You are in Madrid, in the Prado Museum, in May, and you’re with your father, mother, and younger sister. Technically, it’s the Museo Nacional del Prado, but you refrain from using this title as it is gauche to try to appear cultured. You prefer to leave the natural language of this place to the locals. A forced accent is a fixture for the newly traveled. It is for people too desperate to appear in-the-know, who so painfully mark themselves as out-of-the-know.
Just beyond the entrance of the Prado, about two rooms into the interior network of galleries, you stand in a dark room with one major source of light. It points at The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Mister Bosch has a first-rate name, and, evidently, even firster rate painting skills. The Garden of Earthly Delights is a fantastical tryptic. The left third shows paradise, the middle third shows more paradise (this time filled with an orgy of strawberries and horses), and the right third shows hell. Stylistically, it’s a cross between 1950’s Disney and Sci-Fi, but it comes from 1490 or so. It’s a vision. It is popular. There is no in-the-know or out-of-the-know with this one.
You act unmoved by the piece.
Larger tours wash through the room as waves to a beach. They approach the painting in a swell then crash and foam, and they recede once the next wave comes. You stand fast against the waves. You’re used to this experience of crowds unlike the bumpkins behind you who keep waddling in and out of place and exchanging pardon me’s.
You walk to the backside of The Garden of Earthly Delights where Bosch has painted a grey earth. This is an inventive touch. And the tryptic, understood with this grey earth framing, can be read a number of ways, but it is always read left to right.
The primary reading is this: earth is empty (backside), and then God turns it to paradise; Adam and Eve eat the apple (left third), the horse and strawberry orgy ensues (middle third), and we all end up in hell as a result (right third). In short: humans spoil things.
Edgier, less popular readings suggest that The Garden of Earthly Delights is a summation of bodily functions. It is celebratory, in a way.
You start to weigh these readings against the painting’s context. They are interesting, revelatory for their time, but the painting’s popularity deadens sincere emotional response. You can’t muster love for the meaning nor the image, simply respect for the execution. And you’re about to get a word in when Father says “Wowza!”
“I know, right.” Mother goes. “Incredible.”
Father continues. “This guy is a total nut job. Heck of an imagination if you ask me.” He blows out his lips, like: boy, “this is beyond.”
Your little sister has been jonesing for this painting all day. She says it’s one of her favorites ever, as if that means anything. You want to tell her to cool her jets, it’s a bit on the nose for this to be your favorite. Why not cruise the museum first rather than leap towards what the internet says is most famous? Oh well.
“I love the colors,” she says, giving a toothy smile to seem as impressed as she’s supposed to be. “It’s so amazing. I mean.” Your younger sister is lost for words because she doesn’t have any of her own. “This is just so pretty. The colors are unreal. And all the people, too. So cool.”
“The colors are amazing,” your mother adds.
Now this is too much. Mother is usually a better appreciator of art than this.
“It looks futuristic. I would have guessed 1800s for this piece. In fact, if you told me this was from 1950, I would believe you.” Her voice trails off as she leans in to investigate a scene in the bottom right.
“This guy was sick,” Father says, shaking his head. “Some imagination.”
You choke down every impulse. Every impulse says: the painting is a bit flat, perspective wise, to fit as a 20th century painting. It would only be a pastiche at that point. No, this painting is firmly renaissance but with a modern sense of geometry.
And don’t you oafs care about interpretation? Don’t you care that the painter was guiding you towards meaning? The colors might strike you in some interesting fashion and signal meaning. Don’t you care to investigate that depth? So what if there is nothing to find. The search is the good stuff.
You don’t say any of this though, because you are, at best, an unpublished author. Worse, you’re an aspiring author. You’re an average man with opinions on subjects he knows nothing about. You are a dilettante.
But you’re being too rough on yourself. This accusation (being a dilettante) is true, but only because you’re so right all the time. Really, you’re not voicing your opinions because you’re afraid your family won’t understand them. They won’t ‘get’ it. They prefer to stare at all the pretty colors.
