Catalonia’s problem grows bigger

Today, October third,two days after the by-all-well-known referendum, poorly organized and sadly shacken by police violence, it must be said, a general strike has taken place in Barcelona to protest against such violence. There are journalists in every corner, covering each little detail of what happens in the catalonian capital city. But how has the day been lived in the rest of the Spanish territory, let’s say, Madrid?
The life in Madrid has elapsed with absolute normality. Children and grown-ups have gone to school and work. The shops have opened. The Metro line 2, that is the one which goes to the city center, has been highly visited, just like always! What to say? Yes, what is happening in the northeast is concerning, but that hasn’t prevented citizens from carrying out a normal day. All the Madrid people have shown regular faces throughout the whole day, except some minutes when they took a short look at the news on their phones and some other at 9pm; that was the time when king Philip VI delivered his speech on the main public channel of TV. He severely condemned what happened in Catalonia last Sunday and those responsible.He stated that the crown had a strong commitment to unity and democracy and said that it was the government’s job to fix this up.
Not only are the spaniards sad about what happened last Sunday, but also disappointed by the government’s bad management of the situation. For five years, they all have been watching a black and white silent comedy, like those of Charles Chaplin. It is framed in the basement of an old house, where a 19-segment pipe (the number of regions Spain has) goes from wall to wall. With this quick, funny walking of Chaplin’s comedies, two plumbers come into play (pictured above). The pianola starts playing a happy track. One of them has a grey funny beard which doesn’t seem to host too much teeth and the other one is a younger man, still old although, with a cut-in-two fringe and a sleepy face, even though he has a somewhat challenging look. The old plumber turns towards the young, points the pipe with his index finger, and the classic speaking label, white on black, appears on the screen.
‘You watch that while I take care of the pipe system’
The young man nods sleepy.
‘You watch it doesn’t break at any point. You understand?’
The young man nods again. In front of and close to the camera, the old plumber kneels down, opens a hatch on the floor, puts his tool box next to him and starts with the pipe system. Sweat drops go down his forehead, his underarms go wet and sometimes little water streams come out the hole. It is funny to see the water impact his face because he pulls out his tongue and move it up and down very quickly as it was a saumon at the same time he looks upside and blinks very fast. But wait! There’s something behind the old man that catches viewer’s attention. The young plumber is looking pleased how his boss gets hit again and again while he watches the pipe when his eyes suddenly glow with greed.
‘OH MY’, appears on the screen. ‘That pipe part would look particularly good in my living’
After looking with mischief at his boss, he slowly puts his hands to the pipe and pulls, determined to tear it apart from the rest of the pipe. At first, he doesn’t notice, but everytime he pulls, a bigger water stream hits his boss` face. He laughs naughtily when he does, and keeps straining to take the pipe segment. It’s so funny because the stream gets bigger and bigger and the old plumber is getting wetter and wetter.
‘BARNACLES’ he shouts ‘The only way this can be happening is that something is wrong with the pipe. Are you taking good care of it?’
‘Yeah sure’ responds the other one.
The liquid is also starting to leak from the extremes of the tube he is trying to remove. And the old plumber is very funny because the audience knows that the problem is with the big pipe, but, instead of turning and solving it himself he keeps getting slapped by the other plumber’s greed. It is very obvious that the young plumber is very close to his goal: the water comes out stronger and the old plumber cannot do almost anything to manage the pipe system’s chaos.
‘Pleasegrblgrbl! Fixgrblgrbl the pipe now! Thisgrbl is gonnagrblgrbl end bad!’ says with the strong stream getting in his mouth.
‘I’m on it!’ and he indeed is.
He finally removes the segment from the main pipe. The stream that comes out is so strong it makes the young plumber collide with the old one. But, oh! The stream has also grown stronger where the hatch is, so in the final seconds of the movie we can see the old man trying to take the segment away from the young one while they both are moving between the two streams of water. They shout (we only hear the pianola music), they slip and they slap each other. And the level of the water is rising! The movie ends. No, please! We all want to know if the pipe is restored. We want to see if the plumbers will end up okay! We want to see how the movie ends!, you’ll say. It doesn’t surprise me; so does Spain.
By Javier De Torres/Thenews2/Spain