wasn't that bad person, it was just the loneliness, if she had at least a dryer to team up... Furthermore, it was just one... two socks... no one would have noticed, isn't it? The option of combining them wasn't that bad, it wasn't necessary to keep everything perfect. Or three... or four... five? And considering the situation, maybe she was just giving them an opportunity of a better life.

Convergent

 Error

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