La espera (Field Notes & Sketch Book Entry)

The young man closed the door of his dark and cool apartment hurriedly. He had an appointment to meet which he could not afford to miss. Fortunately, he just had to descend the staircase and walk out the main door into the sunny "plaza". The walk across the melting square was the hardest part of the trip for his sensitive, milk-white skin. He always tried to cross it briskly and arrived at the "terraza" pouring sweat.

He settled down in his favorite table, next to the stone column under the archway. The shadow provided solace from the exposure that constant sunlight meant to the reflective mind. He had brought the Bowleses along with his black notebook to keep him company. Both the books had been well thumbed and the pad's edges were dogged from much travel.

The young man sat alert. "He is not here yet. There's time", he thought. He knew Spanish sense of time. It was early evening. Here the day was just stirring; people were beginning to pour out onto the streets from work, ready for drinks and conversation. Funny how the ancient Greek "agora" still thrived in present-day Mediterranean culture. People chatted and laughed about him. Never silent.

The young man looked at his watch. He had time for a beer. Seeing the waiter walk by he called loudly, "¡Una cerveza, por favor!", praying he would be heard above the clatter.

When the iced glass had been placed before him, he drank thirstily and then settled comfortably in the metal chair.Gazing hopefully at the silent novels, he turned the cover of his notebook and faced the first empty page.

"Can words save us from the cacophony of life?" In a frenzy, the young man wrote these words on the white paper, as if they would fill the emptiness. Staring at them made the blank paper seem less hopeless, less hypnotizing, less absorving, less draining.

"The bitterness of beer, its coolness, will make me articulate", he thought. Nothing like a beer in a frozen glass to freshen up the spirit. His glasses clouded. It was the smouldering illusion of the icy wait. The square was full to the brim with children playing, laughing: life, always and forever.

And no way to access it, to structure it, to construct it ... no, to arrange it, to inhabit it ... always the elusive word, always language the mediator, the barrier, the savior.

He read to himself, "Can words save us from the cacophony of life?" Did the letters feel lonesome on the page?

He called to the waiter, "¡Otra cerveza, por favor!" He still sounded so foreign; the hissing sounds he uttered betrayed him. He rumpled his hair to feel more alive. The non-existent silence within was driving him mad. He gulped down some more beer feeling the tingle on his tongue, the thrift through his throat, the liquid in his liverish soul.

The thoughtless babble in his head was making him dizzy. "Can words save us from the cacophony of life?" He took off his glasses and wiped off the sweat from his face. He needed to piss but he had to wait. "Just a few more minutes", he told himself, "it won't be long now."

"Por favor, señor, una ayuda. No ve la vergüenza que estoy pasando de tener que pedir."

The young beggar knelt before him, ragged and dirty. He had come to beg at the "plaza" every evening over the last month. The sentences he had called out had varied widely every day. His face had also changed, gradually but steadily hardened by misery. His words were a masquerade for the void that had driven him to roam the streets, to mere survival. Begging for money, begging for words. And always the long wait for life.

As the grimy beggar limped away, the young man gathered his things hurriedly. He could go now. As he crossed the "plaza" towards his apartment, his bladder ached for release.

- ya