You are a city dweller, and they are not.
A park bench calls your name. It is very typical: dark green with streaks of chipped paint, a placard to a dead wife, the crumby sugar and dough of churros. There is so much evidence of past lives, it’s almost insulting to sit on this collection of history. You sense the countless souls who’ve used this bench for rest; it’s long enough for an evening. You see the grieving husband with roses who attended this bench’s dedication.
You sit anyway, and in a humph. You sit so fast and carelessly it creates a wind that blows away your useless imaginings. Like that, you’re part of the history too.
The bench is in a smaller park that almost appears accidental. Though behind a grand municipal building, the park clearly doesn’t want to embellish anything – there are no trimmed hedges nor statues to speak of. It takes a strangely thin rectangular shape, too. You couldn’t play sports here, not with these dimensions. There is a road in the middle of the park, or there used to be. It is now overgrown. The intersections at the four corners are a mess. While the park is well maintained, it is largely comprised of gravel, so sunlight does the heavy lifting in terms of beauty. Both the city planners and real estate developers must have taken one look at this plot and agreed: we goofed. There was nothing to be done but let this place be. So, they did. Untold millions in rent have gone unearned here.
You are grateful for this lack of greed and, looking about, come to understand the different sort of value it has created.
Locals frequent this place. It is a ten-minute walk to the bigger, primary park in Madrid, El Retiro, but you’ve already been there and so have they. You wanted something more subdued, livable. This place is manageable enough to feel like you are well and truly in Madrid. It scratches that unscratchable itch of a traveler; precisely, it scratches an American itch, the image of yourself as both traveler and native, as acquainted with the untrodden, as above, and therefore ingrained in, the zeitgeist.
Here, you make friends with a dog who keeps dropping a tennis ball at your feet.
Colleagues enjoy espressos a bench over.
A crazy swings his arms wildly in your direction and then thinks better of it.
A woman sits in a man’s lap.
Police flash their sirens on the nearby road. Trees block the police from view.
The sun goes out and in, and you go cold and hot.
You’ve been reading, slowly, one paragraph at a time.
Construction crews line up at the halal cart.
There are not many birds.
Based on his tone, the dog’s owner is having a bad day.
The dog doesn’t care, he prefers to play with you.
You’re a dog person. Dogs can tell.
Presumably, someone here has just experienced a breakup.
Someone just got a promotion.
Someone just got fired.
A cloud threatens rain.
You close your book, not wanting the pages to get wet.
You were only half reading anyhow. Reading is a romantic idea, less of a romantic action.
Two flowers spring open.
A government official puts on their sunglasses, perpetuates bureaucracy.
Later, they complain about bureaucracy.
Bushes blunt wind.
Why doesn’t anything get done?
The dog moves on from you, per his owner’s request.
The police scuttle through the park, searching hopelessly for their mark.
There are more birds now.
Rain never comes.
Each day, history is made here by more or less incredible happenings.
You open your book, this time in earnest, and think nothing more of the park.
Eventually, a road catches your attention. This is a relief. The book you’re reading is an essay collection on nature – a famous essay collection, yes, and sharp, but how many times can one man suffer news of fallen trees? Nature’s glory is not unlike runner’s high. You’re aware it exists, but you will not tolerate the necessary boredom to see it.
So, what do you mean by a road catching your attention?
As you stand and stretch from your park bench, you spot a cobblestone road above the shrubbery to your right. Every other road around here is paved, so it’s curious that this specific one is not. You wonder if it is historic, or if the city has put down new stones as a way of signifying something. Cobblestone is an excellent marker of an interesting road. Could it be a historical district? A gallery district? A laze for open air drinking? Whatever it is, cobblestone is rarely dull.
