Yellow Bird and other stories from Barcelona

by Kati Rapia

1.
South
Palmtrees!

2.
How can something so beautiful smell so bad?
Hard to say. Let's take it with us anyway.
Smell my hand!
Oh my! You'll just have to leave that hand here.

3.
Do you think we'll retain our vision by the time the photographs are ready?

4.
The bar with the best tuna-mayo sandwiches goes quiet.
How come I don't feel any lighter despite not having apartment, job nor money?

5.
What a nice flat!
Even with curtains!
It's dirt.

6.
Who could have thought that an air mattress would make such a nice bed.
Done!
Help, the seam can't take it!
So which side you want to sleep on?

7.
I'd prefer not waking up to sound,
but light...
and in addition to light, this kind of plant also needs water.

8.
Alright, it's time for us to leave.

9.
Look, what a nice sofa!
Do we need a sofa?
Of course we do, we don't have any furniture.
Phwew, this sofa definetly is a solid one!
Look, a giant fridge! Lucky us!

10.
As light enters a dark room
through a small hole
it projects the outside world onto the walls of the room.
I wonder if I could get a ride to the kitchen...

11.
-What have we here?
-What is happening here?

12.
Phwew, the heat is killing me
I'm also glued to the leatherette sofa.

13.
On days like this, when the temperature reaches 35 degrees...
worm of air, here I come.
It's hard to think of a nicer place in the city than a metro platform prior to the train arriving.

14.
Now that we have a new tap, it's hard to pass the kitchen without sneaking a glance.
There it is. Better see if it works again.
It's like the Niagara falls!
Well, there's more to my life than this.

15.
Quisiera un litro de pintura por favor. ("I'd like to have a litre of paint.")
Quisiera un...
De qué color?

16.
New lines!
Can't have enough of those.

17.
It's a terrier.
It's not so complicated, mother.
Gimme some 3-dimensional love!
These titles are now reserved for me!

18.
Oh no!
Voilà!
One must remember that there is a whole lot of suffering and real problems in this world.

19.
-It seems everything is closed!
-Shit!
-I'm starving to death!
-Hei, listen!
Even the biggest complainers deserve some rest.

20.
-There's a viewing platform.
-Don't go there! A car might come racing around the bend!
Aaaaa...
-That's where we would have fallen.
-And that's the tree that might have resqued us.

21.
-Imagine, if your picnic sandwiches wouldn't go all mushy.
-That would definetly destroy everything.

22.
Would you take a picture as I pick a mandarine?
Mandarines are definitive deserted island material.

23.
Somebody's painted over the smurfs!
Smurfie!
I can hear the breathing!

24.
-Where are you?
-Behind the beach of lineless tanning!
-No tan lines...
-Lines is what getting tanned is all about!
-Hi! I already fried!

25.
And how about this: a friend of mine's been accomodated on my floor for a couple of weeks,
this morning she was smoking a cigarette on a balcony and I asked one for myself since I'm out of money and cigarettes.
She replied having the principle of everyone buying their own cigarettes.
-Well, if it makes you feel any better, those who sin eventually burn in... sun.

26.
Look, a fortune telling bird!
-Take a pick.
-Isn't the bird going to do anyhing?
-It affects you when you pick.
I wonder if this was such a good idea after all...
"You'll marry a rich and handsome man at 28, but he's prone to drinking. You like to study and will become a teacher. You'll live to be 77."

27.
Finally she's here.
You know it's time to leave for home when you see pecking of cheeks between two finns.

28.
Start by making a small heap out of durum flour and dig a hole in the middle of it.
Place friends in living room.
Add seven eggs into the hole.
-Do you need help with pasta?
Mix the eggs and the flour.
-Don't come!

29.
My sister's been shopping for new shoes.
-Do you like them?
-Yes
-I suppose they'll move a bit like this when walking but I wonder
what they'll look like when they appear round the corner...
I see!

30.
As the night falls we have premium seats designed by Mr. Gaudí himself, but the World Championship ice-hockey match between Finland and Sweden is not televised in Barcelona. Pain, however, travels wireless.

31.
I was going back home from the nearby supermarket when it happened.
I heard them, and then I saw them.
They were the Hells Parrots!
My turn!
And they really hit me right in the middle.

32.
Well then... What to read for a bedtime story... This one seems coherent.
"The famous ex-footballed had been out with his friends in a nearby seaside town. At the end of the night he decided to drive back to Barcelona 160 km/h.
He however lost control at the ringroad and smashed into a concrete wall.
The ex-footballer, who on this occasion had decided on not to use his seatbelt, now smashed through the windscreen, decapitating him from the rest of his body, resulting in the car following him in the other line running over the body."
And now to sleep!

33.
-So cockcroach, you are back.
-We actually haven't met before.

34.
-The floor is still warm.
-Help yourself to some sangria.
Tonight there's really nothing to complaint about.