The IX Short Story Contest of Radio Lanzarote - Onda Cero, dedicated this year to César Manrique on the occasion of his centenary, continues to receive more stories. The submission period opened on July 1 and will end on August 31. Until then, those interested can send their stories to the email [email protected], with a maximum length of 100 words, including the title if it has one.
Regarding the theme, this edition must feature César Manrique or one of his landscape works, such as the tourist centers of Jameos del Agua or the Montañas del Fuego, or one of the houses inhabited by the artist.
The decision of the contest, organized in collaboration with the César Manrique Foundation, will be made public in the second half of September. Regarding the prizes, the winner will receive a television valued at around 300 euros, a pack of products from the Manrique centenary and a pack of books published by the Foundation. The second prize will be a tablet valued at around 200 euros, a pack of centenary products and a pack of books published by the FCM; and the third winner will receive wireless headphones valued at around 100 euros, as well as a pack of centenary products and a pack of books.
Each author may send a maximum of five stories, which may be signed with a pseudonym, although they must always indicate a name and contact telephone number. The stories will be read in the 'Reading on the Radio' space of Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero and will be published in order of receipt in La Voz de Lanzarote.
FAMARA
He had traveled the thirty-one kilometers from the North Coast, on a cold winter night, to that gloomy place a few meters from the House of the Volcano.
Upon entering, you only breathed the intense smell of tobacco and alcohol, from men who were only looking for the trade of ambitious women for money.
It wasn't my best option, but I had been in love for too long with that Famara landscape illustrated in a painting and which that art dealer would bring me closer to for its purchase.
But fool of me, because she sold it to the fastest one who went with money in hand.
Awakening
-You were there, can you tell us what happened?-
Anne began to move her lips, but the only thing that broke her silence was her fearful tears of the memory. She saw with absolute clarity the stones of César Manrique's tomb falling again, pushed by the air from the interior, dragged by the earth, and a shadow lunging at her, it was the last thing before she fainted.
The announcer did not remove the microphone, nor did he avert his gaze.
Anne lowered her head, put a hand to her neck, as if to adjust her scarf, feeling under her fingers two small circular wounds... and smiled.
Conscience
The following morning, the footprints of bare feet heading towards El Palmeral stood out. There, in the studio, the light remained on all night. When they arrived, they could clearly see the footprints in front of the main gate, closed. Attempts to open it ended when it suddenly opened wide, showing, before the incredulous eyes, the lack of color. Not one survived behind the walls: car, plants, walls, woods, glass... Even the fog that covered everything up to the knees was gray. As soon as someone set foot inside, dozens of colorful strange fish pounced on him.
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The beast has been sleeping for a long time. Hilario, self-proclaimed king of the kingdom of scum that emerged from hell, enters like an insane Quixote. As a squire, his camel. Behind him is the dilapidated farmhouse. He plants a fig tree, which he cares for with care but never bears fruit.
April, 2019. In the dead garden, where a young César rescued it from oblivion, the fig tree turns green again like winter love. Timid leaves hang from its skeletal branches. Protecting it, his faithful squire. And suddenly, the flower appears. Hilario's. Inside, a heart, tiny and wrinkled, beats strongly. The heart of the beast, asleep but never dead.
Reality
They quickly grabbed their companion, preventing him from being dragged away. Soon they also turned gray, as did the raised earth and everything around them. The fish passed pulling an amalgam of irons, glass and wood converted into a carriage. It was not difficult to follow its route, it was the only colorful thing, when you did not look at the sky or the sea. On the way to the beach?. "I've been feeling distant from you for a few days, although it could be years" he thought while his hands, turned into brushes, did not stop their movements on the monstrosity, only his vision, wherever he looked. He stopped at the Taro.
WITCHES
When the sun falls and no one is left in the Devil's place, mounted on their brooms they land in Timanfaya: Guatiza, Famara and Tahíche. Gray hair, some warts and dark clothes.
