The day dawned sunny over the Lemos valley, bathing the main square in light where the neighbors had gathered to culminate a community initiative. It had all started with the idea of rescuing one of the old buses that used to run through the town in the 1960s. After locating an identical unit, one of them, they dedicated themselves to repairing and completely restoring it. And now, the fruit of that effort was in the middle of the town hall square: a band played festive marches while people crowded around to see the old bus. A blue and white relic in the middle of the Plaza de España, ready to travel through the most beautiful landscapes of the province.
The President of the Provincial Council, who remained standing as people crowded around the bus, in his best suit and with a broad smile, took the microphone:
"Friends and neighbors! Today is a historic day. We are inaugurating not just a bus, but a bridge to our past. This bus will revive the old routes that connected us with our neighbors for so many years: the one run by that old Austin bus of 'el Raulito,' which connected us with Sarria, or the Pegaso we used to travel to Chantada in. And now, without further ado… let the journey begin!"
Among the people of Monforte, a small, smiling woman, Marisé, watched with a mixture of nostalgia and emotion. Suddenly, one of the girls from the town council's tourism office, who was handing out informational papers to the residents, approached her.
"Marisé, you were a regular on the old line, when you went to Santiago, weren't you?"
Marisé took the informational paper being offered to her with her rough hands, emotional.
"Oh, yes! How could I forget those trips on el Raulito to Sarria. Thank you, thank you!"
Before boarding, Marisé had an idea. She ran to her neighbor Concha's house.
"Concha, can you lend me a chicken just for today? It's for the bus trip the town hall is organizing, to remember the old times."
Concha, who was at the door of her house in San Vicente, smiled.
"With your odd ideas again, Marisé? Of course, I'll lend you a chicken, come in, but take Clotilde. Take care of her, she's the best layer."
"Don't worry! A thousand thanks, Concha." And so, Marisé boarded the splendid bus with a wicker basket from which poked the head of a beautiful red and black hen, Clotilde.
The journey began. The bus's interior had been modernized, with leather seats and air conditioning. The guests, authorities and journalists, were elegantly dressed. Upon seeing Marisé with her chicken, the murmurs began immediately.
A woman in a suit jacket, a right-wing councilwoman, visibly moved away.
"But what is that? A chicken on the bus? This is unhygienic and an absolute nonsense."
A man with a tie added under his breath, with disdain:
"This is so provincial, and in very poor taste. Who let this woman on board? It's like we've gone back fifty years."
From the middle seats, another female voice whispered in annoyance:
"With all the money it cost to restore this vehicle, for them to now turn it into a chicken coop. It makes you want to get off."
Marisé, feeling the disapproving looks, shrank into her seat at the back of the bus, stroking the basket.
"Don't pay them any mind, Clotilde," she whispered. "They don't understand, not one bit."
After an hour of driving along winding roads with spectacular views, they arrived at the Belesar Reservoir lookout. The blue waters reflected the sun like a mirror. A stop there was planned, and someone in the front seats stood up and shouted:
"How beautiful! Let's stop and take a group photo to remember this moment!"
They got off the bus and everyone arranged themselves smiling in front of the photographer's camera. The President of the Provincial Council stood in the center, but suddenly, his expression changed. He looked around, searching for something. His eyes fixed on Marisé, who had stayed on the sidelines, apart from the group with her basket.
"Wait a moment! This photo is missing something!" he exclaimed. "It lacks authenticity! You and your chicken, please, come here to the center with me!"
An uncomfortable silence swept through the group. Marisé, surprised and hesitant, approached.
"Are you sure, Mr. President?"
"Of course!" he said, putting his arm around her. "This wasn't just a bus, it was a journey of life. It was full of baskets, chickens, conversations! This lady and her chicken are the living memory of what we are remembering on this trip! Today, they are the most important thing here."
The photographer fired the camera: flash. In that instant, everything changed.
The photo became a magnet. Suddenly, everyone wanted a selfie with Marisé and Clotilde.
"Marisé, please, take another one with me!" begged the woman in the suit jacket, now with a wide smile.
"Yes, yes! Me too!" shouted the man with the tie, stroking Clotilde's back as she clucked in confusion.
The President of the Provincial Council laughed.
"Look! This is how it was! This is the true essence of our land!"