The road is also shaded. The attendant buildings lean forward to obscure the sun and remind you of writing on paper without lines, how your words bleed downward. You therefore reason that it must have been people who made these buildings, and not machines. Real life humans.
What’s more (you know, it’s hard to believe there could be more interesting features), the road doesn’t just go straight. It’s not some boring old, planned street. No, fifty yards along, it curves at nearly ninety degrees, up and to the left. The buildings that come across the face of the street all have wood paneled store fronts. The stores are each a different color. They all have gold painted names.
That’s what you mean be an attention worthy street. These elements, as you later discover, identify medieval stretches. Though all European cities are old, few areas within them have survived war, earthquakes, fires, and plague. Fewer still have survived overpopulation and modernity. These cobbled, shaded, leaning streets are the exception. They carry the promise of a bar from 1150. They are the old town without the tourist traps. You don’t know this, of course. But, for the exact same reason as you avoid Times Square and the Arc de Triomphe, you intuit it.
You have no choice. Your hands are tied. Down the street you go.
Not wanting to rush into such a city block, you take your time on the approach. It deserves a slow go. You have the sense to remove yourself to the right of the sidewalk, to not get in the way of fellow appreciators.
The sun breaks, and you adjust to the dim, cool air. The street is half-alive, correct for the time of day.
You realize, too: you look the fool. It is the middle of the afternoon, in Madrid, on a top tier street, and there isn’t a cappuccino in your hand. This is not the sort of state to remain in. Hurriedly, you cross to the establishment with wicker seating out front.
An older woman runs the counter. She’s reading behind a case of stale pastries.
“Hola.” She says cheerfully.
“Hola.”
“Que tal?”
“I’m good thanks.” It would have been better to not be so snobbish about accents here. You could have obliged a bien. “Lo siento. No puedo entonder Español.”
“Ah, sí.” She grabs a menu and leads you outside with a hand. “Please.”
The woman, her name is Ana, places you one step from the counter. Once seated, you stumble through an order for a cappuccino.
“Claro. Anything to drink?”
“No, not yet.”
Ana smiles and retreats to the espresso machine.
Now you’re properly into things. You’ve experienced the park and its bench, and you’ve gone further into the heart of the locality.
You’re scratching the itch. And this itch isn’t just a desire for ‘culture,’ as if that means anything. It’s more complicated. This itch stretches back to college, when your friends all went abroad. You stayed home, not wanting to miss out on… what? You were afraid of flying (still are). You wanted to develop deeper friendships at school, which you hardly did. You rationalized the decision. And rationalizing is an excellent marker of lying to yourself.
You understand that this is a problem for the insanely privileged. Oh well.
The problem is: you believed that you were a different kind of person. You wanted to be the kind of person who takes risks, goes on adventures, does cocaine and often, lives abroad. It is silly that you ever hurt yourself with this problem.
Even sillier is the resultant itch. It’s petty. It wants you to earn small victories by plunging the depths of Madrid and its kin. If your friends saw the insides of bars and clubs and bottles, hopefully you can see the insides of more meaningful things, like, maybe, this café. By understanding the interior of a place, by living briefly as a local, you capture something that your peers, in their youthful stupor, missed. Better yet, by reaching the heart of Madrid with velocity, in such short order as a week, or a day, or this afternoon, you demonstrate taste. That’s what this itch is after. It wants you, you to be capable of spotting the truth of a place, of synching with the endemic rhythms. You do not seek culture because culture emanates from you. The itch is a tempting, unprovable superiority.
But that’s enough of that.
Ana returns with the cappuccino and, seeing as there are no other customers, she joins you, one table over, with a lemon cake and espresso.
“Where are you from?”
“New York.” You let this linger. “I live in Scotland now, though. Just for the year.”
“Scotland. It is a beautiful country. What do you do there?”
“I’m getting a master’s degree in Glasgow.”
