La fuente de jade

When she had been young Cenza had always loved the southerly winds, the one which mainly visited in the olive picking season. They would tease the smoke out of the village tile factory's tall chimney and spread it slowly over the lowlands where she lived and her family worked. She liked how these industrial clouds diffused the harsh bright sunlight and change the shapes of the shadows cast by the olive trees. The soft shadow play during these winds made her feel like the t

The amazing hotel-world quickly closes around him … the air swarms, to intensity with the characteristic, condensed and accumulated as he rarely elsewhere has had the luck to find it._ Henry James, 1969: 102. Le pareció que había encontrado la empresa con el servicio perfecto: ellos se encargarían de hasta el más mínimo detalle, incluso de hacer fotografías del antes que no fuesen únicamente planos generales, sino también de pequeños descuidos en el doblez de uno de dos calce

Gerald stood in the queue, acknowledging the predictable sense of his growing disappointment. He heard the bells outside on the square striking 2 o’clock, the disappointment shifted to a mood located somewhere between resentment and anger. 2 o’clock was check in time, from 2 o’clock the room was his for 21 hours, why was he still in the queue waiting to check in? He was at best anonymous, benign, but ever-present, like an untreatable but nonterminal cancer, and when he

La ley sonora del gallo Preludio A lo lejos, bajo un fresno, un niño sollozaba en silencio, y las hojas no se movían porque no había viento y las puertas no sonaban porque no había llaves con qué abrirlas ni con qué hacer el ruido necesario para distraerse, para no pensar en el agujero y no sentir que entras a una casa llena de gente, vacía por dentro, con vinilos que no suenan porque ya pasaron de moda y con un gallo dentro, que espera un motivo para ser interrumpido. Primer

Preamble: This is the story of Eamonn, the lord of the dominion of hatred. During his reign all humans are condemned. And exonerated, all animals. His story is a desperate one, often horrific. Too dark for straight telling, however it needs to be shared. I have realised that when it is applied to a popular music song structure it becomes softer and, if you can extract the pain and loss, it is almost understandable. I attempt to keep it short, a synopsis of the dialogue

Los placeres de la vida son dos: cerrar los ojos y abrir los ojos. El segundo es muy superior, pero para abrir los ojos hay que haberlos cerrado.   Pompeya, Girolamo Vico Acquanera   i El granero. La paja desperdigada —los niños desperdigados— baña de amarillo narciso las prendas desgastadas. Luciana levanta el húmero del brazo derecho que choca con el cúbito del antebrazo izquierdo. Una vez más tienen el día solo para ellos y Julio frota el radio del antebrazo derecho con el

The apartment was a typical East London Victorian terrace house conversion. The windows shook in the ground-floor living room every time a bus drove past—too big for the street and not big enough for the passengers. I dropped the ash from the joint into the blue ashtray that Shane had probably stolen from the bar next door. It was a Wednesday, late afternoon. We’d been out last night and were both feeling the effects of our overindulgence and lack of sleep. The soft smell of

La revista de Batman estaba toda manchada de aceite. La había leído tantas veces que las manchas densas que estaban ya derritiendo letras, miradas certeras y misterios, no distorsionaron la claridad de la historia, el drama de aquellas dos páginas que tanto quería. Allí estaba ahora con esas hojas engrasadas como sosteniendo un cadáver, justo en la parte en donde Robin, que había sido traicionado por su madre, moría a manos del Joker y Batman lo cargaba ensangrentado y hecho

Wales, 1994 The oil slowly accumulated in the plastic bottles in the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink. Every time she cooked for him she used the cheapest she could find. And used in abundance. She kept the best for herself. Why? Because she could. There wasn’t much she controlled but the decision on the quality of the cooking oil was hers and hers alone. And this lonely autonomy had been hers since they had met. Happy they were when they began. He, working in some o

Las cloacas comenzaban a apestar, primero con un olor apenas perceptible, que no era exactamente a podredumbre ni a humedad. Había en el aire un matiz más denso, dulzón, casi metálico, como si una gota de tinta fresca hubiera caído en los túneles y empezara a expandirse, imperceptible pero insistente. Todo el vecindario estaba ya en búsqueda de una posible plaga oculta. Sin embargo, ni las ratas, ni las diminutas lombrices del otoño, ni los insectos más pegajosos daban señale

Ink was where it started and ink was what ruined everything, over time, of course. From a human perspective that is, relatively speaking, it took a long time, but in the greater scheme of things it was a fleeting glimpse and it was gone. I refer to the Amazon. That was then.

17:03, eclipse total. Juro que Mateo lo ve desde el parque alto con sus tres compinches de guardería, todos con las gafitas de cartón que consigo en la farmacia de la esquina después de hacer cola dos horas como una idiota. Llevo la nevera portátil colgando del hombro, cuatro botellas de leche recién sacada porque el crío sigue enganchado a la teta a los dos años y nueve meses como si fuera un puto koala. El plan es recogerlo a las 16:40, sentarme en el banco de los tilos, de

Blackness. Have you ever been in a car crash? I have. Your mind creates a moment of serenity, an almost glacial stillness, I think its a moment of clairvoyance, your mind knows what is about to come and is trying to prepare you.. anyway, you pay for it very soon with the ugliest, most brutal chaos. --- It’s hard to think back to what happened and not feel a stinging sense of irony. What started as a race ended in immobility. Speed turns to inertia, heat to cold, hyp

Había sido un día precioso en su sencillez: nada de ínfulas, exageraciones ni carreras. Y decir eso, para una corredora profesional que suele entrenar cada día por mínimo tres horas, es mucho. Lucía sentía que se le notaba incluso en la piel, que le agradecía donándole un tacto suave, apenas húmedo, y los ojos despiertos y frescos. La subida a su casa era un antídoto perfecto contra esos otros días de frugalidad y rapidez. La colina en donde vivía parecía ser dueña de una atm

They didn’t know how it arrived. And when I say they I mean Angela. She had gone to get some water, leaving her desk where she had been working. A productive session yes but missing something. She came back seconds later and there it was. A fully grown snail. It’s shell a golden brown circling a light beige. Its head and neck protruding explorativeky. Its tail moving, yes moving but very slowly (what do you expect. It’s a snail) And its name, his name, was Till.