In the morning I dreamed that I was on a hill and, suddenly, in the distance I saw a cloud of dust like the storms of the Sahara. Then, it got closer and they were armies fleeing from something terrible: tanks, jeeps, soldiers... and behind them civilians, millions and millions of civilians. After a while, the last group passed; they were paramedics with stretchers picking up the wounded trampled by the others. And the dust cleared. In the distance I could see a pangolin slowly approaching.
It was one of the very few who had escaped the persecution to which his species had been subjected. And now he just wanted to return with the humans to see if there were any of his kind anywhere. But they fled terrified by his presence. He climbed the hill where I was and we talked for a while. I told him that deep down they were not fleeing from him, but from their own consciences. Then he stopped me and told me his paradox.
He said that they had developed magnificent scales to protect themselves and that this protection had been their ruin. He told me that he felt no hatred and that he would remind humans that protection was a trap and that this message was his gift, his forgiveness. He looked at me with a very sad smile, took off his scales and made a little pile. He made himself into a ball and rolled down the world. To the end of the world.
I felt a little envious of not being able to make myself into a ball and roll and roll. After him. And I still don't know what those protective scales he left there are for and what to do with them. In that anguish I woke up from the dream. A small group of Moorish birds was on the wall of the patio, looking into my dream. In his day I collaborated in dismantling a gang that caught them in Lanzarote to traffic with them. And I thought: they could also have brought the virus or the shearwaters or... And yet, like dolphins, they still smile.