“Oh Glasgow. You know,” Ana considered her phrasing, “it has a very industrial reputation. A tough city, that’s what people in Madrid would say of it. However, I don’t know any people who have visited Glasgow.”
You wave away the notion. “The reputation is overblown. It’s very safe now. I actually live in a pretty neighborhood near campus. The pubs are cute. The arts scene is vibrant, which I didn’t expect. I wouldn’t recommend Glasgow for a tourist, per se, but I’d say it’s a great city to be a student.”
“Everywhere it’s good to be a student,” Ana says, laughing.
You nod.
Ana slides her lemon cake towards you. “Do you know, I’ve been living in Madrid my whole life. My husband and I opened this café after we married.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yes. It is.”
Ana is proud, clearly. She speaks at length about her husband who is conspicuously not present. He painted the café and designed the hanging sign out front. The lemon cake recipe is his. Ana encourages you to have another bite, and you do.
Ana tells you about the retailer across the street and how there used to be a bakery there. Next door, a luxury suit supplier replaced a produce market. The whole street is undergoing such a transformation, Ana informs you, and not a good one. Her place has been left untouched for whatever reason. You know it’s because, similar to the park, there’s an unassignable value.
Ana rambles on with her mood stirred, and her gesticulations become ungovernable. She gets going about the deeper histories of this street. You don’t entirely follow and assume some of it is false, but that’s the good stuff.
Ana points out the amalgamation of architectural styles. She asks if you can see it, and you say yes. But really, you can’t see it, you don’t see each style. You see their composite. You see the blend, which is not anything you can point to. What you’re seeing is, with one building, a defensible position. It was for the military, Ana says. The ornamentation on the next building protests Christianity. The roofs everywhere are decidedly Spanish. Plain stonework indicates this was a poorer street. There is an abandoned water pump. Ana shows you these elements, but this is your first time here. You are only able to take it in as one romanced picture.
On a second trip, you might actually notice Ana’s musings. But on a second trip, you are simply returning. You will be not as convinced of this street’s charms. You will wonder: where did they go? This first time though, you experience the street in correctly broad brushes. You miss the hooks above windows, those used to deliver groceries during the plague and pails of water for fires. You miss the highway signage. These are items for a third visit.
What you see, aided by Ana’s enthusiasm, are the people, sprung across centuries, figuring their way into housing that has aged into art.
And it is three in the afternoon, and while it’s too early for a drink, you ask Ana for a glass of wine, why not? She snaps at her younger coworker. The wine arrives promptly. Where had the itch gone?
It is funny to be writing so much about Madrid.
You are, by constitution, a New Yorker. That’s the beautiful thing about New York. Anyone, anywhere, of any creed, can simply choose to become a New Yorker. It is a disposition. It is something which comes and goes, and of which no one is the judge. One day you wake up a New Yorker, the next you crave a retreat to the coast. How New York of you. The City will welcome you back once Sunday arrives and you come to your senses again.
It isn’t just an idea, either. Your full-time residence is New York, and not anywhere in New York, but the West Village. This plants you firmly as a resident. You are grateful for the network of lies which allow you to consider yourself a New Yorker. Namely that your girlfriend pays the rent, and you currently live in Scotland.
Here, in Madrid, you do not fully belong. You are not a Madrileño. This is confusing because you believed that being a New Yorker was a city-passport the world over. It’s alright, though. Madrid is allowed to punch up. Without a doubt, Madrid dresses well enough to consider itself distinctive. English is not very prevalent in Madrid, too, which gives the city a sense of pride.
Eventually, you and Ana exhaust things. It’s been an hour, and you’ve got a slight buzz, and you’re now aware of how uneasily your butt sits on the chair. You start to notice the gum on the street. A truck stinking of fish is parked out front. It is officially time to leave. You thank Ana for her company, and she wishes you luck in Glasgow.
