Above a certain restaurant on the Calle Madreselva, close to the marketplace in Toledo, where the food is excellent, and the drinks are cheap, is a studio apartment that holds a single armoire whose doors had never been able to fully close, and a bedframe that smells faintly of copper resinate based paint.
Twin windows look out over the yellow brick façades making up a narrow alleyway. The clocktower can no longer be seen peeking out behind the sloping roofs since a three-story house had been build several years prior.
The brimming late summer sun shines upon a desk that had once been a dining table. The elder resident no longer takes his meals at the apartment, as he prefers the company of the ever-busy tavern below. He had always been a social man. He didn't do well alone.
In his hands, the man holds a letter. It wasn't quality paper; a single leaf of brittle parchment that showed the wear and tear of its journey. It had once carried the depiction of the Iberian bear indigenous to Entrago. Now, the wax seal is broken.
The man breaths. Outside, the street is noisy, but he barely processes it. He pulls open the buttons of his collar and takes a deep breath, sinking slowly against the back of his chair. The creases around his eyes and mouth deepen. After an eternity, he then slides away the letter, and, in the same movement, reaches over the table to open a leather holder. A copper-alloy pen, some ink, and some parchment are placed with methodical care on the tabletop. As neither the pen nor the ink has been used for a long time, the point of the pen has corroded, the ink has dried away, and he is forced to rise and replace them.
He breaths. Then he buries his head in his hands, and slides them up to catch in his hair, already exhausted.
One mosquito out of the swarm that rests high on the wall, dares to come down. They don't often reside there, generally preferring the shallow stinking water-place behind the tavern. It's a slender thing. Delicate transparent wings and two or three long filaments on its body. But the man pays it no attention as he writes. He is used to them. Once, he used a swatter to ward away the mosquitoes— but he was never the one to get bitten.
The mosquito returns to the wall.
The pen halts. The man is hungry but knows it is still too early to go downstairs. He lays down his pen, and, placing both hands flat on the table, he rises from his chair and stands on the chair and raises up his arms to take down the carton that stands on the top of the armoire. Biscuits, he decides. They would do for now. The kind Maria enjoyed.
Had enjoyed.
The Madrilene biscuits dear Maria had enjoyed.
The Ferri lion heads outside seem to agree. But they seem to agree with anything, certainly when the mid-summer sun shines as it does today.