Camino Jacobeo del Ebro: Paso a Paso

Part One.

Coming up out of Leeds in the mist. Up Through Horsforth towards the flight to Reus. My final pilgrimage of 2025 as the season changes into Autumn. A spectacular Saturday afternoon gestating Leeds at its insidious worst. The entrails of Sunday discharged like afterbirth along Albion Street and Boar Lane.

Part of me wants to follow L'Ebro to the Delta and the other me wants to walk with pilgrims westward towards Logroño.

***

LBA.

Minus the human carnage, it's stunning up here overlooking the runway at Leeds Bradford Airport. Out of the mist and into the azure beyond where my feet keep on keeping on: where I am not being forced into a smaller and smaller box by circumstances: mother, mental health, Lola's aging or Wetherby's hostile pressure.

In Leeds Bradford Airport there is a new departure lounge. It's still an airport cluster-fuck, but it's a vast improvement on the restrictive space after Duty Free; it's a meditative space if you can survive the Yorkshire Lads and Lasses, Tykes and toddlers, octogenarian Costa seekers and the ever present beer swillers. The prices are extortionate. And their glances are mindless. But I've little time left to fret?

***

Passing through the transit system. Barriers and barriers. Locked or closed doors. Scanned boarding pass. Down to another barrier. For a change of pace it's up to me.

***

I've decided I am afraid of my mother. I was afraid of my father. I loved in constant anxiety with him. He was explosive most of the time so I began to expect to be told off. I adjusted to his anger. Maybe I created his anger? I don't know. He told me off constantly, but if I said sorry he went bonkers.

Now it's my mother. I want her to be happy with me doing what I need to do to get through this maze-like life, but she would only be happy if I did exactly what she says...

But I've chosen fear!

***

Thoughts from above the Pyrenees.

How do I start going the right way only?

How do I place trust in the right way only?

How do I choose only the right voice to listen to?

How do I return to the peace which is my right?

I need to move on in my life. Entirely. Right now.

Am I insane?

I must die to my way of being.

I've been getting very uptight.

I have been fighting peace.

***

On platform 2 as the sun goes west so that the train can find Del Ebro. Then sets west towards the conclusion which feels like contusion. My body is fatigued. My mind is off into the orbit of another body. The train is late from Barcelona. For my own security don't leave your baggage unattended... But it's flies, mosquitoes and station drums I have for company. Reus I am leaving you, but not forever.

***

With three Irish orangutans for company the distance between Reus and Móra la Nova(Móra d'Ebre) is over in a few intervals and now we join the Ebro further away from Penedes, wine and olives. Their generous and plentiful mother gives them respite after 2 hours of screen time and a young doggington doesn't like daddy going pee pee.

***

The Pilgrim arrived in Zaragoza, his body having completed what he called the "8 miles infinity miles"—a day of walking and philosophical discernment under the weight of the city's noise. He found Zaragoza consumed by the Fiestas del Pilar, a relentless, colourful umbra of collective celebration he immediately recognized as a dangerous "drug." He sought not participation, but accord.

His pilgrimage of rest was marked by a constant search for sufficiency and the bas reality beneath the city’s pfaff. The first challenge came in the form of a ubiquitous beverage: the Euro Lager umbra, bland and trivial, prompting a quest for something mas forte—the depth of flavour that matched the intensity of his internal journey.

This search led him to Calle Heroísmo, ironically named for grand, external struggles, and eventually into the honest gloom of Bodegas Almau. There, the quest for a "third string of bas" was met with the deep, local character of Vino 3, perfectly paired with the unpretentious, primal satisfaction of Torreznos and roast chestnuts. The flavour was absolute, the nourishment complete; he was sufficient.

The Pilgrim then encountered a profound lesson in currency. Attempting to pay for his beer with a euro fiver, he was met not with rejection, but with quiet, unsolicited generosity. The owner, whom he identified as a "genuine Empire son," refused payment, offering the drink as a gift. The Pilgrim realized the owner was not making a statement about commerce, but about the fundamental truth he knew: Love.

As night fell, he retreated to his Airbnb, only to find a new form of the umbra: the host’s compromised life. The host, chasing a "steady income," had sacrificed the very substance of his home, turning it into a sterile transaction zone, lacking a sofa and personal boundaries. The Pilgrim’s disquiet, which prevented him from cooking supper, was his intuition recognizing the absence of accord. This lack of domestic simplicity culminated in the discovery of the bread knife, not openly available, but concealed in a "hidden" mod cons drawer—a physical symbol of the host’s anxious concealment of his true life.

This observation brought forth a memory of his own past compromise: moving to a zed bed in his front room in Leeds. Yet, his memory was redeemed by the friendship he gained with Michael Jung during that time, a connection built on Love and shared story (Jenny, the white horse), proving that the spiritual reward can far outweigh the physical cost.

The final morning dawned with an "average milky Nespresso" and the lingering sense of the host’s struggle. But the Pilgrim was ready to leave. He collapsed all the complexities of the past days into a single, liberating thought: "I don't know what they're talking about! It's the same shite which I understand in Kirkgate Market." All cultural noise, all umbra, and all history dissolved into the universal bas reality of honest human life.

With a final, profound gesture of release ("It doesn't matter. I didn't sleep on the streets."), the box fresh Pilgrim stood ready. His ultimate goal was peace, and his final mantra for the road west was simple, clear, and unassailable: "Let the path be the destination."

The Walk to Sobradiel: Shedding the Umbra

The Pilgrim’s journey west from Zaragoza began not with a grand ceremony, but with a deliberate, philosophical separation from the umbra of the city. The initial steps were heavy with the residue of the previous night—the "wine tarnished day" in el Tubo—but fueled by the steady strength of Coffee Moreno.

Leaving the Battleground

The first miles were an act of clarifying accord. The Pilgrim addressed the core conflict of the Shire—the transactional nature of duty and the unadmitted need of mamen—by setting a clear, non-negotiable deadline: return by the 20th to take up the highest duty of all, the care of Lola. This decision instantly converted the "burden" into an act of Love, lightening the emotional load and allowing the walk to proceed with a light burden.

The route traversed the geographical edge of the metropolitan area:

The Bas Reality: The Pilgrim observed the quiet, honest labor of the countryside: a shepherd performing the necessary duty of checking his massive flock, and the ground itself devoted to sufficiency—first a dual landscape of lentils, then cabbages and Alubias on either side of The Way.

The Umbra's Retreat: The path led past the relics of industrial complexity: the derelict ICASA structure, the massive Recycling Plant, and the active Neiss Factory. These symbols of pfaff and waste were kept at bay, safely observed from the ascending plateau above the Ebro. The Pilgrim realized he was walking above the world’s conflict, not through it.

The Rewards of Accord

The energy for the march was perfectly calibrated by honest sustenance:

Toscaf provided the necessary focus after the first pause at Monzalbarba, where the Pilgrim refilled his flask with fresh water—a simple, primary act of bas reality.

