Unai Elorriaga - Plants Don't Drink Coffee

And if afterwards the person on the phone asks one more thing I don’t know what to answer. If the person on the phone asks “Is your dad still sick?” or “How is your mom doing?” I don’t know what to answer. I say the three things Mom told me to say: No, he isn’t (first), Dad is in the hospital (second), and he is in San Fausto hospital (third), and then I say Goodbye or I say See You Later or I don’t say anything. Those who aren’t family members call Dad “Erroman.”

This is why I’m at Aunt Martina’s with my cousins Iñes and Mateo and my uncles Abel and Simon. When Mom goes to the hospital I go to Aunt Martina’s. Mom takes the train and I stay with Iñes. Once, a while ago, Mom brought pajamas to Aunt Martina’s house. My pajamas. Then she took the train. The elastic of my pajama pants is still broken. Aunt Martina told me she would sew a new one on, but she still hasn’t.

Not all beetles are the same. Some have antennae and others really big heads, and some are black, very black, and others are more brown, and others get dark if they live in dark places, and if they live in brown places they get brown. That’s called camouflage. And that’s Iñes’ biggest problem. Iñes has to figure out who each beetle is. And she has to write the name under each beetle on the corkboards. And in the same way she has to guess the names of the dragonflies and the butterflies and the grasshoppers. Some grasshoppers are green, fluorescent green. And that’s Iñes’ biggest problem, because the names of all these insects are very complicated.

Iñes explained why insects have those names and why each insect has two names, a first name and a last name, and why they are in Latin. But I can’t remember what she explained very well. Though I can remember what my uncle said very well: What is Latin, Uncle? A language, a very very perfect one. That’s what he told me.

I think there are two big languages in the world: the one we speak and Latin. And English, maybe.

We have many insects on the corkboards, but we are missing one. Well, we are missing lots, because we don’t have all the insects in the world on the corkboards. But we are missing one, especially. And it isn’t just any insect. It is Orthetrum coerulescens . I have learned its name by heart. It’s a Latin name. And Orthetrum coerulescens isn’t just any insect. It’s a dragonfly, a blue one. But it isn’t just any blue dragonfly. There are many blue dragonflies, but Orthetrum coerulescens isn’t just any blue dragonfly.

Iñes explained that there are only a few Orthetrum coerulescens in the world, and they only live in Europe, and even in Europe there aren’t so many, and she told me we have them in our country, but there are very very very few here. Because our country is Europe. Like Scotland.

In photographs the dragonfly is very long, very blue, and you have to see it in photographs because there are very few in the world. I don’t know for sure how many blue dragonflies there are in the world, but I have figured out there must be seven or nine in the whole world. I don’t like number eight at all, that’s why I figured there must be seven or nine blue dragonflies in the world.

But I’ve been thinking that if there are seven blue dragonflies in the whole world, there can’t be more than two in our town. And if there are nine in the whole world, then maybe there are three in our country. Because the world is very big, but our country isn’t so big. Well, our country is quite big too, but I don’t think there can be more than two or three blue dragonflies here. Four maximum.

Iñes has left a gap on the corkboard for the dragonflies. Iñes has a separate corkboard for the dragonflies and she has left a gap in it, right in the middle. For the blue dragonfly, when we catch it. She has even written its name on a piece of cardboard and pinned it there: Orthetrum coerulescens . But there’s nothing on top of the cardboard. Normally it’s the other way around, but this time Iñes did it this way around. Normally we catch the insect first and then we figure out its name. Well, Iñes figures it out, with her books. Some insects on the corkboards don’t have names yet, because sometimes it takes Iñes ages to figure out their names. Maybe there aren’t enough names to go around for all the insects. Because there are lots of insects in the world and in our country. Yesterday we caught a red beetle. Well, it was red and black. Mostly black.

Iñes has a big bicycle, a racing bicycle, and she talks a lot. Iñes talks a lot, but she talks well. Most of all she talks about blue dragonflies. She says if we catch the blue dragonfly there will be riots in the faculty. That means there are very few blue dragonflies in the world, nine or seven or fewer still, and if we catch one it will be incredible. People call blue dragonflies Orthetrum coerulescens .

That’s why the most important thing in the world now is to catch the dragonfly. So that Iñes can bring it to the faculty. But not only for that reason. There is another reason too. Iñes told me something no one else in the world knows. She told me a secret, a big one. This is what Iñes told me and her eyes were full of mystery when she said it: “The person who catches the blue dragonfly. .” she said, and then she went quiet. And then she did this thing with her lips, and turned them upwards and downwards, and that always means she is about to reveal a mystery, a big one, and then she added: “. . becomes the most intelligent person in the whole world.” That’s what she told me. And this is a secret that almost no one in the world knows and it’s incredible. But it’s true. Iñes told me.

This is why I want to be the one to catch the blue dragonfly. Iñes doesn’t need it. Iñes is already intelligent. Not me. This is why I want to be the one to catch Orthetrum coerulescens . To be like a doctor. Because doctors are the most intelligent people in the world.

But then I started thinking maybe all doctors have caught a blue dragonfly and that’s why they are so intelligent. But then I thought that can’t be. Because I realized there are lots of doctors in the world and not so many dragonflies. Lots of doctors, but only seven or nine dragonflies. There are normal doctors and then eye doctors and bone doctors and so on. Some doctors are normal and others are specialists. I think the normal ones are more intelligent than the specialists.

Then there are hospitals. There are lots of doors in hospitals, and lots of staircases, and doctors come out of the doors all the time. Lots of doctors. And they all have intelligent faces. I think among all the doctors the ones who work in hospitals are the most intelligent. I think so.

Doctors always know what needs to be done. Which medicine needs to be taken, and how much, and when: sometimes before lunch and sometimes before dinner. Or after lunch and after dinner and after breakfast. And there is a pharmacy next to Aunt Martina’s house and there are a thousand medicines there, in the cabinets, all with different names, and there are another three or four or five pharmacies in town, and in all of them there are a thousand medicines in the cabinets, and sometimes maybe more than a thousand. And some medicines are pills and others are syrups and others are vitamins. And doctors never make mistakes and they always know what medicine needs to be taken and how and why. And some doctors take the heart of a person and put it in another person. And afterwards that person is fine. They can run and ride a bicycle with their new heart. Doctors do things like that, like this thing with the heart, and that shows how intelligent they are.

I don’t want to be a doctor. Or a judge. Uncle Abel told me that judges are also very intelligent. But I don’t want to be a judge. Or a doctor. I want to be intelligent though. Uncle Abel said everybody wants to be intelligent, that that’s nothing new. But I don’t think so. Not everyone wants to be intelligent. I’ve noticed that at school, during recess. Some students don’t make an effort to be intelligent. They are always angry. And when they play soccer as well, they are angry with everyone else almost all the time. They are angry because they don’t make an effort to be intelligent. That’s the reason. Ismael says so. Ismael makes a big effort to be intelligent, and he is intelligent. More than me. Those who don’t make an effort to be intelligent are usually very noisy and their clothes are always dirty. Especially their pants, almost always. Their pants are always dirty, and sometimes their shirts are, too.