The return trip was completely different. Marisé and Clotilde were the undisputed heroines. Everyone crowded around her seat to talk to her and listen to her stories of the journeys of yesteryear; to offer corn cake to the hen.
"Well, I used to travel with the Castromil company to Santiago... And going up the curves of the road to Chantada, the clucking of the hens was louder than the bus engine... It was so full of baskets and people, it was like we were all going on a picnic. And what a fright I got once! I was asleep and woke up just as the bus was taking a sharp curve, and I saw the Miño River so far down below from up high!"
Laughter and camaraderie had taken over the bus.
Back in Monforte, as evening fell, Marisé got off with her basket, overflowing with happiness. And she headed to Concha's house.
"Marisé, dear, you're back!" she said, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Concha, thank you so much!" she said, trying to return the hen to her. "It's been the most beautiful day in years. Here, Clotilde is perfectly fine."
But Concha gently closed Marisé's hand over the basket, looking at her with a slight expression of concern.
"No, Marisé. You keep her."
Marisé held back a sigh. She was exhausted.
"What? No, Concha, it was a loan… it's just that... my apartment is very small and I don't know where.."
"I saw how you came back," said Concha affectionately. "The look of happiness on your face. That chicken brought you luck and made you happy today. Besides, I have so many hens, one less won't be noticed in the coop. It's a gift. So you don't travel alone."
Marisé looked at Clotilde, who looked back at her with her small, round, inquisitive eyes. Then she looked at her neighbor, who was refusing to take her hen back.
"I don't know how to thank you, Concha. But what am I going to do with a chicken in my apartment?"
"What?" asked the neighbor, closing her door.
Marisé was left standing on the landing, with the box in her hands and the chicken moving inside. Defeated, she turned the key and entered her apartment.
"This is a prison!" thought the hen, pecking a hole in the basket to widen her field of vision. "Where is my little coop? Where is the company of my sisters? This young woman has kidnapped me and locked me in this dark, moving cubicle. Cluck! (Which means: I protest!)"
Marisé left the basket on the kitchen floor and got in the shower, letting the hot water wash the tiredness and frustration from her body. The sound of the water drowned out the soft clucks of indignation coming from the kitchen.
"Finally, silence," thought the hen as the torrent of water ceased. "Now is my chance. I must escape from this damp cell."
With determination, she pecked at the tape securing the basket until the lid gave way. She jumped onto the cold tiled floor and scrutinized the territory. Her instinct told her she needed a safe, high, soft place to lay the eggs she had been holding in for days. Her gaze fell on the adjoining room. There, illuminated by the faint light of a lamp, was a soft, promising mountain: Marisé's bed.
"The perfect nest!" she thought, triumphant. "High, silky, and cozy. This girl, despite everything, has some taste. Cluck-k-k! (Success!)"
She nimbly fluttered up and settled into the soft bed, finally feeling the peace and security necessary to fulfill her cosmic duty.
Marisé, wrapped in her bathrobe with her hair still damp, headed to the bed dreaming only of melting into the mattress. But as she sat on the bed and turned on the bedside lamp, she felt she had sat on something wet. A scream escaped her lips.
"NOOO!! IT CAN'T BE!"
There, perched on the footboard of the bed, the hen looked at her with an air of deep satisfaction. While two small, still-warm broken eggs stained the silk bedspread.
"My masterpiece!" thought the hen, proudly. "A tribute to my lineage. Now this human will understand my value and return me to my dream coop. Cluck-cluck!"
It was a silent but powerful argument.
But the reaction was not what she expected. Marisé's eyes showed not admiration, but absolute horror. With a cry of rage, she grabbed the hen with both hands.
"Out! Get out of here, you filthy thing!" she shouted, running towards the living room window.
Marisé yanked the window open and, with a furious gesture, threw the hen out into the freedom of the night.
The animal, flapping hard and uttering a series of outraged clucks, glided with the style of a feathered bird over the deserted Roberto Baamonde street before landing with dignity on top of a car.
"Fine!" she thought, smoothing her feathers. "If they don't appreciate art, I'll return to my coop. To give away my eggs!"
Marisé, after watching the hen land and get off the car to head in the direction of her coop, slammed the window shut and leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath. Then, she looked at her sullied bed and her shoulders sank.
The journey was over, and with it, the day.
mvf.
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