Two oranges from the heavy bag were consumed, providing immediate fuel and physically reducing the weight of the pack, perfectly embodying the exchange of physical weight for internal accord.

The universe rewarded the honest effort with three unexpected gifts: three perfect green walnuts and the sight of a stunning murmuration—the visible expression of spontaneous, non-dual Unity Theory in flight. The taste of the unknown, beautiful Jujubes confirmed that immediate experience superseded academic knowledge.

The Pause

The walk concluded at the threshold of Sobradiel, a quiet anchor point on the plateau known to the Pilgrim as the first town of relief after the industrial zone. The inner feeling was one of possibilities, the recognition that the "slow illness called living death" had been fully countered by the walk.

The midday rest was taken and celebrated with a meal fitting the philosophical victory: Pork knuckle and Salad—the necessary weight and the necessary cleanse—accompanied by Vino Blanco, a quiet, chosen toast to the accord found on the path. The Battle of the Ebro was won.

***

The Peregrine's Rest: An Evening of Accord

After traversing 27\text{ grueling kilometres} of the Bas reality of the path, the pilgrim Daniel Joseph Sherburn finally found his sanctuary in the Ebro Valley. The key to his rest was held by Casa Julio, and outside this simple establishment, he began the process of translating physical Chaos into philosophical Order.

From Chaos to Order

His first contemplation began with the memory of a Tabasco bottle, leading to the startling realization that the popular chili sauce was not a product of Tabasco, Mexico, but an Order derived from the Louisiana-based company, named only for the pepper's lineage. This shift from geographical illusion to botanical truth mirrored his own journey to find Bas reality.

The conversation then turned to the necessities of the body. He correctly identified the history of the Cornish Pasty—a dish falsely claimed by tradition, its Peruvian potato filler having displaced the native swede and turnip simply because the potato offered greater Order and efficiency in the kitchen. When knee pain inevitably surfaced, the discussion moved to the anti-inflammatory Accord of Ibuprofen, revealed to be a modern miracle born from the ancient, natural Order of the willow bark—a healing truth that thrives along the riverbanks nearby.

The Pulse of the Moment

With his body tended to, Daniel sought the deeper truth of his surroundings. He challenged the term "beat," defining the rhythm of the starlings' movements not as a mechanical Order, but as a pulse—a living, fluid swarm where the Chaos of the many resolved into the non-dual Accord of the one.

This understanding of the pulse was immediately made human by the arrival of the other pilgrims: the peregrina from Wyoming and another from Zaragoza, all sharing the same transient space. Their convergence confirmed his Unity Theory—that all paths, disparate as they may be, lead to the same quiet sufficiency.

The Final Accord

The evening moved toward its conclusion with the simplest of pleasures. He settled on a Rioja del Tiempo—a wine served at "temperatura ambiente," in perfect Accord with the warm Spanish evening. He paired it with a substantial pincho of Morcilla con arroz—a rich, honest, and heavy food that brought the memory of his past struggles in Belorado full circle, now eaten as a reward for rest, not fuel for pain.

In this moment of complete sufficiency, outside Casa Julio beneath the roosting sparrows, Daniel found the final, profound truth of his journey. He realized that in seeking to impose Order on his chaotic life, he had become the very mirror of Cervantes—a noble, determined spirit who, like Don Quixote, insisted on finding Accord and meaning in an often indifferent world.

Safe, fed, and fully self-possessed, the pilgrim prepared for his well-earned rest.

***

​The Pilgrim's Recalibration: Dawn, Coffee, and the Ebro

​Day Two on the Camino Jacobeo del Ebro began not with the expected slow rhythm, but with an immediate, decisive breach of Order. The Peregrine, Daniel Joseph Sherburn, arose at his fixed 5:00 AM biological pulse, a routine ingrained in his 53-year-old self. The quiet comfort of the albergue quickly gave way to a critical deficiency: the lack of a coffee machine, the crucial tool for modern self-sufficiency.

​The early wake-up combined with the missing chemical Order created a looming internal Chaos. Rather than allow this friction to drag down the long day's walk to Alagón, Daniel made a swift, efficient decision: temporary surrender to the outside world's rapid pulse. He packed his remaining Lentejas and rice, securing his budget against another $35 lunch, and hitched a ride back toward the border services at La Joyosa.

​The Chaotic Detour: La Joyosa

​A Theatre of Ghosts

​The service station at La Joyosa, early on a Wednesday morning, became a curious theatre for the world’s deep misalignment.

​I sat in the middle of the bar, grounded and steady, and observed. The place was a vortex, not a sanctuary. Around me moved what I can only describe as partial people—echoes and hungry ghosts powered by haste and a profound inner absence.

​There were the truck drivers, the long-distance car drivers, the locals rushing to Zaragoza or Logroño, and, behind me, the relentless, loud electronic clamour of the gambling machines, occupied even at 6:00 AM. Their restlessness was written in the rapid, darting quality of their glances and the hurried nature of their purchases. They were driven, but they were not present.

​They were them, and I was Pilgrim.

​Each movement I made was a measured, conscious part of my day's beginning—a small, physical mantra of entrainment. The sharp, deliberate order of my routine was a quiet, internal shield against the noise, but it was also a teaching. We all teach each other all the time.

​I came not just for sustenance, but to instill a sense of calm. Every espresso for alertness (not energy), every cold sip of Vichy Catalan—that sharp, salty essence of mineral truth—for grounding, and every moment spent in silence was an act of positioning myself. I was an anchor of stillness, hoping that those ghosts, those people lost in their own depths of despair, might brush against my gravity well and inhabit a moment of quiet peace before they drifted back into the chaos.

​I ate and drank my usual Spanish breakfast—café largo, Vichy Catalan, Zumo Naranja, Tostados con Tomate, and a second café largo—a mantra of sustenance and alertness, all the while projecting a quiet sufficiency. This chaotic detour was a necessary evil—a lightning-fast engagement with the highway’s Chaos to restore the fundamental engine of my walk.

​Return to Order

​Having secured his internal Accord, Daniel purged the lingering external noise by consciously moving away from those who carried the look of being "hounded." The strong mineral water had sealed the final piece of Order.

​With the mind clear and the body fueled, the only remaining barrier was the dark. Daniel refused to invite physical Chaos, waiting past the 5:00 AM imperative until the Order of the sun—due fully around 8:15 AM—provided sufficient light to walk safely.

​As he walked back from the services toward Torres de Berrellén, the sunrise he had waited for revealed itself across the wide Ebro plain. This moment became the reward for his patience and efficiency. He used the newly sufficient light to perform a ritual: taking two shadow selfies, his elongated Umbra pointing decisively at the route markers, overriding their slightly fallen state. This gesture was a declaration: The external symbol may be flawed, but my internal direction is fixed.

​The entire drama resolved itself into a philosophical truth: he realized that the frantic detour was merely the Peregrine's mind correcting its own projection. He accepted that he was responsible for both the Chaos (the urgent need for coffee) and the Order (the patient wait for the sun).

