Juanjo was one of us. We were six friends. Then with time, which never stops, we ended up being four, or three. The Agustín Espinosa high school, surfing in La Santa, some rod fishing, the barbecues, the Famara parties, that beautiful foreigner that Juanjo hooked up with, some girlfriends, few, although Juanjo was always the luckiest in this thing of girlfriends, and with foreigners. He was always the most witty, the most "funny". He had "something" that I don't know what it was. But expressing it in a well-known phrase "he always led us down the garden path." High school ended for everyone. We had to choose studies. We were all in twilight. We didn't know what to study.
We had no vocation for anything. Juanjo, who was always the most talkative of the group of friends, one day, with a well-intoned voice, told us "I am going to study Computer Science." His father ran a supermarket with numerous customers at that time. Juanjo, if he had wanted to, had a guaranteed job in the family business, well paid, without the possibility of dismissal. But he chose to study computer science, which at that time sounded good, it was fashionable. To study in Madrid. There are no computer science studies in Lanzarote, nor anything. It coincided that it was the 80s. Madrid was a party. Little study, many parties. Years pass, and Juanjo does not finish his studies. Phone call from the father. "It's over. You're coming to work in the supermarket, I'm not paying for any more parties."
Juanjo as a cashier. Grumpy, as is normal. At that time, nationalism became fashionable in the Canary Islands. We Canarians have never been nationalists. We have always been, always, Canarians and Spaniards, half and half, as genetics has acted on us, imbuing our souls with so many different genetic contents through the centuries. But Juanjo saw the light with that opportunity that life offered him to be a politician, a nationalist politician. Stop being a cashier in the family business and be a politician. Juanjo had always loved to "command". I once heard him say "What I like is to command."
He chose the right path for his aspirations. The power. To be a politician. He begins to attend political meetings of a nationalist party that was taking its first steps. It was a disaster. They didn't know what to think or what to do, but "they felt" "nationalists." Juanjo deployed all his stage skills to his party colleagues and sooner rather than later he was already one of the most relevant leaders of this party. I couldn't believe it. After a few months he was already president of the young nationalists and, already, before the elections that were already announced, they decided that he should run on the municipal electoral lists. None of his friends could think that Juanjo could be elected councilor. But it was so, in the elections, I don't remember what position he was in, but he was elected councilor by his nationalist party.
I call him to congratulate him. "Juanjo, what a joy to know that you have been elected councilor and that now you have a huge opportunity to do something good for our people." His answer left me stunned. "Yes, very happy. What I like is to command." I did not answer his desire. Silence. Stupefaction. Two weeks after that, he appears in the newspapers smiling, with his fellow councilors, and the mayor, taking office. I don't remember if they were nationalists or not. Time passes, which never stops. I am surprised to see Juanjo on TV, interviews on the radio, in the press, Juanjo appears everywhere, always very smiling. It is seen that power has suited him well. Very handsome. Before we were three friends. Now Juanjo has many. Everything is flattery to our political friend.
I saw him as walking on a red carpet and everyone, men and women on the sides of the carpet, throwing red roses at him, and he delighting in his walk towards infinity. Juanjo delighted. There, I realized, his pride was being well fed. The pride. That temptation that humans usually fall into with tremendous ease. Time passes, which never stops. Now our friend Juanjo is presented with another type of temptations. The money. This thing about money in politicians is called "bribe". Never better expressed. New temptation. We already have two. Power and money. Juanjo, who is vulnerable, as we all are, wants money. He "bites". We already have Juanjo with the profile of many politicians. He has "bitten". Time passes, which never stops. And then a possible case of corruption has been discovered that has been picked up by the press. It seems, according to the comments on the Island, that the bribe was tremendous; he bit hard. The Investigating Court is already working on the alleged case of corruption. New elections. New candidates for councilors in the nationalist party. Our Juanjo has lost the "punch" he had before. And with the suspicion of corruption now he is not well regarded. Now in the list of candidates for councilor in his party he is placed at number thirty. He is not elected. I see him one day in Calle Real. In twilight. As if gone. Very bad face. I ask him what was the reason for so much anguish and he tells me "Tomorrow I am going to start working as a cashier in my father's supermarket" I didn't know what to say. He continued walking dejectedly towards the Puente de las Bolas. I felt like shouting at him "Let's see if you have balls..., cojones "
Now I think about Juanjo. How sad Juanjo's life is. The pride, the greed, the vanity, his hatreds in his political battles and then,..., the emptiness. I also think about what Juanjo's last hours of life will be like. Death is what defines our lives. Death, the grim reaper. In Roman mythology, each of the three sister deities, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, with the figure of old women, of which the first spun, the second wound and the third cut the thread of life. The grim reaper, for ancient Rome, was death. The grim reaper. Just listening to it is enough for us to feel a tremendous shiver with the blessed word.
A group of American researchers have discovered that when we die, our brain waves are seen in the same way as when we dream, meditate or remember, which would mean that the brain remains active and coordinated during and after death. "We measured 900 seconds of brain activity around the time of death and established a specific approach to investigate what happened in the 30 seconds before and after the heart stopped beating," explained Ajmal Zemmar, doctor and neurosurgeon at the University of Louisville. During that time, highly cognitive functions such as concentration, sleep, meditation, memory retrieval, information processing and conscious perception are involved. In addition, they are associated with memory 'flashbacks'. That is, what the scientist has recently discovered is that, at the very moment, or a few seconds before, death, there is an extraordinary brain activity for a minute, just in the time when we are about to die.
It is in that minute when all our past life we see it pass at a dizzying speed, without self-censorship, everything, the good and the bad, and within the bad, everything that we did not want to think about in life, that which we hid in the most recondite corner of consciousness. In that minute there is no defense lawyer, the accused is not allowed to speak and, there is only an implacable prosecutor, the Conscience. Conscience that is in all of us, and it is thought that even in animals. It is a Universal Conscience. And I wonder what that last minute will be like for Juanjo because in that exciting film his political years will appear, already forgotten, or not wanting to be remembered, those years in which he had the opportunity to do so much good, and he did not, those so many people that he could have helped, and he did not, .., and he was not, no, he was not, what he should be, an exemplary political life. And time has already stopped for Juanjo. The grim reaper. The grim reaper is implacable