Strolling onward, you learn that you were correct re: cobblestone, but only half-correct. The street is not littered with storefronts. It’s dense, more so than the rest of Madrid, but it’s not stuffed as you imagined. There is the cluster of business around Ana, then a wine store or two, and then another cluster at the end where the road turns. Nothing calls your name. This is disappointing. This was not as fruitful an escape as you had hoped.
It was still something, you suppose.
You continue with your walk and maintain a loose sense of relation to the hotel, knowing that, at some point, you’ll weave your way home. You bob along shaded sidewalks. You only take main roads when absolutely necessary. A second park bench occupies a chapter’s worth of time. You poke into a church. A mass is in session. You find a place that does croquetas and purchase two. You eat them at a counter which looks onto the street. Everyone is speaking Spanish around you. This makes you focus inward. With each turn of you jaw, you hear chewing. The crunch is unsettling. You keep scratching your itch, but everything you do is making it all the itchier.
The hotel is a welcome escape. Mother and Father have one bedroom, and you and your sister have another. Sister is asleep with her phone running on a reaction video. Bless that younger generation.
You knock on Mother and Father’s door. “Can I come in?”
“Ah!” Mother sounds excited, but you smell shampoo and perfume drifting under the doorway. “Give me thirty secs. Don’t move a muscle.”
Father mutters something in a disagreeing tone.
The door opens.
“Come on in, Mom’ll be OK.”
“Just a minute!” she says. It won’t be a minute.
You take a seat by the desk in their room. There are clues to the day they’ve had. The bed is made and there are two indents where butts have been; a movie is playing. The curtains are half drawn and blowing against the opened balcony doors. You spot socks draped over running shoes. A sports bra hangs from a closet handle. It’s hard to comprehend the sort of afternoon your family has chosen for themselves, having traveled this long way.
Father is dressed for a smart evening. “What’d you get up to, bud?”
“Went to this great park. It’s probably ten minutes from the hotel?” You weigh which details to include next, which will hit the right, familial note. “I made friends with a dog. His owner was on phone the whole time, so the dog kept dropping a tennis ball at my feet.”
“Oh, that’s cute.”
You go on to tell a decent story about the dog. You meant to read your book but how could you ignore the little fella? The dog was on a roll – he even played with the police. Behind a wall of hairdryer static, Mom garbles a question about breed.
“Anyhow, I went for a wee drink,” you say with a naughty voice, “and then putzed around the neighborhood. So, yea, a lovely little afternoon.” You want to mention Ana but determine it’s not worth the effort. “What’d you guys get up to?”
The room says it all, but your father repeats it. They got up to an astonishing amount of nothing. You would like to press: how did you stay cloistered in the room? What about being here?
It occurs to you that, rather obviously, they’ve been here the whole time.
The plan for the evening is this: drinks with Father’s friend and former colleague, then dinner. Father’s colleague is a lumbering, congenial man whose size alone dominates conversation. He’s so large you feel like his son.
He’s chatting with Father about professional things when, in so many words, the friend asks what you’re doing with your life (you’re really feeling like his son now). You tell him what, and he tilts his head backwards. He opens his mouth, silent and puzzled. Then, he and Father return to more adult conversation.
A Madrileño himself, Father’s friend recommends a restaurant which is a thirty-minute drive from the hotel. It is at the edge of the largest park in Madrid, El Campo. Set into a hillside, the views are unparalleled, he says. The service is impeccable. White tablecloth. Great wine selection. The whole nine yards. He says this while by pinching together his index fingers and thumbs and zipping them through the air. He says this while leaning in, confessing to the restaurant as if it were a sin. “Let me tell you, this restaurant, it is a frivolity.”
“Oh.” Mother is intrigued. “It would be great to see some green.”
Your little sister would prefer not.
