#WritealetterthisXmas

It has been a while since I wrote a letter to somebody. But for years I exchanged them with friends until, with the advent of email, writing letters became more of a rarity with longer and longer periods in between. I never took a decision to stop writing letters, but it happened all the same. And emails never replaced the joy of opening the postbox and finding a handwritten letter with your name on it, physical evidence that you had been somebody's undivided center of attention.

Recently we had to empty some shelves at home and I found a couple boxes full with old letters. A huge bunch of colourful envelopes of all sorts and sizes from a magnificent variety of people, including friends, siblings, parents and cousins. And spanning many years from as early as 1990, which is when I first went to England on my own until pretty much a couple of years ago. Just imagine the joy of rereading what was sent to me twenty or twenty five years ago! Rediscovering things that had long been forgotten. Savouring the choice of papers, admiring the myriad stamps and, at times, struggling to decipher the one or the other word or sentence. Did this or that joke have a second meaning at the time?

Many letters from special senders were nicely and meticulously packed by year. Others, mostly Christmas cards ans postcards, were just piled ones of top of others waiting to be sorted. For years. That is, until last week.

It is literally impossible to find such a treasure and leave it aside without opening the one or the other envelope. And once you start, it gets addictive! While rereading a couple of letters of somebody that I met 19 years ago, I was made aware that her birthday was just less than a week away. Normally these days this would have been a case for a hastily taken photo and a quick email message. But then, fortunately, I paused a few seconds to think. Would it not be best to return some of the joy I had just had? So I sat down in the kitchen and wrote a fully fledged letter. Two A4's pages. Double sided. Which, with my small handwriting, means a fair amount of catching up and, I'm pretty sure of this, an unexpected surprise for her.

So this got me thinking, would it not be great if this year I send letters to some dear friends besides the electronic greetings? Even better, would it not be fantastic if I convince others to follow suit and send letters as well? Not just to me, but to whoever they want to. This would spread the joy to many others. These days of social networks many things get viral, so why not this? Well, if you ask me, definitely worth trying...

And then I had yet another idea, what would my friends feel if I pick up one of their letters from twenty years ago and I send them along with mine? I know I would certainly like to receive copies of old letters of mine, and if anybody ever kept them and happens to be reading this, by all means, please go ahead!. I never kept a diary so this would be the closest to it, reading the thoughts of the younger me (or lack thereof!).

Right, the challenge is out, the hashtag is there, spread the message to your loved ones and, above everything else, #WritealetterthisXmas.

Just because...

JC closed the gap to the shelves which contained books in Spanish.
There were not that many volumes and, as it would be expected from a bookshop in downtown Berlin, it just contained mainstream authors.
People usually go to bookshops in order to buy books, right? Well, he was there to leave one instead. More specifically, one written by him.

He had collected his old short stories in a forty-odd page booklet and had published it with lulu.com. The most immediate result was this crazy idea of his, so crazy in fact that it may even work out well. He was not in the book selling business, in which he faced so much competition, but in the business of gifting smiles to people. And this you can do in many varied ways, for example giving something unexpected, be it a photo, some candy, or a short story...

Just as he was about to step out and look for one of those big red sofas a thought blazed through his mind. What if the book ends up in a bin? What is an average German bookshop assistant supposed to do with a book which she cannot understand and is so obviously not her business? Well, possibly the same a Spanish bookshop assistant would do with a German book with no ISBN and no marked price. Whatever the chances, he set out to spend the evening there, pretending to be reading that big photo book but actually keeping his eyes and mind fixed on that shelf.

Five minutes later the first person approached the Spanish section. He had a quick look at "La sombra del viento", checked the price and left without even sparing a second look at the other books. He had obviously known what he was looking for well in advance and not the kind of person JC was waiting for. What a waste of adrenalin, he thought.

A bit later a young lady appeared, walking lazily from shelf to shelf, like a negative print of the previous bestseller predator. As she was making her way along the aisle, her finger touching the covers of the books, tenderly caressing them, recognizing the titles and the authors and maybe remembering those long hours isolated from everything while enjoying the reading. When the finger reached the "C" section, it stopped abruptly, exactly at the same time JC´s heart did. She took the book with care, surprised at not recognizing neither the author nor the title. As the back cover did not provide any further information, there was no other way to find out what it was about, but to start reading it. Two pages, two short stories and an eternity later she looked around, half curious, half amused. Slowly, very slowly, with her utmost innocent look, she let the book drop into her bag and continued her gentle stride for a few minutes. Eventually she headed towards the exit and disappeared in the crowd.

JC took a deep breath, closed the book in his hands and left. On the way home he was thinking of the handwritten note that the girl had found:
"This book is not for sale, it has no ISBN and it doesn't belong to the bookshop inventory, so if you ask, they will claim it is not theirs. Take it home with you, read it slowly, one page and one short story at a time. When you are finished with it, bring it back to this bookshop so that somebody else can enjoy it."

PS: The bookshop is Hugendubel in the Schlossstrasse, if you pass by, the book may have already been brought back...

Farewell (he)

We were walking side by side, hand in hand, with regular strides. She was dressed completely in black, her boots, her trousers, her pullover and her coat, curiously enough just the same as me. But maybe it was not by chance, but a mere treason from our subconscious. Silence reigned, each of us deeply absorbed in our thoughts, and the only existing communication between us was a slight press of the hand now and then. As for me, it was precisely when my mind failed to find the reasons, so it would exchange frustration for the desire of keeping her with me forever. Another important detail was the suitcase, her suitcase.

