Sound flies through the city of Barcelona, listening. She sits, with her feet dangling, on the edge of my ear. She whispers in a most clandestine manner; oh, the stories she has heard, the places her friend Sight has seen. She tells me most serenely, with increasing urgency, of the shouting merchants and of a glorious new beginning.
“What is that?”
She does not answer. Instead, she laughs ever so lightly, and throws herself down from my ear, ready to gather more stories meant to be hidden for thousands of years. Nothing can escape her, for she will listen and cause others to tell of the stories she heard. As she leaves, in her joyful flight, she urges me,
“Go! To the beach!”
I follow her advice, and turn the corner into the bustling Carrer de la Marina, a crowded wide avenue that leads to the sea, hence the name. The staccato sound of skateboarders and the silent movement of bicyclists moving down the street enter my ears. Car horns blaze and the sun rains down on them all, bathing and filling them with good humor. Vagrants, dragging shopping carts behind them, scavenge metal objects littered throughout the city. I walk down the avenue, feeling the crisp air of the ocean arriving, but as a vagabond trudges past me, and the pungent odor fills the air, the charm is broken momentarily. Soon, the spell is cast once more, and I fall prey to the attracting shore.
Finally, I see it, the thousands of people playing volleyball, sunbathing, and swimming. They are as numerous as the grains of sand on which they tread. I descend down the steps of the cement world and sit next to the water, taking off my shoes and socks and resting them on the warm sand that tickles my toes. I let my feet be washed by the teasing waves. My hands pick up a few grains and let them slip out of my hands, measuring my time like an hourglass, transporting me to a childhood of not completely forgotten dreams and wishes. The waves wrestle to reach the dreams with powerful determination; they grab a few wishes and combine them into their mixture of dreams. Could this be the new beginning of which Sound told me?
When I ascend the steps and sit on the ledge above the beach, and let my feet dry, I cannot tell how much time I spent on the sand. I put on my shoes and socks and head toward a restaurant, for Hunger cried out in anguish in the desolate inferno of my stomach. Taste tells me what I feel like eating; Seafood, of course, is his choice. I walk towards a nautical-themed restaurant, with thousands of galleons and frigates nestled in all nooks and crannies. Sitting in one of the plush chairs on the terrace, I feel it accommodate to my body, releasing air through its old pores. The waiters briskly walk to the tables, bees buzzing to pollinate and returning the produce to their hives. One of the bees comes to my table, buzzing impatiently,
“Hola, soy Carlos, qué desea para beber?”
He stared at the blank look in my face,
“Uh...Water?” he suggested.
“Sorry, yes, please.”
“Ah, I’ll bring it right to you.”
“Gracias.”
When he brings me my drink, I order some tender squid and crunchy grilled shrimp with a strong smell of garlic. Taste brings the saltiness of the ocean to my tongue. Hunger goes from inferno to purgatorio and finally to his paradiso. I place my eyes on the sea and pay attention to the people and the shining jewel formed by all of people’s dreams combined, encased within the grains of sand.
I paid the check, and hurried down the seaside promenade. Sound comes fluttering and sits on my shoulder, bouncing violently due to my accelerated pace. Grabbing me by the finger, she leads me throughout the city, from beautiful Mozarabic courtyards with mosaic fountains that feature all the colors of the rainbow in a gorgeous pattern in the center to Gaudi’s abstract dream-like edifices with their spiraling colorful towers and marble staircases. She guides my finger to touch the mosaics and feel the thoughts of the inspired artists. “Behold!” she shrieks, “The power of touch can make you sense the past, the present, and the future! One must only be shown how. In this world, it is at few moments in which we truly understand the presence of the past in our very lives.”
The words strike my brain like a potent concoction. She waves her hand, and the Casa Batllo melts, and the Gothic Quarter flashes into sight.
Sound tells me that she has made the noise of the phantoms audible. “Listen,” she says, emulating Dracula with a ghastly grin dancing on her lips, “to the creatures of the night.” Then, she bursts into a cackle, and as I strain my ears I hear a footstep, two, and even three! A guard gossiping with another, a princess praying for the health of her lover campaigning against the Moors, and a man seeing his family perish from the plague before him, all come to life in front of me and it appears so real that I dash forward, trying to console him, but I see him reach up to his neck and feel the deadly lump that proclaims his fate. I stop myself, realizing that it is impossible to change the past. My eyes fill with tears and I turn to Sound who is hovering in the air, an oxymoronic frown upon the fairy’s face.
“Why? Why must you show me this, you villainous trickster?” I asked her between sobs.
“It is all part of your lesson, most loved one. You must know that there is more to life than you could possibly imagine. One must learn from the past, but not be daunted by life’s malicious bludgeoning. Do not let the death of a loved one dishearten you. Instead, let all your memories turn into something beautiful. Be like the waves embracing the sand. Be like this very city, created from faded memories, but in the end a precious piece of art all the same.”
She kisses my cheek and flees into the darkness of the narrow and silent Barcelona streets, leaving me to my own thoughts.