Mambrino's Helm
He woke up that morning with the feeling that something was wrong, something was missing in his life, and it was necessary to do something urgent, but he did not know what the hell it was, because now that he was finishing his sixty lap around the sun, the economic barrier that he had proposed building to protect his family was stronger than ever.
And then he stared in the gloom at the four fingers of his left hand with the thumb bent towards the palm and counted them one by one, starting with the index finger, while taking them in turn, with the index and thumb on the right, as The old man at the gas station advised him last week, so that he could understand his life.
Through the first finger he flew by, because from zero to twenty he had been a ripper of the impossible, and he had the courage it took to get out of his parents' bag and go to Mallorca with a chef's hat, just like Uncle Paco's, who was your only reference.
There he met the woman he had dreamed of to accompany him in his battles and he married her, without passing through the blue of his decisions, not the slightest doubt. They went to live in rent and arrived between woes and sweats of his queen, the first heiress of the family.
Look where the bills grew along with the girl, and she had to sell more hours of her life to pay for the necessary things. And he realized why the old man had told him that this was the stretch of mistakes.
Between the ages of twenty and forty he adjusted the sails several times, he remembered being fully awake, and it seemed to him that now they were still scrutinizing those rogue survivors that the old man had under his eyebrows. And therefore he wanted to put the cards on the table and play fair, to clear up the enigma of what was missing in his existence.
Soon he knew that getting on the car of others and working for them, was typical of lambs that need a shepherd and flock to move, while the light of his memories was that of the cinemas that gradually illuminates when the show ends, where he could also see his expression of complacency at the proficiency he achieved in the risk-taking stretch, according to the old man's philosophy.
And the images of his resignation as head chef when he was doing the best seemed to caress some part of his body, despite his wife's screams because they would starve to death along with the four children, who had not stopped arriving in those first years of coexistence.
It was like walking a tightrope without a safety net, looking into the eyes of a restaurant chain owner and putting a bait on the hook, so juicy that it was impossible to refuse.
- I could take care of one for a third of the profits, he said.
He rolled up his sleeves to the elbows and tightened his belt as much as he could, made renovations in the kitchen, punched the bar, and told the older bartender that if he wanted to continue, things would be done his way.
But soon the days of obligations and routines began to cloud with the consequent expenditure of energy, and his bank account was getting fatter with the nutrients that his body lacked. In front of our noses he never spent a moment of calm, not a single Sunday afternoon with that blessed boredom of when he was a simple cook. There were changes in the chemistry of his fluids, the pancreas went on strike, and the doctor told him to take some pills while he was still breathing.
His wife learned to dress to show off her friends and relatives and their children to play alone, while his grandparents lived as if the smallest of their offspring had died. And his spine bristled as he realized that perhaps he had worn Pyrrhus' crown for too long.
Then he released the middle finger and lowered the curtain of his second twenty years of life, his eyes lost in the ceiling while outside the Sun took over half the sky.
A little before taking the third finger, corresponding to the next piece of life, an elegant man entered his establishment who looked openly, and they talked about opportunities for half an hour.
The next day they met and signed an agreement and right there he spent two nights in January mulling over a chimera, crouched in the undergrowth of fear until he jumped and on the third day he told his wife that the restaurant was going to take wind to be free and dedicate yourself to sales. She looked at him without saying a word and was constipated for three days because of the fear that her husband had loosened some nut, but she said nothing more out of love than fear. (To be continued)
