The PA system explains to us – locals and tourists alike – that once we arrive in Sant Vicenç de Calders, due to construction work, we will have to take a bus that will take us to El Prat de Llobregat, where we can catch another train or the metro. Just in case, once the train arrives at its destination, I get off quickly and –boomer that I am– I ask the girl in the orange uniform: “Isn’t there a train that goes directly to Barcelona?”. “Oh, yes, but it takes an hour and a half”, she says. Then, I run towards an empty lot where the queue to get on the vehicle is forming. I see they are counting us. Diligently, I take the front seat, because I get motion sickness.
The driver sets off. He is a middle-aged man, but surprisingly plays heavy metal music at full blast. On the front window of the bus there are two blinds, in case the sun is too strong. The one in front of me is fully lowered. “Excuse me!”, I say to him. But he doesn't hear me, as he is busy humming, quite sincerely, the prophetic lyrics of “Highway to Hell”. I insist: “Listen?” Silence. “Hey!”, I say, finally. And this time it seems that the heavy metal doesn't prevent him from hearing me. Encouraged, I tweet: “Could you raise this curtain?” He shakes his head from left to right, and not because he wants to headbang with hair he doesn't have. It's to deny. “You can't”.
I try to sit on top of my coat and bag, as if I were in a high chair, to try to look over the screen that is blocking the infernal highway from me. It's no use. Seeing the sky makes me just as dizzy. I should be seeing the painted line on the asphalt. My family calls me. “Where are you?” I wish I knew. I start to salivate, and not because I'm about to taste a Bages chicken. “Well, I know you”, says a passenger next to me. I turn around, yellow like a gulp of soy milk. I try to smile. I pick up my handbag, which I bought in Andorra with some royalties and never imagined it would serve this purpose.
