And then summer ends

And then summer ends. We cease to be absent. We return to the cities and remember all that was hollow, in vain, but free. We remember the ringing telephone, when no one was there to answer it, the messages left unopened in the mailboxes.

Of the sun setting in the sky, slowly, at a slow pace, with the finish in the other hand, and the wind putting the bullfighter's breastplate on him, calling on his knees, hitting with his left hand. We remember all that has been and gone. It's not that we're looking forward to a hangover, but the occasional pinch does stick in your skin, and you can't help but glance over the railing.

And then the dead times end, the ones that kill themselves in silence. The hollow, empty hours end, the ones that wait in the room, silent, intimate, and from there they don't even move. And so, with disdain, with mantillas, we watch them fall. And they, with snakes in their eyes, huddle in the corners, and so we go for another hour, hitting the bed, clutching the morning to our chest.

And the years will fly by, time will come, dousing everything with gasoline, setting fire to it, adding fuel, forgetting everything that has been, and more years will come, and more days will return. The years will pass, and the summers will stick to us like open knives, and one day we'll tire inside and out.

But that summer, this summer, will remain somewhere where not even the islands reach. The ports will go out, the lights will walk back home. But it will remain, this summer will remain. And you, my daughter, will be in it, and we, the two of us, talking about simple things, about the time that no one understands, and you speak to me, and you kiss me, and you laugh, with that laugh of the sail, of the ship, that laugh of those who love life. And you on that island, your first trip alone, you in those streets as if at a party. You tell me about the boat on the sea, and the fish like rivers, and then the chess games and the tinto de verano wines, then all those big, small things that were so beautiful.

And we also remember that this summer had something imminent about it, like a forked path in time. The plains are burning, the mountains are burning, the firewood is burning. Thousands of hectares devoured in a handful of weeks. The towns, the villages are transformed into fuel. The heat then becomes a merciless assassin. And what was once paradise, on the edge of a lake, turns into hell, into thimbles. The scorched skies that don't even make day, and the red nights, never seen before.

Some, complaining about the trains, stopped hurtling across the fields, because the fire stops everything: day, night, and even the train. Some lose the ability to go home, others to their beach bars; some are left without homes , others without hotels. Nostalgia for the beaches no longer holds any sway against nostalgia for the fields. Some lose a few weeks, others lose an entire road, farms, and mountains. And this, this new climate, is here to stay.

It won't just disappear with autumn; another summer will come, and the causes will have to be addressed. Meanwhile, summers will cease to be what they once were. They will fade away like the years, but also in churning rivers of ash.