Sant Felip Neri

It is not a very nice place. The passage that leads there is narrow, grey, dark, wet with substances you don’t want to recognize – the perfect scenery for rape. The square has only a few hours of dim light, because the trees and the surrounding houses block most of the sky. On its walls there are hundreds, thousands of bullet holes – the untouched remains of the Civil War – and, when looking at them, one can almost hear the screaming of the damned. The floor is never clean, pigeons’ depositions can be found everywhere, dust and dirt mixed with them. The fountain’s water is always unclear, and it smells of rotten leaves. The contrast between the fancy restaurant and the ever-changing homeless people is unbearable. One wonders what is a kindergarten doing there: people drink beer, smoke pot and throw garbage. Like I said, it is not a very nice place.

Yet the Sant Felip Neri square has and indefinable magical quality that makes it unique. When the trees bloom, the floor is covered with a million of small yellow flowers, mixed with the bright green leaves. The sound of the water falling melts with the conversations and the occasional music from the young ones. There’s a kind of peace, a kind of mystery, a kind of presence that stirs inspiration like a butterfly. Loners appear, coming from everywhere, to write, to play, to draw or merely to rest and think. There’s a collective reverence that has nothing to do with religion. All of this make the Sant Felip Neri square the most beautifully secret place of Barcelona.

And it is here where Chris and Erika’s story took place.