A debate ensues, but long story short, you don’t end up thirty minutes away. Father’s friend leaves and you all go to the original reservation. It is a mere ten-minute walk from the hotel. No one in particular made the choice, your family simply couldn’t stir itself to change. There is no momentum to any decision amongst your family. If there is ever a proposal, everyone jockey’s for lower position on the totem pole. No one would be so rude as to want something. You’re each trying to keep an uneasy peace. Of course, this isn’t entirely true – you do have a sibling, not listed here, with no interest in peace.
You are glad for this plan because, frankly, you never had interest in the far-flung restaurant. After all, you are in Madrid not the Appalachians. What was the need for nature when you had man’s creativity to explore? Madrid provides a tapestry of pink and yellow and broad avenues. There are winding, naturally carved roads that bore into the grid like a stream to a forest. These are not the types of roads you find across America.
At the restaurant, you sit outside, which gives you access to abundant wildlife. All you do is idly chat while earth’s most intelligent species passes by, seemingly unaware that it’s being observed.
“If we ever come back to Madrid,” Mother says, “we’ll have to find our way back to that other restaurant. It sounded special.”
“Totally agree.” Father says.
Younger Sister pitches in. “Yea, I mean, Madrid is great. It’s clean and stuff, which is good. Not like New York.”
This halts things for a second, but you push it forward. Your parents are in the market for a new home. “Mom, do you think you’re looking for more outdoor space with a new place? I know you guys were considering…”
“Oh definitely. Yes.” Mother closes her eyes and nods. “Yes. Dad knows this, but I want to open the bedroom window and, ya know, see trees. I want to hear birds in the morning. Is that too much to ask?” She laughs an exhausted laugh. Apparently, small town condo living isn’t for the faint of heart. “Not to mention, one of the best parts about Connecticut is the four seasons, and you don’t get them when you’re in town. I want to see the trees changing colors. I want to get at least a month of spring. I never realized how much of a difference green makes but then, without it, it’s obvious. Like, oh yeah. Duh. Nature is nice.”
“Look,” Father says. “I could swing either way. Whatever your mother wants.”
“I don’t care,” Little Sister adds.
You purse your lips in an “OK” expression. It’s funny because you’re feeling very natural in a buttoned shirt, leaning back, arm around the chair, dining outdoors at dusk in Madrid. This is as near to homeostasis – as near to your nature – as you get. You are utterly uncharmed by nature and things like hiking. In fact, you are a certified indoorsman.
To you, cities are the superior language of creation. Where wilderness is a fabric of unknown and harmonious wonders, in magnitudes as fantastical as a mountain and curious as spores, a city is the same, only better.
You look down the road. At the end of it stands a church in a small square. You guess there is a good bar in that square, and as you will later unearth, there is a good bar. You let your vision defocus. In this blurrier form, Madrid could be another city, but something tells you it is not. It is the wrought iron balconies, the particular placement of trees, the bus stops, the metro logo, the ordered blocks bisected by more enigmatic streets - they all come together to give off some effervescent but distinguished feeling, and you call these feelings by name. Madrid, New York, Kyoto, Glasgow. They are very like nature. Incomprehensible but tangible enough to differentiate. There is an infinity of choices to a city (hooks above windows, for one) and they culminate into an impressive oneness that does not require you to tally each detail.
You look down at your smooth hands. How did we amount to all this?
Nature is just green with brown. Nature is from God, so it’s easy to accept that it’s a mystery. Plus, you’ve never met God, let alone had a beer with him. Who cares about this thing that He, a stranger, made? You’ve met people. Some are splendid, some less so. How many would you trust with safely constructing multi-story apartments? None, probably. How many would you trust with giving those apartments life?
We are hidden everywhere. In curious stylistic decisions, the frequency of retail, how bars always seem to line up in groups of three, the repair of trash cans. Cities are all manner of things, from a truly incompetent creator. God created nature. Man is the soil and the sun of urbanity.
