Grains of sand, which despite what they say are not countless, suffer from Alzheimer’s. They lose their memory in the winter; they don’t remember the little child who tried so very hard to fit the entire sea into his plastic bucket; nor do they recall the colour of the bathers’ awnings. Until the avid seagulls arrive, the sand remains nothing more than a remnant of a desert map. I have stood before the same sea for many years. I decided to spend here as much of the time I had left –or as much of me as was left to time- for fear of the winter, which is invariable. When your pocketbook does not stretch far enough to withstand the winter of your years, the solution is clear: find a city where there is no winter. And if it turns out that that’s my city, well, even better, or at least not so bad. The problem is, the crisis is affecting even the landscape. There are few people in the street, and even fewer in the bars. Whatever will become of this bit of land with no sun?, one of Valle Inclán’s characters asked himself, speaking of Spain in general.

Fortunately, the wealth of the sun, which seems to be the only currency for many, still remains. We have experienced a period of poorly-distributed and foolish well-being, and now they are taking it all away. No more cranes or gigantic iron dinosaurs which were the cornerstone of our emerging economy. Now all you see are signs announcing “For Sale”. This is the ultimate campaign against illiteracy, since everyone is compelled to read them. If I could, I would buy a couple of flats because, in spite of our current hardships, I believe in and trust my land and my sea. What do we consider poverty? Living with less? Certainly something rather different than what the hundred or so sub-Saharan immigrants who floated in on leaking boats further up the coast from this deserted beach call it, and yet we use the same word. Among those immigrants were eight women and a handful of children, no different from those who next summer will try yet again to fit the entire sea into their plastic bucket.