He had reached the age to retire. His job consisted of serving clients and friends in an office set up in a room in his house. He never wanted to retire just because he was getting older; he liked his job. His office was lined with pine shelves up to the ceiling, full of professional books, Nobel Prize winners, Nadal, Planeta, Pulitzer, encyclopedias, novels on different subjects and writers. One day, pensive, looking around, with bifocals on his nose, he decided to retire to put his library in order. He ordered a stamp to be made. from books with his name to mark his copies. He wanted to leave them as an inheritance to his children. He accumulated piles of volumes on the table to proceed to mark and number them, but he died without finishing. The children shared out the marked books that interested them, and those they did not want and those that were not marked were put in several cardboard boxes and taken to public libraries.
Pilar Valero Chapel. Zaragoza
Lack of solidarity
A certain political and social sector in our country is telling us that the economic agreement reached by the PSOE and ERC will lead to more inequality between Catalonia and other communities. I have not read it and I do not know if it is true. What I do know is that in the community where I live, Madrid, thanks to the neoliberal decisions of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the government generates inequality among citizens through a tax policy that harms the most disadvantaged and rewards those who have more. This translates into events that we suffer daily, such as the deterioration of health care or education. Isn’t that a lack of solidarity, Ayuso?
Javier Esteban Fernandez. Madrid
Fairground atmosphere
It is time for the main festival in our villages. In the countryside, the earth has cracked and the trees are losing charred leaves. In the streets, rivers of youth burst the seams of the corners, so accustomed to emptiness. And we tell a lie to the life of the village: nobody has left and we are all who we were again. But, in the midst of the roar of firecrackers and orchestras, the air of the fair will sneak in again. When you notice its arrival, your skin crawls and life stops for a few seconds. While you savor a moment of happiness, that air carries a cold thought: everything is over. You remember that the village will remain hollow, the tree will be stripped, the earth will be green and, in a year, it will be a fair again.
Juan Muñoz Villanueva de la Conception (Malaga)
Depression doesn’t take a vacation
When depression knocks on your door, summer can be the worst time of the year. That sudden stoppage of a routine that you cling to to keep you going disappears, and silence falls upon you, like a great wave of the sea that you go to on vacation trying to escape thinking that, far from home, your head will rest from that battle that is fought daily in your mind. But the war continues on the beach or in the mountains and, the greater the silence, the louder the noise that vibrates in your chest.
Carla Belda Rubio. Valencia
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