Rain in Spain

Spain, to me, was always a magical country of silence and echoes —
didn’t matter much if you wandered empty streets at high noon siesta, or drifted through the city long past midnight; either way, you were alone with the sky and the old stone buildings, humming to yourself and hearing the reverberations of voices and footsteps of those who trod these ways before, toward the sea beyond the buildings, and beyond the sea who knows — Africa, maybe.
Or even America.

It was nice to be a tourist — your old life forgotten, reality unreal, even the cops just smile and say: "Señor, please get down from the fence." — see?
I like being a señor, at very least in this way.

You know, then, whenever something ill happened to me — something painful, or just dull — I’d close my eyes and imagine myself walking through the heat of Cartagena, heading toward the port.
Turn right once.
Then left.
Then right again.
Stretching the journey out forever.
Smiling. At peace.

With time, this secret shelter helped more often.
Cold winters, dark ages.
Sirens started howling outside the window.
Friends disappeared, one by one.
Sometimes explosions were heard.

My inner Spain, from overuse, began to fade in my memory, more and more resembling an old postcard found in a stranger’s belongings.
Frayed edges, tattered corners.
Some statue looks out to sea under unfamiliar trees.
A smudged postmark, stamped right over the sun.
A flake of gilded paint.
The pale word "Bienvenidos" on the back, barely visible.
But almost no longer for me.

And then came the rain.
The October flood of 2024, streams of red water carried people and cars through the same streets, flashes of electricity snatched rescuers, pieces of El Greco paintings, then a bombing during the civil war, then - I swear - something from Reconquista, the wind bent incomprehensible trees, and the sun finally went out.

The end.
Blank page.
Nothing left.

I turned off the TV and started recording this album.