Some nights, the thought devours me. I find it hard to sleep because my mind gets tangled up in questions that, at first glance, have no answers. What if all of this were an algorithm? What if every decision we make triggers a series of predefined events, as if
Sometimes, life seems to flow with an almost mechanical precision: there are days when everything fits together, when the universe seems to be in our favor, where each piece finds its place as if a perfect gear is pulling the strings. Then there are those other days when everything falls apart without sense, as if the code had errors, as if someone had inserted a bug in our existence.
I leaned over the wooden railing of MasTorrencito, my rural house in the Empordà. From there, the landscape stretched in soft green hills, embraced by the Mediterranean breeze. We were twenty minutes away from the Costa Brava, surrounded by pure nature, in a place where people and their dogs could enjoy without worries. A place free of prejudice, a refuge for souls seeking tranquility.
As I watched the stars, I tossed a question into the air:
-If God exists, why does he allow his name to be used for horror?
I didn’t expect a response. But then, without warning, the night changed. I felt a presence beside me. It was not an imposing figure or a heavenly light. It was a whisper in the wind, a faint sound of paws on wood.
I turned my head and there was Manuela.
His golden fur reflected the moonlight and his eyes, those eyes that understood everything, looked at me with the same calm as always. It could not be. Manuela had lived more than 16 years in MasTorrencito. She had become its spirit, its guardian, its essence. But she had long since departed.
And yet, there it was.
-You…? -I whispered, unable to finish the sentence.
Manuela sat down with the dignity of someone who knows all the secrets of the universe. Then she tilted her head to one side, as she used to do when she was waiting for me to speak to her.
-So you doubt me? -his gaze seemed to say.
I ran my hand over my face.
-It is not that I doubt you, Manuela… I doubt everything. I look at the world and I see so much injustice, so much cruelty in the name of religions, of gods created by men. Mankind has used God to justify wars, murders, abuses. How is it possible that, if He exists, He allows all that?
Manuela narrowed her eyes serenely.
-You always blame me for what men do,» he seemed to reply.
-Come on,» I said, leaning against the railing, «If an almighty God existed, he wouldn’t let these things happen.
Manuela got up and walked slowly to the edge of the terrace. She paused, sniffing the air, feeling the night breeze. Then she looked at me again.
-Do you think the world is a board where I move the pieces as I please? If so, what would be the meaning of life?
I remained silent.
-But the algorithm is unfair,» I insisted. There are good people who suffer and horrible people who get away with it. If there really is a balance, I don’t see it.
Manuela came closer and rested her head on my leg.
-Because you only see the first reaction of things. You think that your actions end when their immediate effect passes, but it is not so. Everything you do has consequences, even if you don’t see them. A gesture of kindness today may change something years from now, in a place where you won’t even be around to see it.
My mind went blank.
-So what do we do?
Manuela pulled away and turned in on herself before sitting down again.
-Look at yourself. You didn’t wait for a miracle, you didn’t stay in complaint when you saw that many rural houses didn’t accept dogs. You didn’t cry out against injustice without doing anything. You acted. You created MasTorrencito, a place where people and their dogs could be together without restrictions. You changed your own algorithm.
I blinked.
-But that doesn’t change the world.
Manuela rested a paw on my knee.
-And what is the world if not an accumulation of small changes? In every person who comes here and feels peace, in every dog that runs free without fear of being rejected, in every instant that someone sits on this terrace and feels that they have found a home away from home… that is where I really exist.
I looked around the house. Inside, guests were laughing and dining with their dogs, unhurried, not afraid of being judged. Some dogs slept on rugs, others ran around in the yard. MasTorrencito was not just a rural house; it was a place where the rules of the outside world had no power.
Manuela got up and walked toward the garden, stopping at the threshold of light and darkness.
-So… God is not an entity? Is it an action?
He turned one last time.
-I am what you do with what you have.
The breeze blew gently and, when I looked again, it was gone.
There was no lightning or celestial fanfare, just the sound of the wind through the trees and the sea roaring in the distance. I stood on the terrace, the night breeze caressing my face, watching the starry sky.
Maybe God existed. Maybe he didn’t.
But if life was an algorithm, then perhaps the key was not in asking ourselves who programmed it, but in learning to write our own lines of code.
And I had already started.
And Manuela, with her eternal spirit, would continue to take care of MasTorrencito, as she had always done.
From MasTorrencito we wish you a good day and may your dogs be with you!!!!
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