THE LEGEND OF THE FLOWERING ALMOND TREES (2ND PART)

(by Pablo Burgués)

I don’t know what you think, but I’ve always thought that the films that end somehow with “… and they lived happily ever after” are not trustworthy. For me those slushy endings, far from making me feel happy for others, make me feel full of doubt. For instance, Pretty Woman: did they get married or Richard Gere made a mess in the bachelor party? Where did they spend Christmas? Did Julia Roberts go back to the streets with her huge trouser-boots?... Or in Ghost: Was Patrick Swayze eternally faithful to his beloved or, to cope with that remote relationship, he had an affair in the afterworld? Did Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg come out of the closet?...

Last week I told you one of these happy ending stories that took place in Ibiza. Their main characters were a romantic and a bit clingy Moorish king, whom I’ll call Date Fruit, and a sweet and also spicy Indian princess, whom her friends called Curry. (You can read the complete story here). Well, this week I’ve decided to inquire into their story to see what happened to them after the credits ended, the curtain was lowered and the cinema lights were turned on.

It seems that the lovebirds lived happily during a time; however, a bad winter day a letter arrived to the palace and broke their idyllic love dream. In the faraway lands of I-don’t-know-where a terrible war had begun and the king’s presence was required in the struggle. Thus, the next morning, with the broken pip, Date Fruit went to the front, only after promising Curry that he would be back before her beloved almond trees bloomed again.

The waiting days became months, and months became years, and during all that time there was no news about the king. The princess sank into a severe depression, opened a Premium Spotify account and spent full weeks without leaving her rooms, feeding herself only with Scorpions’ ballads, without commercials. Nonetheless, God shapes the back for the burden, and, thus, one fine day a hefty young man knocked on the palace doors. He was a handsome gardener (whom I’ll nickname Hose) who had just arrived to Ibiza and was looking for a job of his specialty.

Seeing such a cute one, the until then sad princess was just be able to say: “Boy, you have no idea how much you come in handy, because the truth is that I have the almond tree land in an awful state”. Without a moment’s delay, Hose and Curry got busy tidying the royal garden up.

But when they were amid the bustle, they heard a strong racket and the noise of saws. To their big surprise they found out that the always untimely Date Fruit had just came back from the war and several workers were sawing the doorframes up so that His Majesty could get into the palace without harming his recently acquired horns. When he knew about the betrayal, the king took the princess and the gardener under an almond tree and cut their throats.

Next year, as every February, the almond trees began to bloom; however, their flowers weren’t white ever again, but pink. The legend tells that the affair between Curry and Hose was so pure that the trees dyed their leaves with the lovers’ blood, so that their love could last forever.

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Translation: Dora Sales