My dear friend E.M. will come to Barcelona...

My dear friend E.M. feels lonely. She is working as an OL in a soap factory near Fuse, in Osaka. Finally, after some years doing the same menial job at the office, she became kaisha-in, full employee in her company. Now, she has a stable job, she got her wished lifelong employment, but her life is empty, poor, she says, she needs love, some true love.

More than once, she has confessed to me that she doesn't like Japanese men, that she prefers to be with a gaijin, a foreign guy. She has had many acquaintances, many boyfriends, many lovers, many friends, but none has still fulfilled her gap. And she keeps looking for, without any direction, any goal, and immediate destination.

Her dad died and she was left lonely. Her sister suicided, and she became terribly lonesome. And now, she still is alone and sad, though her smile is like a rose, and every time I smell the fragrance from the soap she gave me as a present the last time we met, my mind is transported to our garden of roses, where I could drink from her mouth and enjoy with her some eternal moments.

Osaka is a ghastly place, a monster city that crumbles down into its own dissolution of rust, ugliness and bad taste. But Osaka people are among the nicer in Japan. She is a dear, a true dear, as candid and naive as a child. I want her to see the Mediterranean, and enjoy with the warm sun of Barcelona. I want her to get rid of her worries and have a look on a brighter side of life, at least, for a short time.

Now I know she will come to Barcelona, to pay a visit to the sea and to me. There is no paradise on Earth, nor any hell. The only thing that turns a hell into a paradise or vice-versa is how we imagine our lives in it. But sometimes, we are not able to transcend our own narrow view, and need some help from the outside. I do really hope Barcelona will take her out of her narrow little sad world, and I will be happy for her happiness.