My girl was not magic. She was not a six-legged spider hanging off the side of a mountain, nor a Russian poet who wrote her best work in the company of Siberian rats.

Instead, she was my first love who lived in a large glasshouse by the sea. She had a mother, a stepfather, and a large shelf filled with thick love letters stacked alphabetically like books. She bought expensive clothes and jewelry until money no longer wanted her.

During that terrible year of 2022, I worked at an expensive seafood restaurant. She stole deposit bottles from restaurants that looked like their owners had 3456 glasshouses by the sea.

I first saw her when she was apprehended by the owner for stealing mineral water bottles from his wife’s table. Let me tell you, there was no difference between seeing and loving her.

My senses became heightened – the air turned into waves, mercilessly crushing against my temples - and I could hear the cooked seagulls in the kitchen laughing at me. The remains of their wings could not conceal their jealousy.

An old man tried to put coins in the back pocket of my girl’s jeans. His hands were old Volkswagens, struggling to ride uphill at more than 20 kilometers per hour. She yelled words I have struggled to repeat, much less spell.

I got up from my little chair without a backrest, ran up to the owner, and took the mineral bottle out of his hands, just as my first love was leaving the restaurant. My head had never been as clear as when I decided to follow her down the street.

I took a little page out of my breast pocket, scribbled 10 words on it, and put it into the bottle. I did not check whether it was empty or not, but thankfully it was. When I caught up to her, a little out of breath, I gave her the bottle.

“Take out the note,” I said.

This is what she saw:

I mentioned that I worked at that restaurant.

“I am never going back there,” she said, “the seagulls were too loud for my tastes.” She said it in the most wonderful un-six-legged-spider voice.

The next day, I informed the boss about my departure, effective immediately.

“What are you gonna do?” he said. “You don’t have 3456 glasshouses by the sea.”

My girl arrived just as I got done with him. My hands were bruised like the insides of a boxing glove. We ran away from the restaurant as the owner’s wife threw projectile car keys in our wake.

I would not be able to replicate our conversations here. Our time together was like the euphoric 43rd kilometer before it turned into a single marathon and ashamedly stood off to the side. Both of our mothers still looked like supermodels and could sing like Edith Piaf. Forgive me, but it was the best summer of my life.

When she no longer responded to my calls, I could not tell whether she had existed or if I had made her up.

The old supervisor had been told that repairing his teeth would cost about 1728 glasshouses for just one side of the mouth.

His daughter was a rich Capricorn who could have easily provided him with the 1728 glasshouses just as she had helped her capricious husband with his 100 unsuccessful ventures (and one successful one).

(In his youth, the supervisor had wanted to become a billionaire by selling books but was too busy reading Cortázar. When his daughter turned out to like money and things more than books, he sharpened his jealousy like a war hatchet.)

He laughed at the doctors and left with one of the metal tools splayed out in the corner of a shelf. He left his coat, he said, as insurance.

All the magic left his body along with the teeth that he crushed out of his mouth. They spilled onto the floor and looked like pieces of marshmallow doused in raspberry jam.

His boss told him he looked like a male witch – a term he had never heard before – and the old supervisor got fired from his job as a security guard. He had worked at a nostalgia store and was beloved by the entire community: he knew the store’s music section by heart.

Despite knowing every band on Earth formed since the 1960s, he could not resist the urge to feel useless. He was 81 years old.

The supervisor’s two legs carried him towards a grave where he hesitantly buried the war hatchet and then they put him into a taxi to his daughter’s penthouse. On the way, he realized he no longer remembered the reason for his jealousy but still resolved to grit his metaphorical teeth.

The old man’s son-in-law was the organizer of a knowledge carnival that invited intellectuals and artists who spoke about important topics. People from all around the country came and listened to these conversations, and musicians were hired to help them when their curiosity became tired.

It was a two-day event, so a small tent city was built out of small triangles of cloth whose insides did not know how to retain heat. The supervisor’s daughter was the chief of the everyday festivities – because boredom no longer wanted her –, and she did not sleep for the duration of the event.

The son-in-law was a movie villain who overlooked the carnival and said to one of his many mistresses: “Someday this will be yours”, and laughed like a movie villain.

The old supervisor, the father-in-law of the son-in-law, knocked on his door just as he was overlooking the building of the tent city with his mistress.

The son-in-law was afraid so he crumpled the mistress like a napkin and tucked her into his breast pocket. She had never had this happen to her, so she clung on to the insides of the breast pocket with all her love: her nails seeped into the cloth like small ants.

The son-in-law felt an odd tickle, so, when he shook his father-in-law’s hand, he laughed.

“I need work.” the old supervisor said.

“You mean I could help you?”

“You could help me. For we are both Capricorns and we need to stick together.”

He told the old supervisor about the tent city needing an overlooker for the night. They had hired one for the day - a high-school dropout who drank his way through the last semester after his sweetheart left him - but hiring one for the night had proven difficult. Everyone wanted to party.

“If I do it, will I be able to read my Marquez?” the old supervisor asked.