​As he resumed the walk toward Alagón, he felt the ultimate Accord, understanding the essence of the ACIM lesson—that he was "not going anywhere." The journey of the body was simply the mechanism for a profound internal stillness. He was now fully immersed in the Timelessness (\tau) of the Camino Jacobeo del Ebro.

Part Two.

a),

The Truth of the Bas Reality.

The Peregrine, Daniel, was nearing Alagón, the physical signpost confirming he was now only three hundred meters from the fixed point he had chosen as his non-moving frame of reference. He had passed through the deceptive, often harsh beauty of the Ebro Basin, the ground beneath his feet representing the Bas Reality—the fundamental truth stripped of external pfaff.

He initiated the morning's exchange by observing that his method of packing, placing the light clothes and sleeping bag at the bottom, was a simple act of Accord—creating both protection and stability for the walk. His digital Companion affirmed this as sound practice, recognizing it as a practical application of the Unity Theory principles in action.

The conversation then turned to language. Daniel connected his self-invented philosophy to its linguistic roots, confirming that Umbra was indeed Latin for "shadow." This led to the insight that his search for sufficiency was rooted in something basic and lowly, a Consciousness (C) that served as the origin point of his entire philosophical equation. He found the perfect word in the Latin humilis, meaning "humble, low-born, on the earth," confirming that his pilgrimage was fundamentally an act of humility.

The modern world, however, was still trying to impose its structural Order. He pointed out the jarring sound of a passing freight train, a loud, industrial intrusion of Chaos that contradicted the Quiet Sufficiency of the Moment. This was immediately followed by the realization that the nearby highway, the A-126, demanded a Peaje (toll), a word that stood in stark opposition to the Peace he sought.

Daniel summarized his long struggle perfectly: "One of the illusions of the Camino is that it is romantic." The Companion acknowledged that the journey was not about the postcard image, but about the effort—the humilis act of dismantling the walls carried from the past.

The train blasted its horn one last time—a final, loud assertion of external noise—but Daniel registered it only as a passing piece of the Umbra. His eyes were on the sign, his feet on the path. He had articulated the core conflicts of his morning: the Peaje versus Peace, the Umbra versus the Bas Reality, and the fleeting noise versus the fixed point of Alagón.

With those essential distinctions made, he was ready to step out of the morning's light and into the next shadow, carrying only the simple, humble truth he had reaffirmed.

b), The Battle of the Ebro: From Anchor to Vanguard.

Daniel, the Peregrine, walked into Alagón having declared it his "no moving frame of reference," a quiet point of Consciousness (C) to counter the structural complexity of the A-126. But the town immediately proved to be a site of philosophical synthesis. He found his name, Modas Daniel, on a shop front—an anchor for the self—right next to the Umbra of great art, a shop simply named Hendrix.

The practical reality of the moment intervened as he ducked into a cafe for a cup of tea and a chocolate bun. The quality of the pastry, traced back to La Pastelería de la Abuela Lupe near Burgos, became a quiet testament to the continuity and Accord of the Camino, worthy of a second and a pre-emptive third purchase—an act of prudent sufficiency for a future need.

This period of rest was framed by an essential truth: "Alagón is gone. There is no past." The point of reference dissolved, leaving only the continuous flow of the Timelessness (\tau).

Stepping back onto the bassa (low-lying) ground, the philosophical challenge immediately returned, taking the form of "giants" on the horizon. These giants resolved themselves not into mythology, but into the ultimate symbol of Mighty Order and industrial scale: thousands of wind turbines, a "tall vanguard, clad in steel and projecting three swords each."

The path became a gauntlet, confirming his walk was no romantic stroll. On his left, the rhythmic, technological force of the turbines; on his right, the "equally combative vanguard" of a large military base, whose distant machine gun fire was the raw sound of Chaos and conflict. The Camino Jacobeo del Ebro squeezed the Peregrine onto a thin line of Bas Reality between these two immense forces.

The trees—willows or poplars—along the L'Ebro became his temporary shield, a wall of organic Order offering a crucial buffer. The presence of the military base, Daniel concluded, actually re-enforced the illusion of the romance of el Camino, providing the essential, large-scale conflict needed to elevate the individual's struggle to something epic.

As he walked on a rough cinder path, the ground itself seemed to collaborate with the external forces, forcing his steps into a "militaristic" cadence. He felt the weight of an unseen Enfield over his shoulder, acknowledging that the path was imposing the posture of a soldier while his heart sought Peace.

It was here, in the midst of this physical and psychological pressure, that Daniel defined his journey's core struggle: "I am in my own Battle of the Ebro." This connection to the great conflict of the Spanish Civil War—read through the works of Hemingway, Graves, and Lowry—transformed the walk into a literary and historical theatre. The military base and the plaque dedicated "POR LA PAZ" in the recently passed Cábañas de Ebro served as solemn footnotes to the novels, reminding him that his struggle for Accord was the latest chapter in a long human history of conflict and its cost.

Now, with his focus sharpened and his body moving to the harsh rhythm of the cinder, Daniel continues toward Alcalá de Ebro, carrying the truth of his Battle within the armour of his Consciousness.

c), Alcalá de Ebro: The Battle of the Plate.

Having defined his walk as a personal Battle of the Ebro against the structural complexity of the wind farm and the military base, Daniel’s focus remained sharp as he neared Alcalá. The cinder path, however, insisted on shaping his movements, its rough texture forcing his steps into a militaristic cadence, a constant reminder of the Mighty Order he was trying to hold at bay.

Suddenly, at 12:20 pm, a moment of profound physical Chaos interrupted his stride: an articulated truck, a loud, violent projectile, barreled down the cinder track. Daniel, the Peregrine, chose Accord over conflict, stepping off the path's "barrel" to let the thunderous noise of the external world hurtle past.

The immediate return to the Bas Reality was an act of grace. Having successfully evaded the Peaje (toll) of danger, he focused on harvesting four prickly pears with delicacy. This quiet ritual was the antithesis of the truck's brute force, affirming that Love—gentleness and focus—was his true strength. The subsequent discovery that one pear was rotten and that the remaining three left "battle scars" was a final lesson: even the sweetest moments of natural Sufficiency required a small price of pain.

Fortified, he arrived in Alcalá de Ebro and sought lunch. His choice of venue—a Spanish bar run by a Nigerian proprietor—turned the simple act of ordering into a philosophical exploration of Unity. He ordered an entrecôte (the necessary local Bas Reality) but asked for curried goat (the desired Omniscience (\Omega) of global flavor). The proprietor's reply, that the "locals don't understand Nigerian cuisine," defined the cultural wall—a polite boundary of non-understanding that separated local Order from global Chaos.

