THE ANT AND THE CRICKET

Alejo: Protection.

Tristán: Sadness.

Izarre: A star.

Weak. Tristán felt weak. He felt the heat squash his shoulders and feebleness was his sole companion. Everyday. He couldn’t even think about his complaining, because he had always this endless torment of being broken into little pieces. Tristán felt he was wasting away, now seeming older. His worries turned into sweat drops seeping out through his skin.

It was another night in Granada. Tristán’s head was not giving him a rest. Thinking and thinking. Deeming himself. He is here because he left home. He left home because he felt the deeply need of building his own space. He felt that way because he was blocked. For the first time he was feeling a little bit more free and lonely. But it wasn’t that easy.

It was a new night in Granada. Tristán and Alejo were lied down in a wood bench on the balcony, almost naked. The stars were visible. That morning rained and the night looked fresh and cloudless. More than ever, along those four months in Granada, Tristán was feeling homesick. He missed everything he had at his home. He was remembering such little things he wouldn’t pay attention when he was there. “The smell of the road it’s different here”, he thought. Also the light was different, and the sound of the silence too. Everything was different except the sky. He was gazing at the stars when he remembered Izarre. He missed her. “She’s expecting me but I’m not coming back”. Like a refugee in no man’s land, far from the mountains, Tristán knew that he was not coming back to his village. He realized when he thought about that name - Izarre. What Izarre meant to him was enough reason for not coming back. And he felt not up to talk openly to Alejo, the man who was sharing the pleasant nighttime under the sky. He didn´t want to talk about his feelings and besides, Alejo didn’t know a thing about his past, just what he could saw from him and what Tristán wanted to show him. 

They had been lied down for a while enjoying the dark. Alejo turned to Tristán.

”Try not to think for five minutes in absolutely nothing.” Alejo held Tristán’s head and gazed him mercifully.

”It’s not that easy.” Tristán said and he flashed him that bitterness look. “The simple fact of considering not thinking in anything for five minutes it pushes me up to think compulsively.”

A short silence reigned. Tristán turned his head back to the stars, back to that blurry star in the dark.

”It takes me so much letting my mind a blank.” Tristán went over his resentment.

”OK! Two minutes. You know you can. Don’t think in anything during two minutes.”

Alejo was convinced in proving some kind of therapy on Tristán.

Tristán’s knew that he denied trying things harder but he also knew that he needed other issues, other context or another path where he could had started again and better.

Tristán looked at Alejo with the intention of showing him his resentment to the test.

”Think in anything else. Think in something it’ll distract you.” Alejo said to him.

Tristán’s view did already stop in front of other stars before Alejo finished talking. He just found Orion’s constellation and stared at it. He was dazzled.

”Think in the stars.” Alejo said.

”I’m already focusing in Orion”. Tristán pointed him with the fingers the ethereal place where the constellation was supposed to be. “Can you see it? Can you recognize it?”

”Yes.” Alejo noticed and gazed at Orion. “In fact, it is the only constellation that I’m able to recognize.”

It was a long moment. They were alones, hugged, semi-naked and in silence, gazing the immensity. Converged first in Orion and then in the rest of all, like searching something, any kind of signal or reply.

”Why do you think people don’t take a break to gaze at the stars? This way, nothing else, lied down and relaxed looking up to the sky, becoming not to worry about things.” Alejo was decided to enjoy a nice and deep stay.

”Routine and stress move us I guess. We are not capable of enjoying little things like tasting a cigarette’s drag or just appreciate what surrounds you.” Tristán continued.

Even Tristán was incapable of doing it. While he was spitting out all those believes, he was knocking on his head trying to get his own awareness. He wasn’t able to enjoy that precise moment.

”The universe is here for us and we don’t know how to use it. Any depress worry or discomfort fades away when we gaze at the stars.” Alejo was feeling seduced by Orion.

”There’s no mean to say that what you just said make us trivial. Something that huge above us remains us to nothing when we raise our look to the top.” Tristán carried on.

