Time changes, varies and transforms when in good company and whilst holding a cold beer. Everyone sits still just at the moment when you start speaking about everything and nothing at all to share the tiniest anecdote or to listen to a friend who has finally found a job (perfect moment to order another round of beers).
Life, which often looks to be driven by the days of the week, becomes more interesting and valuable when you hear good news, whether it’s a Wednesday or a Saturday. The elixir of our time is amber coloured and has bubbles. You can drink it in cans, glasses and jars of a thousand shapes with the only obligation of it being cold, very cold.
It doesn’t matter where you meet. It can be in the most modern venue of Malasaña (Madrid) or in the darkest tackiest bar in the narrow alleyways of Tribunal. For a few hours you’ll only wish for the magic of the moment not to extinguish and you’ll hope the bar never closes because it has become your second home and because leaving means facing real life once again.
Suddenly you surprise yourself hoping that the smiling bartenders of El Tigre keep giving out more and more food, that the shouts at La Sureña keep making you deaf a little longer and that it gets warm enough to sit at the terraces of the Plaza del Dos de Mayo…
“Five minutes are enough to dream a whole life, that is how relative time is,” Mario Benedetti said once, and he wasn’t wrong. Because big things happen suddenly, with no warning and they end hastily, just like an exhalation.