h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"Blackbird" (from the White Album/Beatles).

It is 1970 and I left home and was roaming Spain on my own.No money.
It was the time of the Spanish dictator Franco.

First I went to Barcelona.

Later on a longer stay in the harbour of Valencia

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And in the end I tried my luck in Malaga (deep South) although my aim was a visit to Marocco.

Being half drunk, I got it in my mind to collect money in a chique restaurant "for the communists".......
After a while some visitors alarmed the headwaiter.
So he came in a straightride to me, took his arms around the middle of my body, lifted me up and brought me outside while I just continued to preach communism........
Hilarious situation, in my perception now.

Outside it became less "hilarious".
Three tall men in civilian clothes surrounded and arrested me.
As real "body gards" they walked beside me to the policestation, a long way from there.
My only protest was "why Franco doesn't pay a taxi to bring me there" and it drove them núts and finally in the policestation they exploded and I became silent....and as it seemed, forever.

I was transported to a Prison and to imagine how that looks like,
just imagine the Middle Ages or American big prisons.
Half dark rooms of concrete.
One section was just the floor and another section (in the same space)
was a little higher-also concrete- and there you should be able to sleep.
The "open-side" was made from thick iron bars.
Inside there where already about ten prisoners, before I came.

There where a few of those "rooms" next to each other.
Food was no more than water, bread and some soup.

I was perplexed to see passing a waiter with food and cigars and it appeared to be a daily order from a rich German criminal. It appeared to be common rule that if you could afford it, you could deliver any meal you'd like from a restaurant outside.

But I wasn't so interested in food and I hardly spoke with the other roommates.
I came into a bad mood and after a while all I did was only pacing up and down. Up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down.......

After a while during that walking back and forth, there slowly came a melody in my mind and my mouth gave it a gentle tune and slowly lines came up as "blackbird singing in the dead of night...." and "take these broken wings and learn to fly"......................

Walking and singing became my food and drinks and the more lines came up the better I felt;
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these sunken eys and learn to see" and more words than that I didn't know.
But as we know, exact words don't really matter in how we experience a song. It is the association with elements of our subconscious that really matter.

And on and on and on I went, pacing up and down and gently singing fragments of the blackbirds song in its dead of night.
For hours.
For days and days without any break except some sleeping.
Every morning my breakfeast was the melody of that inspiring bird, cause the song and words lived a life of their own.

After some time the head of the guard came to our room and talked through the bars with two Spanjards for several minutes.
In the evening I asked them what that was all about?
"Well" , they said in Spanish, "he was asking if you were in hungerstrike".

I wasn't in hungerstrike;
I had found light despite my "sunken eyes",
and food despite "the dead of night" and freedom despite my "broken wings".
I had flown away, far away ,to a much better world and had forgotten to eat prisonfood......

Thanks to the Beatles I had found another and múch better world.
(The white Album; "Blackbird")



P.S. A few days later I was thrown out of Spain- because of vagrancy- by plain, accompanied by the dutch consul who spoke the stupid words; "You are the son of a lawyer, you should know better".

In 1995 I returned to Spain/France and walked half the Pyrenees.
Réal paradise! F80264?thread=205416



Greatings from Amsterdam, Alfredo (1951)