warm concrete and salty skin, notes from mallorca

A fragment from a moment against the afternoon sun is stuck in my memory.

The hot concrete under my bare feet, the same one a group of kids laid on, bellies down, no shirt, curls dripping salty water. A small, open white box held a bit of dirt and a few red worms. The white box also laid on the hot concrete, the shiny red worms reflected the sunlight.

Bread and worms were stuffed into the metal hook, that was then thrown into the water

they told us they were aiming for the big one, the tiny voices coming from tiny bodies, tiny hands holding the clear fishing line.

It did not take long, the water started to move faster, the shiny big grey fish was pulled out of the clear blue water and the tiny group of hands were fast to place it carefully inside the dark blue fishing net. Fast feet jumped from stone to stone, the hot air held the sounds of the pier and their happiness as the fish was placed inside a bucket of water as they prepared everything to try to catch another big one.

As the last worms made their way into the water, the tiny voices told me their dad was bitten by an eel a while back, he even had to go to the hospital. Just a few moments back we saw the dad, fishing pole in hand, a dark shiny eel hanging from the clear fishing line against the sparkling sea.

We made our way back to our spots under the sun. Back in between old and new friends, we drank espresso and talked as hours stretched by.