A Big silence again. An easy and cozy silence at least. Tristán didn´t remove his look from the sky, in spite of the fact that Alejo was searching desperately a complicity look from him. “What the fuck is he thinking about?” Alejo thought. He was feeling rejected and disappointed from Tristán in many occasions and that kept him very nervous, but he was able to stand it. Sometimes, Alejo didn’t understand Tristán, despites he was making to much effort, but he never wanted to press him. He knew that Tristán was living a weird experience in another place and with a man - with him. He could felt his weakness and worries but he was there to protect him. Lain down and hugged to the man he loved was enough for Alejo.

Alejo sweetly nipped his lips trying to look for the best words to say what he wanted to say in that moment.

”Before meeting you I was looking at Orion from here without knowing that you were looking at the same stars too.”

Tristán listened to Alejo’s words a repeated them for himself. He looked at Alejo and shyly smiled but he couldn’t stand that look for too long so he went to Orion. But he kept that smile, feeeling sympathy for him.

”Now I am predestinated to remember you every time I look at Orion.” Tristán said after a short silence.

Alejo stopped and thought for a minute. He knew some kind of sympathy was meant on what Tristán just said, and that annoyed him in somehow. He didn’t want to go and asking him why he just said that dire words full of compassion and sarcasm. It was an awkward moment so he changed the subject.

”Do you remember in the movie The Hours.” Alejo went with a particular scene from that movie which both of them had watched it recently. “When Clarissa, Meryl Streep, says to her daughter that she was remembering that morning when she woke up in dawn with that sense of possibility feeling and she was thinking that it was the beginning of happiness, where all starts and more will come. But it wasn’t the beginning of…?”

”Yes.” Tristán interrupted him. “It wasn’t the beginning of happiness. It was happiness”. Tristán stopped for a while to think about those words. He felt so sad.

”It’s too sad, Alejo.” Tristán said.

”What?” Alejo was so deeply inside of his own words that he didn’t listened what Tristán just said.

”It’s such a depressing feeling.” Tristan repeated. “When you are in the top of the mountain you believe yourself being in the bottom of it climbing to reach the peak. You’re living a glorious moment in your life. Things go quite good and you feel relieved because you believe being in a chance. But new stones appear in the road, it is nothing new, you’ll have to either kick them or carry them. We think a lot in the future without knowing how to enjoy the present, without taking a break to look up at the stars. It’s like when you take dinner after being cooking for two or three or whoever there are and while you’re eating dinner you’re thinking what to cook next day.”

In somehow Tristán’s posing reminded some tale to Alejo.

”Do you know about the ant and the cricket tale?” Alejo asked Tristán.

”It seems familiar to me, but tell me.” Tristán responded him. He had heard about some cricket and an ant tale but he couldn’t remember it at all. He was wondering some kind of fable about the hard workers versus dreamers.

”Ok!” Alejo cleared one’s throat before starting to narrate the whole story. “One hot summer in some lovely place a cricket was singing cheerfully on the branch of some tree while down below many ants were working hard to recollect grains for the wintertime. The cricket, which seemed to be astonished, spoke to the ants and asked them “Why are you working so hard when you can enjoy peacefully this lovely summer day? Come and sing with me.”  But the tired ants went on with the hard work and told him “We must collect all the grains we can to survive the cold winter.” The cricket spent the whole summer singing and enjoying summertime and when the winter came he went to the ant and asked him to share some of his grain with him, so the ant asked the cricket “And what was you doing all this time back? You weren’t keeping food for the winter?” The hungry cricket told him “I was singing gladly songs all the summer.” The ant smiled and said to the cricket “Singing, huh? So go dancing now!”

Tristán remembered that fable after Alejo recited to him. His face filled with a contemplative smile thinking about the meaning of the tale. Alejo was staring at him and he couldn’t resist the act of resting his head on his chest. He hugged him strongly and kissed his cheek sweetly. Tristán responded, he nicely closed his eyes and kissed him on his forehead. He held him lovely. For the very first time, Alejo felt Tristán’s protection.

”So, what are you, the ant or the cricket?” Alejo asked.

”We both are the cricket” Tristán didn’t think it twice and he laughed openly. Alejo followed him with the laughs.

”Yes, we both are the cricket but I don’t want to be the ant.” Alejo said convinced and proud.

Jordi Boldú. Arguineguín, November 24, 2011.