Stories of a Pandemic – part 8974 of 1835091
A crash in the subway and I almost threw my heart out of my mouth.
It has been 17 years since the hecatomic terrorist attack on the Madrid metro in 2004, when 191 people died, and almost four since the last incident in Barcelona, when a young man driving a van crushed dozens of people on one of the busiest avenues in the tourist center, killing 14 people.
For a long time, I remember, I avoided the Rambla, where the incident happened, and the built-up areas.
But it’s Friday, April 2021, and the red line car is packed with people. Mask. And silent. Since the pandemic, the Spaniard has started to lower the volume in public spaces, to speak less, to be more discreet. Miracle.
I wonder if I’m the only one whose heart has started, thinking about the bombs and now.
Among the floaters in the car I see a guy with a guitar. Another busker (busker, in macro-jê) in the Barcelona metro. They surface, along with the spring swallows, which usually arrive in Barcelona in April. The kabum / snap came from the half screwed, half fucked amp. I sympathize.
But the lady on the other end of the car, no.
Before the saying can make the first chord, it goes through:
– Shut up! CANNOT.CANT.NO.METRÔ! Don’t you know we are living in an epidemic ?!
In fact, lately there have been official posters with recommendations for silence and graphic SHHH in public places. Let me understand, with a flaw in the article, because none explicitly states that singing is prohibited.
Train car in Barcelona, April 2021 (Susana Bragatto / Folhapress)
***
Spain has recorded 10,598 new contagions in the past 24 hours, or 22.54 per 100,000 inhabitants, against an index of 37.98 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in Brazil, according to data last Thursday (15).
At the height of the pandemic, in April 2020, we reached 900 deaths per day in Spain, or 1.98 per 100,000 inhabitants. Brazil, in the past 24 hours, has recorded 3,774 deaths, or 1.78 per 100,000 population.
To date, 7% of the Spanish population has received two doses of the vaccine, and 19%, one dose, for a total of over 12 million injections. The government’s promise is to fully immunize 70% of the population by the end of the summer.
***
Return to the slamming blimblom wagon, passing through the Arc de Triomf station.
– Madam, I have a son, and I have no money… – he weakly tries to defend himself, the musician, who must be so many years old, his tanned skin, old tattoos diluted by the sun and for who knows how many clashes in life.
Out of the shadows, a second woman, wrapped in a lilac shawl that gave her a justiceira-mater harness, tavern:
– Shut up, madam. And, rustling the lilac shawl to the musician, like a conductor: Adelante! The man’s shoulders, covered in a cascade of gray curls and a shabby denim jacket, felt a few inches shorter than a minute ago. SING, urges the woman in the shawl, almost violently. Joy Joy!
And so, the first chords of “Un montón de estrellas” by Cuban Polo Montañez finally sounded, a strange song animated with pain in the elbow. “Because I’m in love / I’m an idiom-ooota….”
Then I saw that the musician was two years old and was very attentive. With the particular participation of the upset lady, who had already turned her back on the povis and was still disgusted, with vocal support: what a shame…. YOU ALL GO TO ICU! And people who die, they don’t think, do they?
End of story: the audience sided with the bard, applauding more than usual in this type of show at peak times and donating a thousand moediñas. It wasn’t a bomb, it was just another day, with a soundtrack of Cuban angst and salsa …