Left-leg voyages

I was hungry and I stank. The sun was gleaming, the streets were steaming, the heat was radiating out of my body. It was in the middle of July, somewhere in Barcelona. There were red bikes everywhere, rolling in the turbulently structured bloodstream of the city. I was a small, erythrocyte running around with them, trying to find the place where I was supposed to dwell in for the next month; the great bloody pump.

So, I followed. I got into the small alleys of the Barrio Gothico. There was this rank smell coming from under the buildings. I could almost taste THE Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Spanish food, everything mixed up, smelly and dirty – spoiled food on the side, some old furniture with bedbugs, secondhand books and clothes, box with somebody’s “not wanted anymore” life in it, thrown on the side of the alley. I followed these tracks. Above me, the gray Gothic facades ornamented with strange demons – keepers of the cathedrals, of the city, waiting for you to pass, so they can jump at your back your back and make you run away in fear. It was a battle; the city reeked, violently confronting me with all its horrors. I had already harmonized my stench with the stench of the city. A small victory for me, I would say. I got out in the middle of La Rambla – the big pedestrian zone, the notorious street as somebody was calling it. When the sun goes down, the night creatures are coming out. They are all scattered around, reaching out with their hands to get your money, your clothes, some of them are after your soul – it is a tough place to swallow. They would run after you from the beginning of the street until the end, trying to get you inside their lairs, poison you with their philter, make you feel pleasure, tuck some strange life inside you, awaken the beast from your insides, then you would never be able to get back. But who wants to go back? Isn't keeping ahead the main force of life? I would say, it was a hard city to swallow.

So, I continued. I tried to get inside the voluptuous den, to feel underneath the hard pillars, the aching of Lot’s Wife. I reached towards this ghastly city that wanted to be gently caressed, like an old lover who was waiting for me.

Standing amid that wilderness, I could clearly feel the beats in my head. It was more dizzying each time. I had found it. I terribly fell in love for the first time.