Fierce beauties, red kiss, drunk nights of weirdness and enchantment, a ticket to Wonderland from time to time, cabaret romance, nostalgic longing in foreign eyes, death defying nihilists dancing with a fag between their fingers, entitled gothic dominatrix, and lick-shoe submissive big boys with
ducktail hair style, a troupe of crepuscular creatures, a blank memory card, Delia’s warmth in bed at dawn when coming home, the smiling faces of my daughters right before passing out without brushing my teeth. These are what I stay alive for.
Txema Rodríguez
photographer
Red kiss
Lovely bestiary
“‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you ca’n’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice.
‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’”
Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland
There I am, slightly drunk and gripped by the lovely bestiary collected in the memory card. There I am, mesmerized by three beauty spots under the small boobs of the Red Queen. I wonder how the fluffy soutien stays in it’s place, but most of all I notice deep sadness or melancholy in her eyes, some kind of homesickness, some kind of saudade. And I want to hold her in my arms and say that everything is gonna be alright, but all I can do is rehearse a smile at her Ooops and be grateful to photography for providing me the endless occasion for human closeness, and for this night, for these gurus in how to take myself more lightly, the master class in the admiration of diversity. And most of all, for the ultimate sentimental reminder: sometimes we are the only thing that other stranded person has in a given moment.
Civil disorder
Watermelon hopelessly waited for execution.
Tomatoes, in total observance and acquiescence to the Lawful Authority, piled up in the bucket to prevent and suffocate any sign of insurgency and uprising.
But Green Pepper began to doubt the righteous and blameless power of the oppressor and outtalked Small Sissy Green Pepper to turn the Pink Tower upside down, yelling ‘Freedom! Equality! Brotherhood!’
There was copious red spill and smashed seeds on the paving stone and in its fast way street across, Watermelon tasted the brief magnificence of seven seconds of bounty, before cracking up against the water font.
No one honored the heroes. Both ended in the frying pan.
Traveling lights
I’m pretty sure that true success (happiness) comes down to the decision to shift from frustration and fear to curiosity and fascination, and I always feel as if I am a step away from cloud nine, yet not knowing what is keeping me stuck or making me walk around with this heavy burden of uncertainty and half belief.
Next time maybe I will let things just flow at the speed of trust, abdicating all enquiry about the causes and reasons of the unfolding.
Hoist
She just does those things, totally unaware of her talent to stop time or defy gravity.
She humbles me, unraveling the wordless meanings of my own existence.
She makes me think about the way I cringe the dark emotions and how that avoidance is keeping me a homeless while joy is knocking the door at an empty house.
She doesn’t rush the moment, she just hangs on there like a tiny Isadora, dancing, flowing by still orstormy waters, awake, in awe, unconditionally present.
The Vanished
“You will soon travel far and away” said the gipsy, carefully examining the lines of her hand. Amelia looked straight to her eyes with a frown forehead, as if it sounded ridiculous, allowing the ritual only because she had always been superstitious about gipsy spells.
The weird and chunky woman agitated a small bunch of rosemary tied with a string all over her body while murmuring and humming some sort of cryptic litany. Then she spit to the ground and opened a rough, cracked hand for money.
Amelia was annoyed with the unexpected nuisance and so eager to go on with her errands that she gathered the small change of the wallet and the pockets and gave it to her, vanishing through the corner of the street, wrapped in a shabby brown overcoat.
A street cam captured the last trace of her at half past eleven. Nothing unusual, except for two arrows pointing directly to the figure, as if she were chosen.
Apparently, this is not the first and last case so far. Authorities are being cautious about it, to avoid social panic.
Lola, the eldest of her daughters and the only one that keeps her mother’s secrets doesn’t know about the others yet, so she fakes concern assuming that she has finally found the courage to leave. In her wildest fancies she could never have foreseen such a dauntless determination.
Tomorrow, checking the secret drawer where she has saved money for years -what an operative to change pesetas to euros when they run obsolete- she will change her mind and start to wonder where is Amelia, what happened to her, and what if she doesn’t come home.
Who is going to hang in there with Dad then.