it took time tracking down an out of print book which finally appears in wallapop, of impeccable second hand and for eight stupendous euritos. I make an appointment with the seller through the application. His neighborhood grabs me from behind, a gazillion trifles await resolution and, nevertheless, the bait pulls me like it would a hungry sea bream.
I go out through the wrong subway entrance, but immediately I catch a glimpse of the hook because hold my treasure in your hands, a book with red covers that is not the red book of Mao nor that of Xin Jinping, but one of Josep Pla, ‘Notes of capvesprol’. I like Pla; It irritates me and I like it at the same time. Nobody writes the subjective landscape like him, in the ‘Flaubertian’ way. And then his gaze on the world; those tiny, slanted eyes of his, voracious as a saw.
The saleswoman had a young girl’s name, but I didn’t expect so much (what is she, 17 years old?, maybe 18?). She still she has not seen me; I play with advantage. In the distance, I realize that the girl waits accompanied by an adult male, probably her father. While we close the deal in the middle of the square, like a junkie and his camel, the man maintains a distance of two meters, prudent and respectful, smiling but without intervening or taking his eyes off us. All good and fast. The amount is fair. Goodbye, ‘adéu, merci’.
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I return to the subway, to the car transmuted into a crowded sauna in this October with July vocation, thought about the difficulty of educating children without sewing their wings, restricting them or losing sight of them too much. Let go of the rope but holding it with the watchful wrist, like someone who flies a kite, to give the pull if suddenly a gust of wind hits hard. What a challenge to be a father/mother, and even more so in this hectic and volatile time, spurred on by internet and social networks, where nothing is what it seems and prejudices quickly become dogmas. Because the alleged buyer of the red book could have been a freak, a psychopath, a joker, what do I know…
rebels with power
With all its prodigies, such as finding out-of-print books or new friends, which amount to the same thing, the network of networks not only presents risks from the outside in, but also the other way around. The other day she was reading an interview with Jordi Royo Isach on the occasion of the publication of his book ‘SOS Teenagers. The shipwreck of mental health after the pandemic’ (Column), where the psychologist explained the change that the irruption of the internet has brought about in adolescence, an age that is always difficult. How are the boys today? digital natives, They are the first generation to teach their parents something (selling zarrios for Wallapop, paying with Bizum). That gives them power. Are rebels with power but eternally dissatisfied.