Our own thought and imagination are the wings with which we can fly and those who want to have control over us will always want to tie them with fear. However, our human abilities, under the great power of love, can break those chains.
CHAPTER I
How do you live in La Sanity?
In the country of Sanity, imagination is the greatest madness.
Those who dare and imagine are considered traitors and rebels … sentenced to exile.
In this nation, the rules that benefit the current ruler are faithfully followed. People don’t dare to go against it, because Sanity is all they know.
Being declared insane is the greatest offense in that country.
In La Sanity, everyone gets up at the same time. They do the same activities every day.
They do not smile at the neighbor, or hug on birthdays; they do not congratulate on special days and wearing warm colors is heresy.
To be born in that country is to refuse to contemplate a life abroad.
Coloring is not an option in Sanity; the last person who dared to do so was executed in front of everyone.
Shhh! My skin crawls just remembering it.
In La Sanity there are no love marriages, in fact, it is easier to go through the fire and not get burned than to find two people who come together for love.
Love goes against everything that is believed in that country, because if you love it means that you imagine, if you imagine, you smile and if you smile, you infect with your laughter.
That would be the end in the country of Sanity.
As you can see, here everything is gray, when you are young nobody knows that you live in sadness, because that is the normal state. They do not know the opposite, it is not even named.
Everybody is condemned to live like this and nobody bothers to change it.
Everyone who resisted no longer lives to tell about it.
We suggest: The Ballad of Dante (Tales of Saturday afternoon)
***
On the day that Felix turned 20, he left home to go to his job, the most boring in the world: stacking piles of paper in a basement where there is no electricity. In addition to this good fortune, the boy was also tall, thin, with black hair and shoulder length. Bushy eyebrows. His teeth were perfect and yellow: they were his weapon of seduction, I know because someone else told him one day.
That day, in the midst of the tedium of his work, Felix had a strange feeling, it was not the same as every day. While he was doing his work, something peeked between his eyes, it was very similar to the drops of water that slide down the glass of his window on a very rainy day. The feeling persisted until the end of the day.
When they got home, Felix asked his dad if he had felt anything like this before. And it turned out that it was. He couldn’t tell her his name, he didn’t know. In the male-to-male talk, he insisted that it was normal at 20. “Everyone has been through the same thing.” He also told her that at first that was something strange but that later she could get used to it.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsFelix accepted the answer, made the bed, went to sleep and, as always, did not dream anything.
EPISODE 2
The dreamer has awakened.
***
As he was stubborn and curious, Felix did not settle for a basic answer, he wanted to know more. But how was he going to find out more about that strange feeling, if all he had to find out was that, a strange feeling and his father’s testimony? Surely other people would tell him the same thing. To risk asking was to seem weird. In La Sanity almost everyone was strangers and it happens that a sane person never talks to strangers.
However, the stubborn Felix was still determined to know what that feeling was. Deep inside him he knew that if he could name it, something incredible could happen, something other than all the gray that he saw every day.
After several days of work packing papers at the Ministry of Normality, Félix found a file that left him speechless. The strange sensation he was having was called sadness, his antidote was happiness and the way to have the antidote was imagination. According to the manifesto he found, in Sanity everyone had to feel sad when they turned 20, and those who ignored it were considered honorable citizens. But if you followed his trail, you were beheaded for finding happiness, because happiness was highly addictive.
It may interest you: Drought (Saturday afternoon stories)
In the afternoon, Felix returned home and acted as if he knew nothing. But from that day on he devoted himself to secretly imagining. He got up every day and colored the clothes of his neighbors and the cold buildings of his city. I was happy imagining and nobody noticed.
In his imagination, she had long, sunset-colored hair. Her smile was the best adornment, and her lips were red and full. She wore flowery dresses and converse shoes. Since he saw it, he could never think of anything else, it got into his head like a catchy song that played every day. Her name was Leticia.
Because he was shy, Felix never dared to speak to her, but he watched her all the time in the most beautiful places of his imagination. The dock, next to the tobacconist, in the viewpoint, in the forest and in the garden. What Felix didn’t know is that she was real and he also imagined it. She died for him, just as he died for her. But that strange feeling would surely be forbidden.
Both in their imagination had incredible moments, the initiative was hers because it was more risky, they complemented each other perfectly. They walked the parks, they ate ice cream, he smiled when he saw her sing, run or dance. They knew they loved each other, but it couldn’t be real, if the Sanity guards saw them smile, they could get into serious trouble. His only alternative was to keep imagining.
The advantage of it being imaginary is that they could take each other anywhere they went, they could always be together. The condition was to act normal when meeting on the streets and never, ever, for any reason, think of a kiss. A kiss would make them smile and his smile would give away the love they had found.
We suggest: The calendar of papers (Saturday afternoon stories)
CHAPTER 3
Two trains, two courses.
It was true what those papers said that Felix found, when he discovered that the antidote to his sadness was happiness. Happiness was very addictive. Leticia had brought so much of that into her life that she wanted more and more.
They continued their imaginary romance by taking them everywhere, as always. However, as in all relationships, as in all things in life, they had to move forward, add an ingredient that would give them strength to their almost expired utopia. Felix was thinking about something as he rode the train home.
In an ordinary day, Leticia could not take it anymore, she broke the limit and kissed him in her imagination. In reality he smiled, very subtly, but enough for the people around him to notice. The scandal broke out and the guards chased her. Luckily and thanks to her beauty, it didn’t go beyond a scare and a warning. They had to do something.
Felix, for his part, had made a decision that cost him horrors. He put aside what was left of his sanity and in his imagination asked him to meet. He invited her to cross the border, but in reality, he proposed to circumvent the rules of Sanity and flee. To flee as the brave flee, to another nation where happiness was not a reason for condemnation.
Crack! Leticia dropped the crystal glass she had in her hands, out of fear that hearing such a proposal produced her. She was so scared by the threat that she had received minutes ago, but, also, she was ashamed that she had broken the limit that they promised to respect to keep their imaginary romance alive. She told Felix everything and he insisted on escaping.
It may interest you: The first rocking chair (Saturday afternoon stories)
As she thought about it, he was freaking out. They promised to meet in their imagination at midnight on the pier, next to the tobacconist, to receive an answer. When the time came, they both went to the place and luckily for Felix, Leticia had good news, she had decided to flee with him.
They agreed to meet inside one of the two trains, which left in opposite directions with no return, perfect for two lovers in search of a higher dose of happiness. They also agreed on the clothes they would wear the next day to be able to recognize each other, although it was impossible for him not to remember her red hair, her white skin and her full lips.
The moment arrived, they were more nervous than ever, they were finally going to be able to meet. Felix got on the train and waited eagerly. Leticia was already inside, just as restless. The train closed its doors, started engines, and started walking. To their bad luck, they forgot to agree on which of the two trains they should meet on, so they only saw each other through the window. They took trains with different directions, their lives went in opposite directions, and their imaginary romance could never become reality.