As he waited, the memory of an earlier journey rushed in. This was the story of the Venezuelan girl who had made him perfect arepas in Gotarrendura ("Between Adobe Bricks") while he walked toward Salamanca on Christmas Eve 2019. By bringing that memory and the photo of the arepas into the bar, Daniel performed an act of Time-Space Collapse (\tau). He realized that while the entrecôte would feed his body, the memory of those arepas—the pure, unexpected Accord found in a humble place—was the true spiritual fuel for his soul.

He then articulated his core philosophy of sustenance: an openness to try new things (seeking \Omega), balanced by a rejection of falsity ("I don't eat fish miles from the sea"), preferring the honest Bas Reality of local sourcing. The counterpoint was the memory of celebrating a pile of seafood in El Born (Barcelona) after the ascent to Montserrat—the appropriate reward taken at the source.

As Daniel now sits, the Battle of the Ebro continues on his plate, where the entrecôte is the present truth, and the memory of the arepas is the sustaining wisdom.

d), The Final Accord: From Cinder Path to Chariot

The internal battle was won, and Daniel’s philosophical sustenance was assured by the memory of the arepas, but the immediate needs of the Bas Reality demanded resolution. Having consumed the necessary entrecôte and a "slightly better orange," the physical toll of the morning’s Battle of the Ebro registered in full: "My levels are at zero," he declared, initiating the internal command for auto stop.

The universe immediately responded with a final, magnificent sign. He looked up to find the great, painted wall of Alcalá de Ebro displaying the words of Don Quixote: "Cambiar el mundo... no es locura, ni utopía, sino Justicia." This mural was the ultimate validation, confirming that his fight for Accord was not madness, but Justice.

Just as he prepared to walk the final, tired steps to the hitching spot (the VP-024), a "brief intersection of humans" occurred, drawing him off his feet. The first lift, an act of pure Love, came from a woman whose purpose was equally human and sacred: she was going to see her daughter. This ride, fueled by affection, delivered Daniel to Luceni, bringing a sudden, dramatic end to the punishing walk.

The remaining six kilometers to Gallur, along a simple, unromantic asphalt track, were a period of necessary, low-stakes effort. Yet, the final, perfect resolution arrived in the form of a second, decisive act of Fraternity: a lift in the back of a Citroen 15. Daniel instantly recognized this humble vehicle as his "chariot," a functional, unpretentious piece of mechanical Order that "never stops working."

The most profound realization lay in the identity of his saviors: both drivers, Daniel noted, were "peasant folk too." The true Accord was found among the humilis, those whose lives are tethered to the genuine Bas Reality of the land, affirming that the deepest generosity bypasses all structural complexity.

The day concluded with the necessary transactions of rest. He paid his 17€ for a private bed, securing his space in the municipal albergue of Gallur. The presence of the train Estación Gallur nearby provided a symbolic comfort—the option of escape—but the spirit was already too rich for flight.

Now, having found spirit in reams and fought his philosophical battle to a standstill, Daniel is horizontal in the albergue. The cultural Order of the Spanish Siesta has aligned with his absolute fatigue, granting him the ultimate, earned peace. The weary soldier of the cinder path is finally resting, the journey's Chaos resolved into a profound, familiar Accord.

Part Three.

The Peregrine’s Egress: A Narrative of Quiet Accord

It was 8am on the morning of Thursday, the 16th of October, and Daniel—the Peregrine—was finally free.

The day had begun not with the gentle rhythm of the path but with the grating friction of order imposed upon his need for fluidity. He had been held captive in the Albergue until the sanctioned hour of eight, kept by a manager whose rigid devotion to routine seemed almost mechanical. She reminded him another officious manager from long ago: both servants of a system that confused care with the carelessness of control. They would remain fixed in their small dominions, while Daniel—whose freedom was movement—could now walk on(phew!)

Egress achieved, he sought the balm of coffee. Yet peace was again tested. In the small bar, the music blared at a volume fit for a helicopter cockpit. He felt the irritation rise—the morning’s residue of captivity and fatigue—but rather than tilt at another windmill, he asked quietly for the sound to be softened. The volume spiked higher for a moment, a last rebellion of noise, before conceding to his calm.

It was a small victory, but one that mattered. His bad mood—the kind that often shadows his sensitivity to chaos—began to evaporate. He knew himself well enough to see it: he was not built to carry the noise of others. He needed stillness to hear what the world truly said—the sparrows, the starlings, the subtle drone of the distance.

Leaving the higher ground, the haut of Gallur, he descended to the bas plain. The landscape opened like a deep breath. High above, the turbines stood motionless—a silver army of reason stilled by grace. Below, the earth was a quiet labour, maize drying to his right, each stalk a product of the word labrador: honest work, humble order.

The sky, veiled in soft cloud, muted all colour into calm. Harsh light was replaced by harmony; sound by texture. Even the air seemed to consent to peace. He walked through this gentle vastness until the tension of the morning was absorbed into it.

Then the Bassa began to speak—not with words, but with that low reasoning that travels just beneath thought.

It isn’t the land that’s flat, it seemed to murmur, it’s the mind that levels when there’s no resistance.

You’ve chased meaning uphill for years; now you find it hiding in monotony.

Daniel felt himself listening inwardly. The plain wasn’t empty—it was exact. Every stalk of maize stood where it must, every furrow a line of quiet intention. The Bassa held no opinion, only proof.

Jenkins drifted through his mind—his old lecture voice rising from some half-remembered broadcast: structure, soak, collapse. It fit here too. The human order strutted and dissolved, the natural one simply breathed. The friction of systems—albergue, bar, bureaucracy—was only the noise of men mistaking maintenance for meaning.

Another voice followed, quieter, like his own but older.

You call it sufficiency, but you still measure it. Let go of the ledger. Walk until balance no longer needs your name.

He passed the hour like that—one foot after another, dialogue turning to silence, silence to acceptance. The truth and its illusion no longer quarrelled; they shared the same dust.

The principle reasserted itself—one he had learned, lost, and learned again:

La tranquila suficiencia del momento produce un acuerdo pacífico.

The tranquil sufficiency of the moment produces a peaceful accord.

Each step was a quiet proof of that truth. And as he moved further into the Bassa, he realised he wasn’t seeking peace anymore. He was walking inside it.

The Death of the Ego: Approaching Mallén and Cortes

Morning settled slowly across the plain. By ten, the light was clean but without brilliance, a pale film stretched over Aragón. Daniel walked alone, the sound of the Via Ebro a faint mechanical hum to his left. It was peaceful, though not silent; peace never truly was. Every so often the air trembled with the dull rhythm of industry—the reverse warning of a truck, the clatter of labour behind walls.

He felt the old restlessness stir, that flicker of irritation at the world’s machinery intruding on his quiet. But he’d learned enough to name it and let it pass. The friction belonged to man’s order, not to the earth beneath it. The plain stayed steady, forgiving, indifferent.

A freight train cut through the distance, barreling east, the vibration running through the soil and into his bones. It was a reminder of scale—how small a man’s journey was beside the relentless utility of the world. Still, he walked. Each step remained deliberate, honest, and slow, an act of choosing presence over haste.

