It was lunchtime in Olho Marinho and nothing was moving in the heat. I saw one old man in a café and a young couple smoking beneath a tree but there was no one else on the streets.
Except me; but then I have English blood and behaviour like this is expected of me. So I wandered through cobbled lanes in the harsh sunshine with heat coming off the walls and found myself in an open space in the centre of the old village.
Those eyes, those teddy bear eyes
Olho Marinho is ugly from the outside but its heart is a picturesque and tranquil place. There is a monument to those who didn’t come back from the wars and a spring which gave the village its name. It translates – very roughly – as eye of the sea and was the clearest and most remarkable outpouring of water from the earth I had ever seen.
It was a calm and reflective moment right up to the point I realised I was being stared at by a neon pink teddy bear sprawled across a bench on the other side of the square. It was lying there like it just did not care, its legs up in the air and one arm flung across its chest. Its eyes were black and as I moved they followed me.
This is a freaky thing to experience when you are a stranger walking in mid-day heat through a deserted village square. I watched it for a while from the corner of my eye, half expecting it to move and maybe even laugh at me. I wondered how many other visitors had had their moment beside the eye of the sea unsettled by the lounging teddy.
It worked on me. I took some pictures but my heart wasn’t in it. I knew the teddy was watching. I wanted to pick it up and shake the smirk from its arrogant little face but even through my heat-induced delusions I knew that might be seen as strange. So I packed my camera and left the bear alone with its square. It still bugs me though. That bear and I have unfinished business.
Connal, have you ever thought about therapy? You seem such a calm placid person in ‘real’ life.