August sometimes goes in Malaga on until the end of October. The sun keeps its hat on, and the Mediterranean maintains its lake-like quality. The holiday season continues, but not the holidaymakers. They have all now gone, all except for one who still leaves his footprints in the sand. I watch him from my balcony, the ugly sin of envy threatening to take hold of me. It is an unproductive feeling. Or to put it better, one which produces only mute resentment, while seeming also to weaken our bodily self-defences. I try to struggle against the sensation as I watch the comings and goings of this middle-aged man who evidently has little to do, but who is doing what I would like to be doing.

Who is he? What is his name? What has his past life held? I would like to get to know him, but I am too old now to be heading down to the shoreline in October, or in any other season of the year, in the pale blue dressing gown which Legrá gave me when he retired from boxing. When you think about it, in order to become someone's friend a whole series of enigmatic coincidences are required. The first, to be not only in the same place but at the same time. How many kindred spirits must there have been whom we have never even spoken to? They lived in another time, or another city, or perhaps right on our street, but the inescapable fact is that we never met them.

The unknown stroller on the shore wears swimming trunks, in other words practically nothing, but never ventures across the murmuring border marked by the gentle lapping of the waves. It is clear that he sings his song not even to a possible companion, or perhaps that his own thoughts are all he requires as he walks along. It is not that I would like to be like him, but rather that I would like to be him. One of these days, after so many years, I will take it upon myself to go down to the beach, and even if I get sand in my shoes, walk up to him and ask: Who are you, my friend?