From the backyard I hear my cell phone ringing in the distance. I stop pulling out the bush and return to the house to answer the call. Sometimes I don't arrive on time and some get tired of waiting and don't call back. But this time the ringing is continuous.
I pick up and the one on the other end is my friend Rafael. He is a few years younger than me and is also retired. Very excited Rafael tells me that he finally made it, that he has been able to buy his air conditioner; in recent times he had been missing it a lot. Having this device was an old dream that could not come true.
And it's not that my friend needed the air conditioner to protect himself from the heat. His house is actually quite cool. He needed it mainly to isolate himself from outside noise, to have a place to be quiet.
Rafael lives with his wife and two of his daughters, and each of the daughters has a small child. A good part of Rafael's day is spent, along with his wife, taking care of the grandchildren while his daughters work.
Understandably, by the early evening hours my friend is already quite tired and he wants to sit down to rest, watch some TV, listen to music or read a book. But all of that is made difficult for him by the hustle and bustle of the children and their daughters.
Every time Rafael visits me he usually comments that he would love to have a quiet house like mine, he keeps saying that having so much tranquility must be a blessing.
And indeed, having such tranquility is a blessing. My wife and I live alone and most of the time we can have a very quiet environment, which makes it easy for everyone to go about their business without being interrupted.
However, people are never totally content with what we have and sometimes I am a little envious of Rafael and would love to see my granddaughters running around the yard as well. Although it's likely that before long I would get tired just like my friend. The hustle and bustle always hits as the years go by.
But I'm not going to make the mistake of complaining, solitude has many advantages. Especially if one has certain interests such as reading.
An indispensable condition to be able to enjoy a good book is to be able to read it in silence, without disturbing noises that take one's concentration away.
These days in my area we are in the middle of the rainy season and this year the rains have been very intense. That situation makes that the humidity remains high, so it is more frequent that during the afternoons the mountain is cloudy and sometimes the fog arrives near my house.
It is those foggy afternoons that I most enjoy reading. As soon as I see the fog on the mountain I go out to the kitchen to prepare a thermos of coffee. I already know that on those afternoons I will drink several cups, much more than usual. So I leave it very diluted, so that the bitter taste can hardly be felt. When I prepare coffee that way I always drink it without sugar.
Recently, on one of those foggy afternoons, I started reading "No one on this earth", a book by a Spanish author I didn't know, Víctor del Árbol, an excellent writer of crime novels, the ideal genre to read little by little watching the fog through the window and taking small sips of hot coffee.
I liked the book very much, the author traps with his writing, he not only constructs his sentences well but also leaves very deep reflections.
However, for some readers the book may be a bit harsh. And it's not that it presents bloody or gruesome scenes. Nothing of the sort. Rather, it is a book that delves into human psychology. And perhaps that is why it is hard to read, because it presents a fairly realistic picture of the evil of some people. Which by the way can be in any acquaintance. The bad guys don't wear a mark on their foreheads to differentiate themselves from others....
It only took me about five afternoons to read that great novel, always with the-part of the loneliness and my hot-equipped cup of coffee. Now I am looking for some other reading to keep me entertained.
On Rafael's next visit I will recommend the book to him, I'm sure he will like it as much as I do, although it will be very difficult for him to have a quiet afternoon to read it, he will have to settle for doing it during the nights locked in his air-conditioned room...
Sometimes having a quiet solitary place can be a great advantage.
Thanks for your time.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version).
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