Marluvio (Mareluge, in English)

And that’s how the salty water began seeping from the coastal strip of Havana’s Miramar neighbourhood, through a beer can crushed underfoot—cheerfully, I suppose.

I don’t believe there was any malice in its plan (not referring to the one who stepped on the can), just a slow dripping, as if it meant to reclaim what was its own. I smiled and applauded with my soul... cursed a little too at those who leave cans on pavements instead of placing them in bins... but, I swear, I tried to preserve my white, luminous energy.

Soon, the sea too would feel emboldened to gush from this other spout—a can of… I’m not sure if it held meat or some kind of sausage. Clearly, inconsiderate people come here to eat and drink.

I don’t know whether those young people over there are part of the slumbering procession. I’d like to believe they’re not.

It’s often said that the most intelligent minds have the foulest mouths. By that logic, I must be a genius. 😄 With who knows how many wild ideas swirling in my head—like creating a community based on a map of places that don’t exist, or from now on, writing my posts from the end to the beginning—I also found myself trying to picture the visions my girl might be entertaining in hers at that hour, as I turned my gaze toward…

Oh 😱 Universe... What I witnessed was truly beautiful!

My eyes welled up with tears at the sight of vivid colours emerging from the seabed. I searched through my things for the small towel I always carry with me and wiped them, though they remained clouded.

On a wall, I saw another being with clouded eyes watching me.

I took the opportunity to put sunscreen on my arms and face. I had to take off my cycling gloves and tuck them into the open backpack I’d left nearby. I placed my sunglasses in there too, so I could spread the cream. It was already too late for that—I knew it, and I felt it—but at least it would ease the burning a bit. Not a single cloud in the sky… and the sun was scorching—an overused phrase, I know, but it captured the scene perfectly… that sun-seared setting.

But the sea…

Men tried to hold it back by any means possible, with pieces forged of concrete and steel. They hurled them using devices one might call… let’s say… modern catapults. It’s late… I no longer know what I’m writing. 😐

I keep remembering as if this had happened months ago, when in truth only two lukewarm, sunlit, hectic days have passed—but days, all the same, of missing my girl, my muse, a magical being who doesn’t answer half my questions…

And the sea began to feel slow, milky.

The thing is, I love taking these photos. They’re an important record of the beautiful blue, salty plan to envelop everything—to wash away the evil and the twisted whims of those who impose rules and keep playing dirty?

I’m certain I was the only one who took away evidence of the Marluvio. 😉

Take note:

‘Marluvio’ is a Spanish word I coined, formed by blending mar (sea) and diluvio (deluge). It evokes a powerful maritime flood—not just a storm, but a symbolic surge of the sea reclaiming its place. It is not a tempest, but will. Not punishment, but the liquid memory of when the earth was still ocean. To translate this idea into English, I played with sounds and meanings until I arrived at ‘Mareluge’—a word that keeps the Latin root mare and echoes a deluge.