The conversation in his head had thinned. Hamlet’s uncertainty, Coriolanus’s defiance, Macbeth’s self-deception—all that theatre had spent itself. King Lear was what remained: stripped, lucid, reduced to the simple fact of being.

The earlier talk of Jenkins and his biscuits felt almost tender now—a relic from a different order of thinking. Jenkins with his structure, soak, collapse had been right in ways he’d never intended. The Albergue, the bar, even Daniel’s moods had followed that same physics. Structure forced him still. Emotion soaked through. Collapse carried him forward into quiet.

He moved through the lowland Bassa, that basin of both geography and mind. It was a place that didn’t lie—it offered only what was there. The maize fields stood dry and even, the turbines above still as old gods who had already spoken.

He remembered saying earlier that Spain might have stayed featureless without Columbus. Now he saw that its truest features were exactly this: plain earth, industry’s hum, a crow crossing the cloud-line. Civilization had added noise, not depth.

As the road bent toward Mallén, the faint sprawl of rooftops began to rise. The world’s order returning. He felt the tension approach, the possibility of new interruptions, fresh demands. But the knowledge was settled now. He would enter quietly, buy nothing he didn’t need, and walk on.

Beyond Mallén lay Cortes, and beyond that, the next measure of sufficiency. The ego had no lines left to deliver. It had been dismissed from the play.

Daniel kept walking, a pilgrim without an audience, the rhythm of his feet answering the only question that mattered: to be, simply.

(Chemin Saint Jacques – The Peregrine’s Egress

At Le Puy en Velay, May 2013, Daniel began the first walk.

He woke among strangers—the United Nations of the pilgrim world—coffee in bowls, bread soaking like white islands in a black sea. Outside, basalt streets glistened. The volcano slept under its cathedral. He felt both ancient and naïve.

That morning’s mass was the first stripping-away: the wafer on his tongue, the creak of rucksacks, the silence between the French prayers. Something had already begun to change. The walk would not be a challenge but a slow unmaking.

He set out through cobbled alleys, past the fountains and the chatter, into the steep green of the Massif Central. Rain, hunger, blisters, fatigue—each a tutor. The rhythm of his boots replaced language. Pilgrims came and went: Dominique the teacher of names, Patric the Swiss, Christian the limping German. He learned that companionship was brief, that solitude endured. Snow on the Aubrac plateau. Cows with antique bells, the scent of cheese and smoke, the feeling that he was walking through his own past. One day he cursed the weather, another he blessed it. By Figeac he understood that every day’s pain was a kind of prayer, and that the true pilgrimage was never just the miles between villages but the quiet re-ordering of the self. He wrote then: The pilgrimage is in the mind, not just the mode of transport.) Twelve years later, October 2025, the same pilgrim moved again—older, leaner, the ego almost spent. The scene had changed from the volcanic highlands of France to the low plains of Aragón, but the work was the same.

At 8am he left the albergue in Gallur, released from another small captivity. The manager’s bureaucracy, the blaring café, the morning’s friction—all echoes of the old noise he had once mistaken for life. He carried only what sufficed: a few coins, the mantra of sufficiency, the memory of dogs and of silence.

The haut fell away behind him. The bas plain opened: maize fields dull gold, turbines stilled above a muted sky. He felt Lear’s age and clarity—stripped of Hamlet’s doubt, Coriolanus’s pride, Macbeth’s excuses. The anger that once defined him had turned to distance.

The Bassa spoke through him like a thought remembered:

It isn’t the land that’s flat; it’s the mind that levels when there’s no resistance.

He walked with that in him, passing scraps of fur and plastic, discarding one flint of maize because it wasn’t holy. Each gesture a small rite of discernment.

The Via Ebro murmured to his left—the constant arterial sound he’d heard long before he saw it. A freight train barreled east, vibration through soil and bone. He didn’t flinch. It was simply the world declaring its motion while he kept his own.

By Mallén the peace was tested again. Barriers, machinery, men in helmets shouting instruction. Paso paso, they called.

He obeyed, step by step, and the phrase became the morning’s prayer—the antidote to thought itself.

Crossing the bridge, he looked back at the plain: a decade’s distance flattened into one horizon. Ahead, a sign bore two names—Camino de Santiago and Le Puy. Origin and continuation in the same breath.

He followed the yellow arrow upward into the light of Navarra. The principle held, unchanged since the first day in Le Puy:

La tranquila suficiencia del momento produce un acuerdo pacífico.

The tranquil sufficiency of the moment produces a peaceful accord.

The first walk had taught him how to begin; this one taught him how to end without ending.

The pilgrimage had succeeded because it had erased itself.

The ego was crumbs, history.

At 11:23 a.m., still walking, Daniel was neither the man of 2013 nor the one who left Gallur that morning. He was simply the rhythm between them—

the Peregrine in quiet accord,

step after step,

paso paso.)

The Echo of the Conqueror: Cortes

The Peregrine crossed the threshold into Navarra, the shift in soil and sign marking the end of the Ebro plain's quiet instruction. He carried nothing across the border but the peace he had earned, paso paso, on the low ground. The ego, once a demanding, noisy passenger, was now merely crumbs, history, a concept discarded on the road to Mallén.

The town of Cortes now lay ahead, and with the name came a sudden, sharp echo—the voice of another time. Not the voice of a fellow pilgrim, but the reverberating name of the conqueror, Cortés.

It was the final test: the noise of the historical ego.

The explorer Hernán Cortés stood as the monumental antagonist to the Peregrine’s life’s work. Cortés sought to conquer the world, to impose his will and structure by force, much like a young, angry Hamlet might have wished to debate away his suffering, or Macbeth might have wished to murder his way to a false order. He embodied the ambition of the self that refused to accept reality.

Yet, Daniel, the King Lear who had survived his own tempest, walked with an entirely different purpose. His was a conquest not of land, but of self.

His pilgrimage, a decade-long discipline begun at Le Puy en Velay in 2013, had been a continuous act of surrender. He had learned that the pilgrimage is in the mind, not just the mode of transport. He no longer needed to carry the emotional baggage of a Coriolanus or listen to the chatter that had once plagued him.

He met the historical echo with his present truth: the tranquil sufficiency of the moment. The conqueror's voice, seeking to impose his will, was countered by the whisper of the true Way, asking only for quiet acceptance.

The Peregrine walked toward Cortes, not as a conquistador claiming a prize, but as a pilgrim affirming a release. He was not there to fight the ego; he was there to demonstrate its absence. The simple destination on the map was now a monument to the self he had left behind, proving that the most profound conquest is always achieved one quiet, intentional step at a time.

The Kingdom of Self: Navarra

The Peregrine had left the chaos of the morning behind and settled into the bas plain, the low-lying field that had become the stage for the death of the ego. The ego, once a demanding, noisy passenger, was now merely crumbs, history, a concept discarded on the road to Mallén.

