THE FOUR MINUTE SURREAL STORIES BOOK

Think Green

Tuesday (three days ago) .-

I woke up with a huge need to drink water. It was intense, the kind that makes your throat feel like sandpaper. I sometime heard it could be related to diabetes, but in my last routine checkup my insulin levels were within normal limits, according to my doctor. But I needed a lot of water, for some unexplained reason. So I started stocking up on six-packs and, in case I run out liquid in the midnight, bought a small kettle to purify whatever came out of the faucet.

At the office, they reproached me for having finished with half the mineral water bucket and almost all the plastic cups. But, after a dozen liters, the watery fury seemed to calm down. I don't understand why, but I drifted off to sleep that night thinking about what it would feel like to take a cold bath beneath a cascading waterfall.

Wednesday .-

I changed my route to go to work: I didn't walk through the usual little street, where the awnings provide good shade, but I went around the avenue where all the sun hit me in the face instead. I live in one of those everlasting summer cities, with temperatures that make ice cream sellers very happy. That's why I acquired a slightly tanned skin, but that day its tone turned quite unique. My coworkers did nothing but talk about my appearance.

I felt almost forced to recapitulate my last experiences to find a hint about the origin of anything that was causing me these changes. I didn't think it was because I had to put a tombstone over my relationship with Lisa — "the one with the fake smile", according to the moronic supervisor, used to giving nicknames but never knew about his own — since said relationship never seemed to have any future. The problem was herself, from the beginning. When I met the brunette, she was already carrying a disjointed, irrational conversation in her luggage. I thought she would improve over time, but she was delighted in giving opinions that made the act to lending ears to her unbearable. When she talked about movies, for example. I had to force my mind to put it in another dimension so as not to hear her say that Dorothy should have stayed in that wonderful land of Oz instead of returning to her Kansas farm to be buried by her stinky poverty and all that horse shit, or to say that Gene Kelly's choreography in the number "Singing in the Rain" was the gayest thing she had ever seen in a movie. Although such extravagances should not be surprising from someone who confidently places the keys to her house under a porcelain bull nearby the door. I, on the other hand, ask my usual pizza delivery guy for a password, even though is the same of the last six years. Returning to my skin color, I concluded that it had nothing to do with a bleeding heart; that's why I tried to throw the problem into some spiritual wasteland to make it easier to speculate on its origin. That night, shortly before going to bed, the thirst returned.

Thursday .-

Yesterday, on my way to work, I began to walk heavily. I thought the problem was with my feet, as they felt very tense, but in the office I noticed that my legs were getting stiff. The boss received word about of my condition and sent me home, believing it might be caused by some uninvited virus that could lead to an epidemic he didn't want to be a part of.

It took me a long time walk to get home back again. I opened the door, but couldn't reached out to turn on the lights. I groped my way to the bar; reflexioning, I thought that the cause of everything must be the fact of living without family. No wife, no children, no nothing. But I had never paid attention to that, not even at the birthday parties my married colleagues invited me to, all of them bragging about their beautiful wives, their talented kids. When I think of it, I usually blame my parents. I haven't seen them for twelve years. If they always preferred my brother, that's not my fault. When they found out that I was spending my salary on valuable old puppets, they labeled me as definitively unfit to manage my finances, acting as if they were going to disinherit me from a fortune they never had. That same day I decided to emigrate. On the bus that took me from my parents' city, I began to think that, if we were in the 19th century, I would have gotten on a ship to join a bunch of drunk pirates, but upon finding out what I collected they would surely have made me walk the plank. After some time, I left my hobby and rented this house, away from my parents. Far from anything I knew, really: the messy port, the neglected squares, the highway that used to be crossed at night by involuntary suicides.

I couldn't drink anything from the bar: both the Jack Daniels and the Absolut tasted like hell. Even the water, I couldn't taste. The garden hose was there, waiting, since it was irrigation day. I approached it and found that the stiffness in my limbs disappeared as I bent down to pick it up to refresh the trees and bushes. When I finished, I left the garden and the discomfort returned. So I went back in, where I felt better, and extended my arms, which made me feel even better. There, finally, after becoming still, I knew I had found a real family.

Today .-

I always thought the sky was a monotonous object, but it's more fickle than I always believed. Clouds are great sculptors of themselves. Now I know that not only do wind instruments exist, but that the wind is an instrument in itself. There are birds, whose names I don't know, that emit a perfect accompaniment. If the musicians in this place are incredible, the forest must be a symphony. I no longer feel thirsty, nor hungry, and that has to be good. Everything here smells different than anything I've ever smelled. Even the colors seem extremely strange to me, but pleasant. What I don't understand is how I can see without eyes, or hear without ears, but that doesn't worry me. Of course, I miss Lisa a little, with everything and the silly nonsense talk of someone who never appreciated good cinema; I would even tolerate her joking about my new appearance.

I've waited all day for someone to come and water me. By the way, also to my new brothers. But no one has come: perhaps they have already reported me as missing. It doesn't matter. It is a unique experience to see the hours pass without having to worry more about tomorrow, knowing that I will live a hundred years being an exceptional witness of what happens in another environment. I don't need aything else. I'm grateful to be here, under the fresh air, where the world, being simpler now, seems beautiful to me like never before.

(Originally published in my blog, in Spanish: https://pequenobaul.blogspot.com/2013/02/piensa-verde-cuento.html)