THE (VERY) OLD MAN AND THE SEA (2ND PART)

(by Pablo Burgués)

Last week I told you how I met, at the piers of Sa Caleta, that old sailor PREVIOUSLY known as Sodium (You can read the whole story clicking here). So this week I’ll continue telling you the endless saline monologue that old sailor NOW known as Forrest Salt threw on me.

After two hours and thirteen minutes talking non-stop about the thrilling and savage world of sodium chloride, F.S. asked me a hopeful question: “Son, do you like History?” With tears in my eyes I told him I was completely in love with every single historic event, not because that was true but because the mere chance of a change of subject was for me an oasis in that desert (of salt). However, his reply dashed all my hopes: “Perfect, then I’ll tell you the story of the salt lakes in Ibiza”.

That devious manoeuvre reminded me of my childhood, when I locked myself in the bathroom after committing a big mischief and my mother told me with an angelical voice: “Open the door, Pablo, I won’t hit you”. Nonetheless, right after my innocent hand bolted the door, my mother’s slipper slithered as a rattler through the doorway and, bang!, right to my mouth.

As a desperate measure, and to avoid the lavish lecture that approached me, I decided to perform an escapism manoeuvre in the style of the very same Houdini. Very slowly, with ninja movements, I stealthily covered the hardly 5 metres to the sea. So as not to arouse suspicion about my escape plan, I used the fine technique of the dog at the back of the car, which means to look at the speaker’s face and move your head up and down while you say short but accurate approval sentences, such as; “yes, sure”, “how curious” or “I can imagine”.

I reached the end of the piers while my friend was still talking: “… then the French invented the fridge and all went to shit, because people stopped using salt to preserve food and we all got fired”. Right at that moment F.S. blinked and, making the most of that thousandth of a second, I jumped in the water as a Bengal tiger.

I was about 20 minutes swimming in the crystal clear Mediterranean water and, when I got out, I happily found that the old sailor had fallen asleep under the sun. I took my chance to get dressed and go off, but the sound of my backpack’s zipper woke the beast up. He opened an eye, looked at me with a face as black as thunder, and said: “fuck off the French!” Immediately afterwards, he closed his eye and began snoring.

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Translation: Dora Sales