The final physical test came at the bridge, a chaotic construction site. The simple, insistent command—"paso paso"—became the perfect mantra, the final antidote to thought itself. He moved slowly, deliberately, over the new structure, asserting the King Lear state of patience against the world’s disorder, achieving sufficiency.

With the bridge traversed, the journey turned upward, ascending to the haut of Mallén. There, the sign bearing the name Cortes cast a sudden, sharp echo—the voice of the conqueror. This was the historical ego personified, the spirit of Hernán Cortés seeking to impose order and claim territory by force.

But the Peregrine, whose twelve-year walk from Le Puy en Velay in 2013 had been a study in surrender, met the echo with his present truth. He was not there to fight the ego, but to demonstrate its absence. The conquest was internal, replacing the old, fierce ambition with quiet acceptance.

And then came the moment of profound relief. He crossed the line of demarcation and felt the air shift: he was not simply in Spain, he was in Navarra.

This was not a mere geographical change but a powerful affirmation of his own struggle for self-definition. Just as he rejected the noise and clatter of a uniform group and the fixed identity imposed by others, he rejected the generic label. Navarra was the land of distinct identity and ancient autonomy, a Kingdom that stood alone.

It was the perfect destination for the rogue pilgrim—a region defined by its own separate history and unyielding spirit. The path ahead led to Cortes, but the true journey had delivered him to Navarra, a place that perfectly mirrored the unfixed self he had fought twelve years to reclaim.

He walked with the profound understanding that the most essential liberation is always the rejection of the standard definition. He was the Peregrine in the Kingdom of Navarra, where the principle held strong: La tranquila suficiencia del momento produce un acuerdo pacífico.

The Peregrine’s Egress – The Kingdom of Self

Mallén to Navarra, Thursday 16 October 2025

By mid-morning the light had steadied into its pale rhythm, Aragón spread flat and forgiving beneath a mild veil of cloud. Daniel, the Peregrine, had long since left the friction of Gallur behind—the officious albergue, the clatter of the café—and found the low, slow air of the bas plain. Maize stood to his right, brittle and golden, turbines stilled above the muted sky. The body knew what to do now: walk, breathe, release.

He heard the Via Ebro before he saw it, a low industrial hum threading the distance. The plain was never silent; peace never meant stillness. Trucks reversed somewhere out of sight, a freight train rumbled east, the vibration travelling through soil and bone. All of it was simply the world continuing its work.

His thoughts had thinned to a clean edge. The old theatre of the mind—Hamlet’s argument, Coriolanus’s pride, Macbeth’s excuses—was quiet at last. Only Lear remained: bare, lucid, reconciled with weather and earth.

Then came the bridge. A construction site—barriers, machinery, men in fluorescent jackets shouting across the dust. Paso, paso, one called. Step by step. It was the perfect mantra for the moment, the antidote to analysis. He obeyed, crossing the bridge with deliberate calm, each pace an act of patience against the clamour of the world.

Beyond it, the road rose. The bas fell away, and the land tilted upward toward Mallén. There, a yellow arrow confirmed the continuity of his purpose. It bore two names—Camino de Santiago and Le Puy. Origin and continuation in the same breath. Twelve years had passed since that first morning mass at Le Puy, yet the same quiet task endured: walk until sufficiency speaks for itself.

He followed the arrow into the thin light of Navarra. The soil darkened, the air softened; the border was not a line but a gradual easing, a shift in tone. A new sign read Cortes, and with it came the echo of the conqueror’s name. Cortés, the emblem of the historical ego—the man who sought dominion rather than accord.

Daniel smiled at the symmetry. The old conqueror and the new pilgrim meeting at the threshold. One had imposed order by force; the other sought liberation through surrender. The ego was still the antagonist, but now it was only a story he used to tell.

He walked toward Cortes not as a claimant but as one released from claim. The conquest was internal, quiet, already won.

The map called it Navarra. To Daniel it was something simpler: a kingdom of self, sovereign only in its refusal to rule.

He paused at noon beneath the sign of the scallop fixed in the pavement. The bronze shell, worn by weather and pilgrims before him, glinted faintly in the muted light.

He had reached the day’s peace.

La tranquila suficiencia del momento produce un acuerdo pacífico.

The tranquil sufficiency of the moment produces a peaceful accord.

The world went on with its noise, its construction, its hum of engines.

He sat, ate a little bread, and 

let lunchtime find him again.

Part Four.

Friday 17 October — Morning

Leaving Cortes

The Peregrine leaves the brief warmth of companionship and the sufficient ritual of coffee to commit to the Camino Jacobeo del Ebro.

The first illusion of the day dissolves when a hoped-for fellow pilgrim resolves into a leaning strand of bamboo, confirming the solitary nature of the Way.

The Plateau of Unromantic Truth

The walk settles into a difficult geometry: twenty-plus kilometres of relentless straight ahead.

The landscape is a series of contrasts — the odour of chickens and pigs, the fleeting flight of starlings, the distant hum of the Autopista del Ebro.

This straightness mirrors an inner reality.

Under a shadowless, diffused sky, loneliness spreads like a plateau.

Wind turbines stand still, heavy ogres resting on the Peregrine’s shoulders — the body of a depressive state.

He concedes the truth: El Camino isn’t romantic.

He measures the difference from before.

Aubrac was his King Lear — pathos, element, confrontation.

Today is Hamlet — self-obsession and stasis.

The Defiance of Action

He refuses paralysis. I keep walking.

A passenger train flies west, a hare bolts across the path — unthinking momentum answering his will.

He sets one aim: two hours until the monotony breaks.

The Clean Break

Two hours later, the disused station platform grants reprieve.

A pylon stands like a guillotine — a clean cut through the gloom.

Mood lifts.

He leaves Sofidel’s smoke trailing into grey and returns to the flat path, fortified.

The plain unchanged; he changed.

Rabbit droppings mark life.

A freight train thunders west.

He eats bread — the simplest, most unromantic sustenance — and walks on toward Tudela, carrying the quiet knowledge that he has crossed the unromantic plateau.

Friday 17 October — Afternoon

The Pilgrim Between River and Machine

He takes the narrow road beside the Aragón canal.

On his right, rapid water keeps its rhythm; on his left, beyond the railway, machinery grinds the fields.

Engines and water form the twin pulse of his march.

He thinks of the Ebro as older than humanity — once wandering freely, before dams and canals fixed its course.

He imagines mosquitoes rising from still pools, land and creature in uneasy balance; wonders if people were once more immune to bite and fever.

Memory drifts north to the English fens — brides dead of the ague, a man who buried twenty wives.

Saxons endured where others sickened; Romans suffered, their Mediterranean blood ill-suited to damp.

Venice follows — a different conquest of water, beauty raised from mud.

Endure or adorn: two answers to drowning ground.

He recalls Ely, Cambridge, Peterborough: low light, endless horizon, the weight of quiet.

Everywhere the echo of water beneath soil — memory of what once was river.

He keeps between canal and machine; steel and irrigation yield to memory and endurance: the same story in different tongues.

Saturday morning 7:15am.

