My days on the island were passing, it gave me special pleasure to approach corners that I had already known, I thought I could recreate again those moments lived before, but I was far from being right.
Corners that I remembered with the radiant light of a sun that only my glasses and cap could help to mitigate, and now, beaten by the incessant wind and the clouds that did not cease to appear, allowed me to see the shadows created by the waves on the rocks and everything that could cross them.
Sand, rocks and, of course, Magua, Ernesto’s boat.
The truth is that I am no expert in the matter, I am not saying that I do not know what the front part of the back part is called, maybe I even dare to know some expression or definition, acquired by some book or novel that I have read, but logically, I could never give you an objective and accurate version of how its characteristics were.
I can, however, tell you what caught my attention the first time I saw the boat, there, moored to a… wait, I have to look at my notes… bollard, yes, moored to a bollard in the harbor.
Fuck, I do not understand boats, but if I see a car like that, with one thousand three hundred and fifty-three flakes, some metal hanging from the tiny cabin that gave access to the engines, which I later found out, worked when they felt like it … come on, I do not know the ITV of the sea, but I tell you that on the road, this car would not circulate no way.
But it sailed, and from what I got to tell me on occasion, to be a «barquillo», as they are called, apparently it had its own character and everything.
I don’t remember how it was, but I know that I spent a long time looking at it, I don’t know why the hell it attracted me so much, the chipping on the paint, the scratches on the sides, the result of hasty moorings to corners of this island… but I had a good time.
You know?
I didn’t dare to take a picture of it, don’t ask me why, because I couldn’t answer you, I only know that my hand never went to look for the camera that I always tried so hard to capture that or any other moment I was living.
I didn’t hear him arrive, but his good afternoon and his…how was your day… started a cross of beers in the bar of the port, and of course… we talked.
He was very curious, there was always a moment in which he allowed himself a trick that I would call Jedai, a movie trick, because he always, but always started it like this…may I ask you a question? and that’s it, it would get messy, because you can see the two of us, there engrossed, watching how the day was closing, eating a plate of who knows what fish it was, but it was delicious, with a beer and contemplating how the sun ran to hide and a myriad of stars appeared in the sky, and meanwhile, we kept talking and talking.
Perhaps there was some statement of mine about how people live today, in a world that seemed to him to be from another planet, not because he had not lived it in part, his career path took him to a thousand corners of this world and apparently, he was close to settling in a big city and everything, but he was always amazed by how they came, in his opinion, to enslave themselves in some requirements to be happy, which surprised him.
You see Jorge – he said to me very seriously – what does it take to be happy, what do you need?
I had the pipe half unloaded, so I took the opportunity to, in silence, to think about a question with such… I don’t know, bad milk?, enjundia?, difficult?, no idea how to define it.
But the pipe was already loaded, lit, and after a few puffs, in which he limited himself to suck the beer and watch the sky, of which he never got tired, according to his own words, and well, here we go.
You see Ernesto – smile on his part – that is something that has come up on more than one occasion, not only in my life, but surely in everyone’s, including yours?
But that’s another story.
*** Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) ***
Sigo aqui 