Cultured meetings to account for social problems and possible solutions. Fiery hideout where they prepare succulent delicacies with soda and little wine because flying with alcohol is not allowed.
They place their food on the grill and the heat from the earthly entrails does the rest. What great sustainable development! They murmur while devouring.
Would Manrique think of such a peaceful Aquelarre?
"The way to go"
-"Orzola?"- The gas station employee repeated, and pointing north he indicated: -"Follow until the roundabout, continue straight for another 300 meters and you will see a large sign, on the right it says Punta Mujeres, Jameos del Agua, Cueva de los Verdes and Orzola, yes? Well, follow that road passing a metallic crab in the middle of the road, pass the intersection of the tourist centers, you will see some white sand beaches, until you reach the end at the port, that is Orzola."
Return
Such a quantity of tears sprang from his eyes that they soon formed a river through which, even, one could navigate. Thus, from Taro to Reducto it took him no more than five minutes. There he integrated himself among the gathered public. Seven days had already passed and everyone was still waiting, still without knowing what, still without knowing that he was among them. If they had looked at the shore they would have seen a barefoot man letting himself be caressed by the sea. With the first fires the roof of the hotel exploded into millions of multicolored butterflies? the man on the shore... was no longer there.
MUTATION
The earth opened its mouth showing its throat of fire, which in convulsive arches vomited incandescent detritus.
Giant open-air pit devoid of life and death, which the artist painted with green, thorns, ephemeral specks of color.
Eden in the middle of hell.
Paradise behind passable walls, waiting for the arrival of other Adam and Eve.
Beautiful Symbiotic Bubbles of Art-Nature,
The insatiable and feared Volcano sprouted through the immense and intricate wild nature in perfect avant-garde symbiosis with art and conservation, which combined with love for ethnographic values.
Immense and beautiful bubbles of burning and viscous lava emanated that blended with the beautiful landscape and the defense of deep-rooted convictions in an unprecedented mental architecture.
Indescribable bubbles exploded to create a beautiful and eccentric home for enjoyment, an intrepid vision of nature.
From another bubble, the Mirador del Río, he saw the cosmos and astrophysically, beautiful flags waved.
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Titan!. Mazinguer mecano!. Whoever raised you in such a prominent place, dominating horizons, erected you as guardian and memory.
Towards you one must raise one's eyes, geometric white giant!, and have the courage to hold the gaze of your watery basins.
Because one cannot, one must not forget, the work, the sweat and the blood that sculpted you!
There you remain, immovable in your eloquent silence, waiting for someone to one day be able to interpret your words.
Nocturnal liturgy
Every day, after turning off the lights, a dance of vaporous images emerges from the darkness of the cave.
On the walls, in front of a bonfire, are now reflected the shadows of the aborigines who worship their protective gods. They do not have a real image of those beings they venerate.
After a long silence they wait, with respect, to hear the voices trapped between those concave walls. Those same words, which a certain César and Jesús pronounced around the lighting, are repeated with devotion during the night; until someone, at dawn, turns on the light.
Captive of your beauty
To César Manrique
From the sea inland
a black, extensive point, I see
and that door to paradise
opens the heart to my encounter.
I pass my gaze to the center
where the black stone is the floor
the Timanfaya humble, submissive
in your sloping bed lives inside.
And with eagerness to want to protect you:
land, custom, culture, presence,
I am, with all honor, your faithful lackey.
And I bless life my luck
for giving me such noble indulgence
of being born where I find no more beauty.
Untitled,
He has long discovered that Lanzarote is his canvas, although in reality everything has always been there. With childlike eyes the artist contemplates the burnt landscapes in wonder. Fertile whitewashed bellies in the sun combine with snow-white rectilinear cubicles, while the plow's grid completes the game of perfect symmetry, paying homage to ancestral sweat. Soft murmurs of salt bathe the coasts of his imagined island. The palm trees, windmills in the wind, dance the dance of the trade wind. As he contemplates his work with satisfaction, he thinks that he only asks that they take care of it. Knowing how to see and not look, he says, is the key. How right he is.