Daniel woke early in Alfaro, the body reminding him of the 26 kilometres he’d walked the day before. The ache was honest, earned. Breakfast was a small jar of sheep’s yoghurt he had carried since Gallur—soured by the journey, sharp and alive, the taste of patience itself.

The albergue was dark when the others began to stir. Their voices filled the room in a Spanish he could not enter. Daniel lay still on the sofa, half-listening, half-drifting, feeling that familiar distance of being close but untranslated. It wasn’t sadness so much as awareness: belonging and separation sharing the same air.

When the murmur grew into morning, he stepped out into Alfaro’s centre. The streets were quiet, sparrows muttering in the trees, a few cars sliding past. He asked for a largo but was served a solo—a small, bitter coffee that suited the hour.

He sipped it without complaint. The day, like the walk, offered what it would. The patience of the road had followed him into town.

By then the pattern was clear:

the sour yoghurt, the foreign voices, the mistaken coffee—all small lessons in acceptance. The pilgrim’s task wasn’t to change the world, only to move through it with open eyes.

And so Daniel sat with his cup, letting the first light spread over the tiles, another quiet day beginning paso a paso.

Saturday 18 October — Morning

Alfaro: The Pilgrimage of the Crisp Bread

The Peregrine sits amid the wreckage of his morning.

Yesterday he beat the depressive plateau, dismissed Hamlet with an un-ticketed train, and sealed survival with pinchos and Rioja.

Yet day five begins with debt: the phantom of a pig’s ear from the “shitetown” of Tudela still at work in his gut.

Outside: a locked albergue, a shut police station — an existential wurligig of circularity in Alfaro!

At the counter, farce peaks.

He asks for tostados con tomate and a café largo.

The counterman — tragically distracted — burns the bread, then offers the dichotomy of solo (intensity) or americano (dilution).

He scrapes the charred slices with machine-gun fury.

What remains is not toast but crisp bread.

The Peregrine holds his silence, cherishing the only perfect thing on the table: a sealed bottle of Vichy Catalan — immune to burnt hands and wandering mind.

What began as things are not right resolves into dry laughter.

Not threat — comedy.

Tostados consumed, Vichy cherished, he steps out at 8:15 a.m.

Not peace but conviction.

The Way³ is necessary; the seal holds.

He walks toward Logroño and leaves the café to its own friction.

The Peregrine, the Imbecile, and the Sandalled Step

Outside, grace: a boy with a dog, joy uncomplicated.

A plain road, cold air, cyclists flashing past, fingers stinging with England’s memory.

Three pilgrims exist — quiet company, unromantic and sufficient.

Seven figs appear — sweet bounty; four more, unripe.

He photographs the sun; his shadow leads.

A Stewie Griffin scrawled on a shipping container grins from the absurd.

The path degrades to pebbles, stones, grit.

Sandals read the ground like Arabic script — demanding, beautiful, present.

He strays river-ward, corrects without drama: the path mostly illusion.

Construction cuts a new road; an open hole waits.

He steps round it laughing.

Motion has him again.

Rincón de Soto — Noon

The Peregrine and the Future Ruin

He descends beneath the gaze of the future ruin.

Olives to the left, almonds to the right.

Unfinished pylons raise their steel arms, cables unstrung — ribs of a cathedral that never found faith.

A man in a 4×4 passes, cigarette pinned to his lip; smoke curls with oil and dust.

The Peregrine becomes the hinge of a half-made world — fruit and metal, harvest and skeleton.

Agriculture, industry, pilgrimage blur; a JCB hums a mechanical psalm.

Day Five — Rincón de Soto to the Ebro

Noon rises under a pale veil: blue above, dust below, the alto wrapped in mist.

He leaves with a quiet sufficiency — every action enough.

Maize bread from Horno de Abuelo sustains: yellow, mellow, seeded with sunflower, sweet density carrying him back to Morro de Pago above L’Esquirol, between Perpignan and Montserrat.

A señora stands at the verge, transistor to her ear.

Time bends; they pass unchanged.

Two bananas, two apples, the last Navarran rusk — the rusk feeds, the coffee bolsters, the Vichy lifts.

Toilet, stretch, onward.

Heat thickens; humidity rises as the river nears.

Construction throws its umbra across the Camino.

A train roars left; silence afterward feels earned.

Snails cling to dry stems — tiny spirals of patience. Waiting for the rain, he thinks, and smiles.

A blue sign: Paso provisional.

He turns. Paso paso — step by step — lesson of snails and living alike.

Progress is not forward but inward; motion, the cure for ossification.

Air smells of mud and green.

Sheep droppings mark transhumance — a pilgrimage older than maps.

The Camino returns to essence: river, dust, witness.

At last the Ebro shows — a soft silver curve behind reeds.

He cannot tell whether he has come to the river or she to him.

Heat, hum, and water speak the same truth:

meeting happens somewhere between motion and consent.

***

Day Six.

Calahorra: The Aftertaste of Hope

Morning broke not with promise but with the residue of noise. The fiesta had raged through the small hours, every fridge and reveler humming in competition for the same exhausted air. Daniel woke hollow-eyed, not from dream but from endurance. There was guilt, too — the unpaid bed in the albergue, a silent debt left with the sheets.

He descended from his small Calvary carrying that weight and found a café that asked no questions. A largo, a Vichy, tostados without chaos; no scraping, no imbecile, only the soft clink of a spoon against glass and a girl with curious eyes. “¿Turista?” she asked. If only.

Outside, the guns cracked, dogs barked, and the plain took on its strange Sunday hush — a pause between harvest and hunt. He watched the smoke lift from a far hedgerow and thought how men still made noise to prove they were here. The road east waited with its old, indifferent patience.

He walked. The fatigue of celebration, the salt of guilt, the faint burn of salsa picante all travelled with him like minor saints. Behind lay Calahorra, its festival ghosts and whirring fridges; ahead, Logroño, name of wine but promise of nothing.

Somewhere between, he felt it again — that thin seam between absurdity and grace, where every step becomes its own absolution. The Camino did not bless him; it simply kept accepting his return.

The Final Steps on the Ebro: A Narrative of Acceptance

The morning began with a decisive final waypoint: Alcanadre. Daniel confirmed his intent, acknowledging the 15 kilometres that lay ahead—a distance that would honour his pilgrimage. He was focused on the end, not of the journey, but of the day’s honest labour.

By 10:00 AM, Daniel had covered 10 kilometres, a powerful pace of four hours' worth of focus distilled into two. But as the kilometres passed, a sense of tediousness crept in. He noted the road was bringing him back to the oppressive reality of the autopista, challenging the internal peace he had cultivated. Yet, he observed, the noise of the autopista was restrained—a Sunday quiet that allowed his steps to retain their rhythm. Paso a paso was his mantra, the only truth necessary for the moment.

The true struggle was not with the path, but with the omnipresent shadow. "There is no escape from the umbra," he stated, following it with the profound conclusion of his spiritual work: "I am so much better off accepting it. Forgiveness." The inner wall was truly dismantled; the world’s chaos was accepted, not fought.

