The demon of speed

The airport of Mallorca has grown like a bad disease on the plain of the island, once a fertile area of orchards and pasture. It can not be otherwise once you decided to feed the frenzied tourism industry. Thus arriving and leaving by boat from the port of Palma, which for many years was the most usual way to go to Barcelona, Valencia and the other nearby ports and islands, is now a rarity. Only those who have a phobia of flying, who must go by car or who have some strange and powerful reason, choose the sea. Two weeks ago we had one such reason to go to Barcelona by sea, and we remembered those rickety and extremely uncomfortable boats with a strong smell of diesel that we had before. But nowadays the ferryboats are large and comfortable, and, most important, you travel with them at a speed that still allows you to notice that you are traveling, that your body is moving from one place to another place. At a speed that allows you to adjust your thoughts and feelings to the infinite points of arrival making up a voyage, without leaving the soul behind at the starting point.


It was García Márquez to say that the maximum speed at which his soul could travel was about the passing of a donkey, and so after an air travel it took him days to meet his soul again. But this is already past time. Today, by contrast, it can also happen that our soul, so badly accustomed, proceeds faster than the boat and arrives in Barcelona before us, and that’s why we stroll about so impatiently on the board.

Даль рухнула, и пошатнулось время, Бес скорости стал пяткою на темя Великих гор и повернул поток, Отравленным в земле лежало семя, Отравленный бежал по веткам сок. Людское мощно вымирало племя, Но знали все, что очень близок срок.

Distance has collapsed and time shattered, the demon of speed has put its feet on the peaks of the highest mountains and diverted the brooks, poisoned seeds fell on the earth, poisoned fluid flew in the branches. The powerful tribe of humans has died out, all knew that the end was imminent. Anna Akhmatova, 1960