The beach is eternal. It's the same one she stepped onto naked and smiling -while her father held her hands and her mother took the picture - thirty years ago in Sardinia. The same beach she made love on, twice with her ex, Josep, in Reus, Catalonia, on the midsummer night, three years ago, after he told her he could see the Mediterranean in her eyes. The same beach where the Normandie battle took place. The Algiers beach where Albert Camus played football as a kid. The beach of the beach boys.
She knows that all beaches are in reality the same beach. All seas are the same sea. Let the world listen to the sea and let nobody die without loving the sea.
She looks at the sea. The beach is empty. There is still snow on Mount Olympos. Stomio is deserted. The tourist season starts in a month. The landlady told her to watch out for the jellyfish. She looks at the mountains and wonders how did the Greeks came up with all these crazy ideas about Theus, Athenea, Odyseus, Achilles, Poseidon. How creative. She remembers that she once met a man who told her he had fallen in love with a woman named Athenea. There are no jellyfish in the water. She swims naked; she believes nobody is watching.
Once, she stepped on a strange kind of stonefish in the Caribbean and spent an hour and a half in excruciating pain. That was when she thought of the concept of torture and understood it. Now she avoids watching news on TV because she is afraid of remembering.
A horseman approaches. The horse is black. The man wears a white baseball hat. She wraps the towel around her naked body. A feeling of danger and expectation invades her. She is surprisingly afraid and wonders about her own feelings. There is no logic in feelings. She often profoundly hates and loves the same person.
The horseman passes by. He does not even bother to say good morning (it's eight in the morning, she woke up at six. Martha wakes up at six or earlier ever since she broke up with Josep). She has the feeling that she has seen this horseman so many times before. That ruthless horseman.
A triton comes from the sea with a trident in his hand. He is covered in scales, has four horns, green shiny eyes and long yellow fangs. He waives at Martha and asks her, dear Martha what are you doing here in Stomio beach so early in the morning at this time of the year. Martha answers I am part of a dream and I was never meant to make any sense. The triton says fine, but you also understand I must eat you. She nods. That is the only reason I am here. He lifts his trident while the horseman approaches and this tale finishes.
