Ventura, fuerte
12 May, 2022

The world scares me, these last two years and the last two months in particular, but on that island I felt unreasonably happy for at least two days. It was 35 degrees when we arrived, a thick, white haze hovering over the island like smog, while a storm of hot wind raged over its dried out, treeless plains and hills. I couldn’t take my eyes off the landscape stretching out from the back of the house. A sort of gravel pit with a goat farm, that gradually turned from yellow to grey to reddish and deep brown, to pitch black. I took a shower to cool off, reluctant to put any clothes back on, in the comfort of warm air streaming into the house from the patio. The little house was barely holding it together. I didn’t sleep much, listening to the new sounds - roaring, squeaking, cracking - in this strange place that had yet to be discovered.

In the morning I washed away a fine layer of dust and sand collected on the dining table, and pretty much everywhere else.