The Beckham Family

Last time I saw the Beckham Family I still was working for an adventure travel agency which was situated in the core of El Rastro and they -the Beckham Family- used to pass the shop window while working at mid-day. They liked to look at me just the last second before plonging into the nothingness. For me, the Beckham Family was the bad copy, the exact opposite of the Real Beckham Family. The husband of the fake one did not show a tattoo with his son's name next to his bottom, as the real Beckham did. He was made of a monumental Valley, I mean... belly, upon which there was a billiard ball with a seventies moustache in it. The family’s wife was an ugly dumb aged doll who liked to scream from time to time who knows what she did that for. Finally, the children. He looks like his father. She looks like her mother. The team was done.

I don't know if the father worked or not, if the mother sewed for an illegal company or not, if the children did not go to school or they did. I just know that they were all day long wandering around the district's pourest and dirtiest cafeterias, messing about doing nothing apart from looking at anything, at anyone, doing nothing, but doing alright because they seemed to be happy being the way they were, being as grotesque as they liked to be, being the exact opposite of the Real Beckham Family.

I never knew why they were called the Beckham Family. The true thing is that the husband never was blond and athletic and good-looking and famous, the truest thing is that the wife will never be as posh as the real Beckham's wife is. And the children... I never could have imagined that they would be running after his famous parents' tracks -if their parents would have been the famous one-, as the Real Beckham Family's children would do for sure. I only know that the Real Beckham Family is a fairy tale. They will always be brilliant and young and terrific, they will always be in the spotlight, while the others will always be in the spotshadow...

Anyway, the fake Beckham Family is more real than the real one. I can see their flesh ruining, their wrinkles deeper day after day. However, the Real Beckham Family will never die. I cannot imagine their coffins at the gates of the stadium. As a matter of fact, I cannot imagine a standing minute of silence for the real Beckhams, as I observed for the fake Beckham Family's husband when I heard about his dead. A sudden heart attack killed him while seating in a bus stop looking at anything, at anyone, waiting for any coming bus.

STAMPED LOVE

I had been working for that travel agency since the early 2000's and I felt really bored of my job. Besides, it was in the middle of the busy season of tourism. Totally disgusting, but one day S. came out of the blue.
S. was young blood, fresh air and all this kind of stereotyped shit. Nineteen years old and nineteen years younger than me. At the time, my last girlfriend and I had just split up and I felt a little hopeless. So it was very easy to fall in love with that newcomer workmate. S. was not only young but pretty, a really cute angel with brand-new wings. Unfortunately, she was always talking about her handsome boyfriend, their trips to the mountain on the weekends making barbacues and stuff like that.
S. used to come to my desk to take the stamp of the agency once or twice an hour. I was the person in charge of keeping the stamp in good fit. To top, I had to go after the stamp when my workmates forgot to give it back to me. This sort of repetitive deeds forges our daily and sad reality, but we are always hoping a miracle, a sexual miracle at least. But miracles are for believers and I only believed in Billy Wilder (as Fernando Trueba said Oscar in hand).

However, the miracle began to crystalise when S. changed the pace of her visits to my desk. Now she came four or five times an hour. At first, I thought she was mocking me. But one week later I noticed she watched me much more than the usual.

One night I had a dream. I could see S. naked in the toilets of the office. Se was laid on the cold floor, pointing at me with a sensual finger. Her long painted nail was a scorpion's tail inviting me to go for a dip.

I got undressed and one minute later fell down upon her. I could notice her tiny and tender breast below me. Suddenly I realised that my lips had stamped kisses of ink on her whole body. Then I knew she would always be mine.

Next morning, S. didn't go to work. At the end of the day, someone called to the office and said that S. was dead. She had been found in her apartment totally naked. My company's name was stamped all over her body.