Now, being a few steps away from the station, reason seemed to dim. The last days had gone for me as if in a dream, unable to understand what was really going on, sometimes blinded after yet another bitter discussion, thinking up impossible solutions, feeling a part of me was being torn apart, and watching her get ready to leave. How many times have I gone mentally through everything, again and again, trying to find a non existent flaw? Even thinking back now makes my soul hurt, that intense, special pain that both destroys and drowns you deep inside. It’s not the pain you feel for a lost loved one, it is … Well, I cannot explain it with words, but even if I could, what would be the difference? None. And you cannot blame it on someone else. That’s a bad thing about life, it is neither fair nor it pretends to be so, and I’m not saying this just out of disenchantment, no, it’s just a lesson I learned, just that.

We stopped a few meters before reaching the main door, a door I knew I would not walk through. She turned around to face me, and something in my face and in my blue eyes showed her this pain I could not describe before, as she caressed my face with her left hand at the same time as she tried to encourage me with her eyes. Being touched by her proved to be even more painful because she was also suffering and, even so, you could not tell from her face, at least not any more than from her reddened eyes. The suitcase hit the floor with a dull noise as I hugged her, burying my face into her hair. My whole body was trembling, like that distant night in a deserted square back in Madrid, where everything began such a long time ago. As it happened then, I could feel tears coming down my face, and that imperious need to abandon myself to the sobs.

I stepped aside, still holding her in my arms and scarcely murmured: “Good bye, ______, please, take care” She drew her lips to mine, one more time, the last one, and replied to me with a shattered voice: ”Yes, ______, you take care, too. Good bye”

And that was the end. She took her suitcase and headed for the entrance while I wiped another tear. I stood there for a moment, watching her leave, seeing how she disappeared from my life through the door. Probably there were lots of people around, I don’t know, I can’t remember. But I can distinctly remember that she turned around for one endless second. Maybe she wanted to know if I was still there, maybe she wanted to keep one last image. That one closing a story.


I wrote the original Spanish version of the short story on January 17th 1999, a rainy Sunday in Armilla Air Base. I had stayed in the Base so that I could do some reviewing for an upcoming exam on Weapons (one of the subjects during the three months there). But then, inspiration arrives when it arrives...

It´s been now a long time but I haven´t corrected anything. I would probably translate some bits differently. Not that it matters...

Farewell (she)

Finally we had decided to go walking to the station. Not that we had a really good reason for this, if anything to stretch the farewell out a bit more. We used as an excuse to ourselves the fact that the station was quite close to home and that the suitcase was not that heavy. In fact it was me carrying it and not him, in spite of his gentle offer. But then, it was also me who was leaving him, and not the other way round. So even if only symbolically it was also me the one to take the load. I was just taking with me a few important things, the rest was stored in boxes with those big labels with my new address. He had written each and every one of them, as if, afraid of losing it, tried to learn them by heart. Well, I was sure he already knew it, he had always been good at that. In the last few days we had been specially attentive to each other, more than usual, so whenever we were not in the middle of yet another bitter discussion, we were draining the last moments together, the end clearly approaching in our minds. Now, as we walked in silence, I could feel his hand pressing mine now and then for no apparent reason. I guess he was also thinking over all the things that had happened to us in the last few months, maybe too many not to surrender to pain. I never thought things would turn out this way, but it was the best option nevertheless. Affection was not enough for me to go on, and I couldn’t borrow some of his love. No matter how big it could be, it was not enough to fill my needs. And then, it wasn’t enough either that he were deeply in love with me, besides he should have known how to love me, and come to this point, he had shown more often than not how inexperienced he was. Even now he couldn’t understand it all, but I was confident that he would see with different eyes all that he was unable to see now, blinded by present as he was.

I stopped before reaching the main entrance, ready to put an end to it there and then. There was no reason for him to enter with me. When I turned to him I could read in his blue eyes that life was going to be really hard for him once I left, but time heals everything. Not that pain is less intense later, but it rather vanishes faster. I knew this from my former experience, and now the time had come for him to learn this bitter lesson of life. I would rather have explained all of this to him, but I just looked into his eyes and caressed his cheek with my left hand. As I was touching him I felt myself faint and dropped the suitcase, which hit the floor with a numb noise as he hugged me. He was trying hard not to give away to tears and tremblings, quite as it happened that far away first time in Madrid, as if he were a big boy, beaten by emotion.

After an endless second, he stepped apart, just enough to say “Good bye, ______, please, take care.” I drew myself closer to kiss him and cherish him once more, and in an effort I replied “Yes, _____, you take care, too. Good bye.” In fact it would have been better to ask him to forget me as soon as possible, but best things are not always the most sensible ones. And he wouldn’t have understood, not then, and specially not if it was me the one trying to explain it...

I took my suitcase again and turned round, unable to see him cry, determined not to look back. However, just before going through the door I betrayed myself and turned round to see him leave. But all I could see was him standing, hoarding the seconds, each and every one to the last. I turned round once more, feeling the relief of closing another chapter in my life, maybe not the happiest nor the most satisfactory one, but I had been honest right to the end. Suddenly I realized that it was effectively the end, but it was not quite so, it was just a new beginning, and even more important, it was a new beginning for both.


I wrote this short story some time in Summer 1999, while I was doing my military service in Torrejón Air Base. It is the second part of "Farewell (he)" and I think I actually wrote the translated version shortly after writing the original one in Spanish.