In another time, in the same place.
There was another time, but in this same place, when the branches of these vines were green, they looked fresh, flexible, the sage ran inside them; from them sprouted flowers that lived the time they were destined for and their dryness and death gave way to new flowers that also died to give way, once again, to new flowers. The branches grew daily, imperceptible to the Time that measured them each day. They grew freely no matter which way they went and where they reached, with no walls to contain them. Even if they touched the ground, they would rise up again on their way. The branches intertwined with each other without any hand to bind them together. It would seem that they would follow their path together to the end regardless of the inclement weather, the scourge of wind, rain, the cold of the night; perhaps they could be separated at a moment in their path to cross again without expecting it... to be separated again, perhaps forever. There were branches that also died and gave way to new stems. All this entanglement was the manifestation of the paradox of the freedom of the crossing of destinies. In the past and in this very place, time was on their side; as beginners, they wanted the future and they wanted it now.
At this time and in this very place there are walls where there were none before. The vines no longer run wild, they are limited in their path; they run climbing up the walls to which they adhere, they fill the canvas that the wall offers them and they do not look as lustrous as they once did. They are brittle, dry, some of them are lifeless. The cracks in the stems betray the passage of time, erosion; dry bark comes off and breaks at the slightest force. Stems that began their journey together have long since parted ways and never crossed paths again. What began as an adventure and an innocent discovery of life, voracious time has turned it into a tortuous path of dry stalks, thick and thin like filaments, which have remained on the path or follow the wall that guides their way without the possibility of breaking away from it. Those branches that left the path imposed by the walls were lost in oblivion and indifference.
The walls that hold these creepers in place were not there before. They were devised and erected later to mark the limits and maintain the order of where to go without straying from it. Although cracked, eroded by time, without lime, mouldy and damp, they remain standing and, silently and with their firmness, they impose the beginning and end of the path of the branches. The walls have produced shady, cold areas where the sun does not reach. The darkness blinded the idea of freedom. They have shown themselves to be the guides and saviours of other people's lives, guarantors of being oneself, but without losing their tutelage, and have remained the rulers of other people's wills.