Pateras

The story repeats itself again.  A thousand times. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Neither time nor intentions erase it. Maybe there are none; maybe they are not looking for them. The sea is a trap. There are days when it looks calm, when it attracts you, when it doesn't seem to be what it is. But you should never trust it, you should never sleep deeply on its waters. Underneath that first appearance, it hides lurid secrets: the anger that unleashes a betrayal; the desire for revenge.

The sea is a rose... full of sharp thorns; a glass of good red wine with a few drops of poison in it; a hallucination in a beautiful desert at sunset. For so many, it is an eager bridge that invites to be crossed, that incites to do so, because, on the other side, they will find an enormous treasure: the conquest of a dream. And they accept this invitation without knowing that the deception lies in crossing it. A deception that began even much earlier, in the moment of wanting to reach a goal full of uncalled-for prizes. A race without rules. The sea is the jungle where the strongest are not always saved. But the gangsters don't count on that.

There is no such thing as paradise, or maybe there is when you think that what you are leaving behind is hell. The good, the bad. To die, if necessary on the way, rather than suffer the agony of a slow death, too much. Nothing is left behind, except the pain of those who really love; everything ahead. And between that nothing and that everything: hope. Wanting to write a few lines of a future... far away, because in the present they live in, impossibility prevails.

Nothing is as they say it is, that it will be. Never or very rarely. The boats get lost in the darkness of the night, in the blackness of the monsters that seem to come out of the depths. It is cold, there is fear, there is forgetfulness in weakened minds, there is hunger and death. The bridge has no end. Endings have many faces.

A look back is misery, a look forward is possibility. And they risk, they challenge the sea that may swallow them, with or without conscience. Men, women, some pregnant women, children... They believe that freedom can be bought behind that sea. And they pay, not only with money, despite that closeness that is not so close, despite the uncertainty of the crossing. They even pay with their lives. The curious thing is that they know who to do it to, they know who organises the trip, where and how, even if the lies are mixed with the need to believe. They, with nothing, have the necessary information. The others, with everything, know nothing. Wanting to know what you want and ignoring what you don't want.

And let's look at the sea. The story repeats itself again. Once and a thousand times. It is a trap, a hungry wolf in front of a flock of sheep. They know it, one and all, and even so, they decide to cross.