You didn’t need to travel to know this. Travel confirms it. And at present, you’re in desperate need of validation. Dinner has wrapped and the Madrileños are emerging from their holes. The city is on the cusp of vibrancy. Folks pass the dinner table with greater frequency, and their conversation registers a louder volume. Streetlamps spring on. Grey hair and sport coats walk sleepily in the opposite direction of jeans and ragged shirts.
Your family is headed to the hotel.
“I might want a drink?” You announce.
Three heads turn around.
“Anyone care to join?”
Mother declines, as does Younger Sister. Father usually goes in for this sort of thing, but not tonight. You try not to judge them too harshly for neglecting your offer. It’s not like booze is a primary method of interacting with a new city. Oh well.
“No problem,” you say, “Be back in an hour. I’m probably only good for one glass of wine anyway.”
You head towards the square with the church, and before long, an alley presents itself to your left. You take it, gladly. The alley throws a soft yellow shade, a warm lighting that compliments the stucco and cobbled street. It’s the same shade of yellow you find and love everywhere. It seems all men agree on how best to illuminate cities at night. The alley leads to a series of equally charming side streets, and you manage a circuitous, if not longwinded, route to the square. The square has rightly decided to share the yellow light.
At each corner of the square, there are outcroppings of umbrellas. You take a seat underneath one, and a waiter finds you with a menu. Before he can leave, you order a rioja, the house red (though you feign some authority on Italian wines around company, there’s no need for the show tonight).
While the waiter dissolves into his restaurant, you notice a commotion going on elsewhere and orient your chair towards it.
People are leaving church. Having each had plenty from the communal cup, parishioners stumble out like twenty-somethings from a bar. They collide in groups of two to four, and chat. And they then splinter into new groups and mingle with the other fanatics. Their knees seem weak, slack with the Lord, giddy with the Spirit. Shoulders are clapped by the dozen. Backs patted by the armful. A table proceeds from the church’s mouth. It’s legs are kicked down, and someone provides it with ham and cheese and leaflets.
The priest, stationed at the bottom of the church steps, is well trained in facilitating palms. Those pinballing groups of worshipers run into him, and a master of aikido, the priest redirects them harmlessly away from himself. Many of these groups – families, you assume – are redirected in the direction of the umbrellas. Your umbrellas. The Lord leads them to drink, and they head his call.
Your wine arrives in time, right before a considerable portion of the zealots have decided to sit by you. In short order, the square is fully populated.
You are, technically, still alone in this situation. In fact, you’re downright lonely, this damn itch demands it. And Madrid is not making an explicit attempt to heal you. But this calamity of souls has discrete machinations, the church amongst its tools.
Take the man now sitting at the table ahead of you. He’s reading a book. He’s nursing a glass of wine. Every now and then, he turns his head up for a thought, and then returns to the page. He too has glasses and black hair. You almost want to approach him, to ask if he’s in the same predicament, but it’s best not to disturb the scene.
A mother sits next to you, a baby slung over her shoulder. If no one else, at least this baby is glad to see you. He smiles. Periodically, his mother feeds him strawberries. They look ripe.
Children race their scooters like horses. Their parents follow far behind.
Friends, mostly your age, litter the square, and you can’t make out what they’re discussing, not that it matters. What matters are their expressions. The furrowed brow and the light placement of a hand atop another. The laughing and the blowing out lips like: boy, this is beyond. The girls who pick fries from the same cup. The white-haired couple who holds hands and moves so slowly you’d think they’re putting off death. The woman of the couple reminds you of your girlfriend. She is tall and slender and has on one too many layers.
You are lonely and you haven’t told a soul. Yet somehow, your loneliness reverberated into Madrid’s already fantastic mess of emotions. It permeated the walls and exchanged with the locals, and it changed the evening’s course. The city’s people, without ever so much as trying, have now delivered a small bite of salvation: this square, chaotically packaged with kind reminders of life.
And so, you sit there, arms folded, shaking your head at the city’s imagination. You lean in to investigate a scene in the bottom right. You find yourself, too, staring at all the pretty colors.