“Absolutely.”

That is how the old supervisor got his name.

I arrived at the carnival near the end of the first day. It was the end of the summer, and I did not feel like learning anymore. I had written so many love letters my right hand was swollen like a tired jellyfish

I parked my humble tent and noticed the young supervisor. His head was arched down and formed one half of a heart with his neck. Apart from him, there was no magic on this hill, crowded with cold triangles of cloth.

The only conversation I got to listen to was about the issue of national identity. She said that a house was the only keeper of a nation’s memory and said something about an ugly convenience store building that, I quote, “fucked the old city and everything it stood for.” There were cheers. I imagined the tent I was going to be staying in and decided to skip the rest of the event

I walked for what seemed like 40000 hours. I had forgotten to charge my headphones, and I had naturally arrived alone. My parents had decided to skip the event and watch a soprano competition on TV, having gotten tired of the sound of seagulls coming from my room.

The stars reminded me of small teeth which reminded me of sugar which reminded me of the fact that I had no money – I had spent it on the ticket, and I did not want to ask my parents. That prompted me to go back to the tent city.

I did not notice the old supervisor at first, much like the song we do not care for at first which eventually becomes our favorite.

The tent was colder than being outside with no clothes on. As I stepped out of the tent, my girl was walking by the old supervisor - that was the first time I noticed him: behind my girl. A human-size magazine with hair blacker than tar was clutching her hand tighter than a coward would his gun. She did not notice me and smiled a smile most reminiscent of a six-legged spider.

I looked at them, frozen like sea water on a window during the winter (it was only August).

It was hard to imagine someone more beautiful than her, even harder to not think about the things they would do together in their tent. When they entered it, it felt like an eternal Tuesday with no Friday in sight.

Then I heard a laugh. The old supervisor laughed like a cat smiles. He was reading a book – “whores” was the only word I could make out on the cover. He waved me over. I did not have anything better to do. Sleep was out of the question.

“Do you want to know what happened there?” he asked.

“I think I know.”

“There is no way you do. You’re too young. Your pecker has barely seen the light of day. In 20 years, you will be using it for things you can’t even imagine.”

He sounded like every man I had ever known.

“You sound like every man I have ever known.”

He laughed.

“Sleep is out of the question, right?”

I did not answer.

“Sit down.” - I sat down. “Do you want to know what happened there?”

I did not want to know what had just happened.

“I want to know what happened there.”

“You were a young man just out of college in the 1970s. Your parents decided to give you a trip to Paris as a graduation gift. You boarded the plane at night, when the airport lights made it look like a monster. That was back in the day – when seats were usable and they served you salmon or lobster along with Bloody Mary. You could even smoke, but you always had a thing towards smokers. You thought you were smarter than them.

And she was a Frenchwoman who had just gotten engaged to a famous director – he travelled on a private plane because he said he needed time to think. She sat down behind you and anxiously asked the attendant for cigarettes. You did not hear anything after that, but – because eyes are quicker than ears, right? – when she leant in to ask you something, you saw the most beautiful human you had ever seen and will ever see.

You said you did not smoke. She reclined into her leather seat and, during those 10 hours, bit her nails down to the bone. You did not move a muscle because, as I said, you were too smart - you knew that, in a sense, your life was already over.

You did not speak a word, but you felt ashamed of her - because of all of the things you imagined doing with her. During the monster’s journey to Paris, you and your life had a complicated relationship: you more and more closely resembled planes who flew further and further away from each other.

When you arrived, you doubted the concept of newness or surprise. You felt like you had read every book and watched every movie. But that was all theoretical. You had to put it into practice. You learned about life in a more unmediated way through Montmartre whores and Marquis de Sade. You became an ordinary adult.

That is what just happened to you.”

“You really think so?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “in part.”

“In part?”

“Yes, approximately 48 percent. Do you want to know the other part?”

Listening to the story felt like an eternal Wednesday. I wanted to wake up on Friday. When I told him no, he squinted his eyes and they glittered in the artificial lighting of his post. They looked like shards of broken glass after a particularly strong wave.

“Can you at least keep me company? I’ve got 5 hours left on the shift.”

I fell asleep 20 minutes later.

I dreamt that I had woken up as an eight-legged spider in a house by the sea. The signed love letters that used to be on the shelf had now been put into unnamed cardboard boxes. A tent flap was in the place where the door used to be. I could hear two-legged people out in the backyard cooking marshmallows. A vintage Volksagen van was revving its motor like there would be no tomorrow. I wanted to get out of the room, but could not because my limbs were made out of hairy, fleeting foam, much like a real spider’s. The glass made my state embarrassingly apparent and it made me very sad.

I woke up drenched in sweat, and thirsty. It was the next day. My two legs carried me to a beautiful convenience store. I walked up to an anonymous aisle and picked up the first liquid I could feel. It was a large carton of milk. Drinking it felt like waking up, it felt like eating strawberries on the side of the mountain with your own two hands.

A guard walked up to me.

“What’s your name?”

I wanted him to punch me in the face.

“I am a poet.”