Ines´s journey (by Guillermo Gutierrez)

(Original version in Spanish at author´s blog: http://falsoprofeta.wordpress.com/)




Ines is uneasy, she feels a strange emptiness in her stomach, but she is not hungry, she just ate a whole anteater.

From her window she looks at the harbour, searching for news from him, but they do not come, so she decides to go and try to find some comfort among the seagulls.

While she walks listening to the sound of the waves, she is distracted by a flutter of clumsy wings: twelve geese and a big pelican land in front of her.

-Hello, -says Inés- You can fly, you have to take me far away from here, I need to see him!

The geese shrug and, with some effort, raise Ines in the air and slowly get lost among the clouds.

Some hours later Ines is deadly bored; as everybody knows, geese do not speak a lot and, to make matters worse, the pelican will not stop telling bad jokes, so Ines yawns and, in a moment of distraction, falls into the Mediterranean. The geese do not even realize that they lost their load…

Ines falls asleep surrounded by the waves, only to wake up and find a shipwrecked man looking at her and drinking rum on a wooden board. Now that she is awake, it is harder to float on the water, so she joins the man on the wooden board.

He does not say a word, but he holds out a very scarred hand that ends in a bottle of the best rum in the Caribbean…

- Hello, mister shipwrecked man, I am looking for my boyfriend… do you know the way to Azerbaijan?

The emaciated man shrugs and points somewhere and, after making sure of getting back his precious rum, he suggests in a hoarse voice that she follows a group of dolphins.

Shortly after that Ines finds the dolphins, who receive her very merrily, twirling in the air above her. Suddenly, one of the dolphins accidentally hits Ines on the head with his fin and they all roar in laughter.

But Ines does not forget her goal and, laughing with them, convinces the dolphins to take her where he is.

Riding on a dolphin, Ines encounters a cruise full of tourists that look like crabs and greet her happily. Ines bids goodbye to her new friends and climbs on the ship.

Ines tells her story, which moves the crew´s hearts, who eventually decide to keep her onboard and take her to Azerbaijan; but when everything seemed to go well, a bunch of pirates attacked the boat.

The pirates take everyone as hostages and make them jump from the board one by one, to serve as food for the sharks, who anxiously await their feast. Ines tells the pirates her story and moves their stone-hard hearts: they will take her to the nearest beach, but she will have to clean the deck.

Ines continues her journey from the beach. Everything around her is sand and dust, and she is very tired, but she keeps walking at the same speed, every step takes her closer to him.

Some hours later she finds a shepherd resting surrounded by a bunch of camels. Ines wakes him up very excitedly and, gesticulating, explains that she needs to see her boyfriend.

The poor shepherd does not understand a word she says and, scared, decides to give this crazy occidental girl a camel so that she will go away and leave him in peace.

Ines thanks the shepherd for his help and continues her journey across the desert riding her camel.

Ines argues with the camel, it is the third time that he tries to bite her; the truth is the camel does not enjoy having to take this total stranger on his back, especially when she cannot stop pulling his ears.

Two bites and a carrot afterwards Ines and the camel have forgiven each other and, without noticing, have left hundreds of kilometres behind.

Ines reaches the Azeri border, but it is closed so she cannot pass. On the verge of despair, she sees a group of gunrunners who want to take arms into the country inside barrels of corn. Ines tells her story and once again they do not understand her, but she convinces them and crosses the border inside a barrel.

The gunrunners leave her after some kilometres and she continues her journey alone.

Ines sees a junk deposit and, rummaging in it, finds a red old bicycle. Pedaling and pedalling she feels how she gets nearer to her boyfriend, her heart beats and she accelerates, she is almost there and she will not surrender…

And finally, she is there. At her feet, great rooks and powerful armies, commanded by the cactus collector, the valiant armies fight and die, but it doesn´t matter anymore, because she is there, and this war just turned into a child´s play.

Because, the truth is, there is still nothing in the world that can stop it from being worth it.