Margen
My town has an anchor on the roundabout at its entrance, between two street lamps and a hedge the council trims in August. It's iron, taller than a man, its chain sunk into the cement as if something were pulling at it from below. We are two hundred kilometers from the sea.
I asked at the bar. People my age think some mayor brought it; the old men say it was always there. There's no file at the town hall: the roundabout was built in the eighties around the anchor — which is not the same as placing it.
The blacksmith showed me what nobody looks at: the links are worn on the inside, like chains that have done real work. And my grandmother, who never jokes, told me the other thing. That there are years — not all of them — when the anchor wakes up wet in the middle of July. Salty, she says. Let whoever doesn't believe it taste it.
I never have. But since then, when a storm rolls in, I sleep badly: I'm not afraid the sea will come. I'm afraid it will come back.