I was lying on my back. I was lying on something hard and cold. I reached out my hand and felt a stone floor. The stones were cold and damp. I was lying on my back in a stone room. Was I in a tomb? Was I in a place where dead bodies were buried? I had to move. I had to find out. I turned over onto my hands and knees. Then I started to crawl forwards. In a few seconds, I found a wall. It was cold and wet. Maybe I was in a room that was under the ground.

I followed the wall, very slowly. I thought that I was moving in a circle. I was not sure. Then I had an idea. I tore a piece of cloth from my shirt and put it on the floor, near the wall. Then I walked along the wall of the room.

I counted the number of times that I moved my hands forward. Twenty... thirty... forty times. Where was the piece of cloth? Had I gone past it in the dark? Had I gone around the room twice? I counted up to one hundred before I found the piece of cloth. But I did not find a dead body in a coffin. I was not in a tomb.

Where was I? I tried to remember. I remembered that I was in Toledo, in Spain. Then I remembered a courtroom and men in red gowns. They had asked questions-more and more questions. Their voices were soft and their eyes were bright. How many hours had they questioned me? How many days had they questioned me? I could not remember. The questions had gone on and on. But what was my crime? What law had I broken? I did not know. I was very frightened. I thought that the questioners were going to torture me. But no one had cut me with sharp blades. No one had hit me. No one had burnt me with hot iron. Now I must be in a jail. This room was a prison cell. Maybe I would die here, without food, or water, or light.

I closed my eyes again and I must have slept.

When I awoke, I moved my foot and it hit something.

What would a pendulum do in this place? Were those who locked me up counting the hours of my death?

The sound of the pendulum had made me hypnotized, it had put into my ears until it was rumbling in my deep mind

I continued moving through the room when suddenly I fell into the void and I stopped hearing the tic tac…and then just the crunching of my bones against the ground. I had broken my spine.

I was scared, confused, I couldn't believe what was happening. I started to scream, scratching those wet, slippery stone walls but I realized that I had walked in a circle... where had I fallen? Was it a deep pit within this dark destiny?

I started to remember and I saw myself drinking a glass of a strange liquid with different people and I've been thinking... They kidnapped me, everything went black and here I am, alone and about to die.

Life and death are such close things but so noisy, they sound like a dark cold and lonely pendulum.

At the foot of my bed I found a box, I got out of bed, touching the cold floor with my feet, and went as best I could towards the box.

I opened the box with a lot of fear and intrigue, but inside the box, after searching a little, I found a pair of glasses. When I put them on, it turned out that they were night vision glasses.

Thanks to them I could see that I was in a giant room, and that the wall I had been following turned out to be the wall of the room.

Thanks to the glasses I was able to find a small door in the ceiling, I moved the bed, climbed on top and managed to open the ceiling door. Suddenly a staircase came down and a great light came out of it.

I was thinking for a long time whether to go up or stay here for fear of what might come.

Finally I decided to go up the stairs, and when I got to the top I found a large light bulb, I looked around and saw that everything around me was glass.

I couldn't believe it, I was in a lighthouse. and looking outside, he discovered that he was on a small desert island, and in the distance he could see absolutely nothing at all.

At that moment, I realized that this was the end for me.

Suddenly, I remembered everything. The last night, after I had been watching mystery series on TV, we had decided to have met with our friends Pablo and Sofía in an old bar, in the centre of Madrid.

When we were there, the weather of the bar was warm but ours was being cold. Between drinks and music of a marriage in crisis, we began to talk about our relationship problems, by the way, the truth was that Mariano and I were not in a good moment…, I couldn’t get it out of my mind that night we had ruined the evening to our friends, our marriage was making me crazy!

As that night progressed, the wine slowly turned into water for me, so I started talking and drinking a lot. For my good luck the bar had karaoke, so I had the good idea to steal the microphone from a woman who was singing, go to the centre of the karaoke track and I ask shouting them to play all the “Pimpinela” songs! I remembered to song “Rata de dos patas”, “Session 53” by Shakira…  And Mariano left the restaurant and left me alone… I didn´t understand why.

The next day I awoke up and I felt totally ashamed. Last night I had lost control, I had been really drunk and when I drink too much, I usually have nightmares. I didn´t know how we could get home; I was sure Pablo and Sofía had brought us home.

 I decided to forget the problem and talk with Mariano when he awakes up… I went to check my email, - WHAT! I shouted; it was from Pedro Almodóvar! Someone told him about the show I gave last night, and he was offering me a cameo in his new film!!

I was going to take something for that hangover, and I wrote Pedro. I talked to Mariano another day; we were not so bad…  

Inmmediately, I realized that none of them were moving nor were they talking. So I decided to go through the slit and approach them. Suddenly my heart shrinked. They were all white and cold like a winter night. I started to shake. Tears began to run down my cheeks. I felt anger, confusion, sadness. Then I realized that my wife had a pendulum that swung back and forth with a piece of paper in her hand. I picked it up and read it: “You killed us and you will always remember it, over and over again like a pendulum that never stops swinging”.

I opened my eyes. This could not be true. I was lying again in that hard, cold place from before. I got up and looked for the chain. I pulled it again and what I saw was exactly the same as before, my dead family. I picked up the note again where she continued to blame me for our death.

Once again I woke up in this dark place. “What does this mean?” But this time there was something different. I went through the slit and there it was, one of the red-gowns men that I had seen before waking up here.

“The others and I, after much thought, we have decided that the greatest punishment for someone who has killed his family and then committed suicide is to carry with the guilt over and over again and not remember why you did it”.

I was stunned. He had disappeared and left me with many questions. Were those men some kind of devils who punished me? But he was right about one thing, I did not remember killing my familiy, why would I did it if I loved them? Even so, it was true and I had the proof before my eyes. I approached and hugged them. “I am so sorry”. I could not stop crying. But now I appreciated, this place was my dark and cold loneliness. In that moment I understood it, I will live this hell like a pendulum that will never stop swinging.

And a third voice said loud and surprised: “can’t you really see us? Haven’t your eyes got use to darkness yet?”. I heard the voice properly this time and it came from above my head. I looked up and frown trying to see anything and I could distinguish some figures up there. There were four hanging cages with people inside. Who were they? Why they were there? Had they done the same crime I had? I started to remember. I didn’t know how but all the pieces inside my head started to match and I knew what had happened. I had gone to Toledo being part of a tourist group. We had visited a bunch of places such the Cathedral, El Greco Museum and many others but the last stop was a shop where we could buy different souvenirs. The employees were disguised and looked like “Santa Inquisición” members. They had given us a tipical sweet of Toledo called “mazapán” to try and many of us said that it was disgusting. So here we were, locked in a cold dark tomb due to the only crime of dislike “mazapán”. Weird people those “Toledanos”.

Just The Two Of Us.