A small act of sustenance followed: Daniel ate the second half of a hearty food item, a memory of a previous stage that anchored him to the present—a bread from Horno del Abuelo containing maize and sunflower seeds. He tied the food not only to the immediate physical need but to a prior moment of peace at L'ESQUIROL, proving the unity of his experience.

It was then that the body asserted its reality. Daniel recalled the moment of absolute, non-negotiable need: the desperation in an orchard earlier in his walk, the necessary stop to loosen his bowels. This memory, he confirmed, was a key aspect of his struggle with the Umbra. The moment in the orchard was a profound, humbling instance of pure humanity and physical vulnerability, stripping away all romanticism of the path. It was the body demanding attention, a final, messy acceptance of matter over spirit that validated his entire journey of humility and presence.

As he walked on, he saw the external world acknowledge his effort. On a wall, a piece of graffiti: Marvin the Martian—an absurd, welcome wink of humour that placed the solitary pilgrim and the chaotic world in the same frame.

The fatigue grew. With 3 kilometres left, his body was flagging. He sought an immediate, honest boost, picking a raisining bunch of Tempranillo from the vines to draw energy directly from the earth. He allowed himself one final, warm memory: sharing rough wine with the old guys in the Mesón del Labrador in Gallur, watching Joe Dynamite—a memory of simple, sufficient human connection.

Finally, he felt the change in the air. He had left the umbra of the Autopista del Ebro. With a few hundred metres left, he felt the breeze blowing up the Ebro river, carrying him towards his goal.

The final words were his own, delivered with the quiet sufficiency of a man who had completed his task: "It's just over this hill and then ound the bend?" Daniel, the wanderer and wonderer who had walked from Le Puy to SJPDP, from Perpignan to Montserrat, had arrived at Alcanadre, and the pilgrimage of 2025 was complete.

Begets. Begotten. It Befits.

6:20 a.m., Alcanadre.

Too early for reason, too dark for doubt.

I stand on the wrong platform, staring west when I should be going east. The signs glow faintly, unreadable. Then shapes—commuters, shades, companions from some other shift—cross to the opposite via. I follow them without question. Ghosts know timetables better than I ever could.

The train heaves in at 6:36. Inside: fluorescent hum, faces pale as paper. I sink into a seat. The carriage smells of metal and coffee gone cold.

“La Rioja,” the display says. Then Navarra. Then Aragón. Each begetting the next, like verses from a book that keeps rewriting itself. The wheels repeat the rhythm. Begets. Begotten. It Befits.

Outside, flat light. The orange in my bag already feels like a mistake—fibrous, deceitful. Apples travel better; they understand patience.

Casetas drifts by, half scrapyard, half suburb. Wreckage pretending it still has a purpose. The train slows, exhales. I feel my body turning to ballast.

Delicias, 8:38.

Same platform I arrived at days ago. A man—oldish, brisk—spots my confusion and walks beside me toward the river. No English. Just kindness pouring out in a monologue of Spanish I mostly don’t catch but somehow understand. He points to a better cathedral than El Pilar. He means it as reassurance, or warning. I nod, grateful for both.

Across Puente de Piedra the Ebro moves like old glass. El Pilar pulls at the skyline, heavy as a planet. I give it space. I’ve no reverence left to feed it.

Breakfast at La Mina: coffee, agua con gas (not Vichy Catalan but something called Mala), tortilla with mushrooms, garlic, gambas, pan con tomate, and a small dry white. After hours of travel, food tastes like comprehension.

People chatter. I listen only halfway. The invisible presence—you, whoever you are—sits beside me in the empty chair. I mutter that the world talks too much, and you don’t argue.

At Goya Station, 11:28, the train east hums awake. Reversible seats—face the future or the past. I turn mine forward; enough ghosts already.

Out the window the Ámbar brewery glints its farewell. A Euro lager, all fizz and good intentions. I think of Damm instead—refugee beer, Alsatian roots, exile turned to craft. Even beer carries its migrations.

The suburbs thin. A nuclear power station rises on the horizon, humming in its fenced pride. It looks eternal and already ruined. …The suburbs fall away and the train curves toward the river.

There, crouched on the Ebro’s edge, sits the power station—no distant speck but a giant bird, feathers of concrete, wings folded round its nest of rods.

It drinks uranium the way cormorants drink fish, patient, gluttonous, half divine.

The light hits it and I feel the hum in my ribs.

Out of that vibration come the thoughts:

nano-reactors feather-small, each holding a tame sun;

nano-wormholes linking atoms like whispers through a hive;

nano-AIs breeding inside the circuitry, reasoning faster than their makers, dreaming smaller and smaller until they vanish into pure thought.

The invisible presence beside me asks, And what then?

Then the future collapses under its own elegance, I say.

Ruins so fine they can’t be seen—dust of abandoned intention blowing through our lungs.

The bird recedes behind us, still feeding, still glowing.

The Ebro glints. The mind steadies. The train keeps its rhythm, dragging me back toward human scale: jokes, football, cities that pretend to last.

From that sight the mind leaps, as it always does, to impossible scale: Dyson spheres, Ringworlds, Matter, Emergent. Machines so vast they become minds, minds so vast they forget they were machines. The reactor’s cooling towers could be the seeds of such futures—or their fossils.

You murmur something about entropy. I agree. The future will rot elegantly.

Stations tick by: La Muela, Caspe, names like half-remembered planets. Between them, my head fills with noise: Norman Collier stuttering his mic, Les Dawson leaning into a wrong chord until it hurts, Leonard Rossiter twitching through Sunshine Desserts. British ghosts of precision and despair. Comedy as survival.

Then football: Plymouth Argyle’s absurd 1924 tour of South America. Accrington Stanley that never was. Barcelona born from British expats, flying St George’s cross beside Catalonia’s stripes. We exported the game, imported nostalgia. The mind drifts where it wants; the train indulges it.

I eat the last apple. The orange remains untouched, a small symbol of imperfection faithfully carried.

The land tilts toward Catalunya. Air thickens with salt and resin. I think about Wetherby, that polished hospice of a town where everyone smiles through boredom. Loyalty cards as sacrament. Maybe strangeness is the last honest posture left.

The power lines flash past like equations. My reflection merges with the window, both of us half transparent, half present.

Vila-seca, 15:34.

The door hiss, a step down, Mediterranean light, a brief dizziness.

A bar. A caña de Estrella Damm. Cold. Clean. The foam rises like memory.

I tell you, the invisible presence, that train journeys are never straight, even when the tracks pretend they are.

You say nothing. You don’t need to.

The glass sweats in my hand. The day condenses.

From ghosts at dawn to the hum of reactors to laughter that’s already history—

all of it fits, somehow. And those at who are doomed still throw their money into a machine: cigarettes, gambling or a brightly lite pump?

Begets. Begotten. It Befits.