Gaudí stands before me, barking orders. At first, I think he is barking them at me, and I feel annoyed.
Then, I realize he is ordering a work crew operating a winch, hauling an angel to the heights of a scaffold. It is one of the statues that will decorate my Nativity façade, retelling the story of the birth and life of Jesus Christ.
From my few glimpses of the plans, and what I've overheard from Gaudí and the workers, it will be magnificent. Inspirational. Organic. A monument like none other in the world, in all of history.
To tell the truth, I would expect nothing less.
Through the years, Gaudí and I have gone a long way toward expressing my inner greatness. He has raised me up from a hole in the ground, coaxing my enormity from earthbound roots like a mighty tree.
Standing before me now with jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up, he is dwarfed by my presence. My high stone walls loom over him; the spikes of my towers cast long shadows upon him.
All this, and I am nowhere near finished. In fact, I am barely begun—just a section, just a corner of the whole. How much grander will I be when I am done?
And how much better will I be at fulfilling his plan for me? How many more people will I draw to Gaudí's side? How much less lonely will that make him?
I already know the answer. Looking back, I think I have always known.
I will not fail him. I will succeed beyond the expectations of us both.
"Easy!" Gaudí cups his hands around his mouth as he shouts up at the crew. "Don't be in such a hurry!"
The statue's progress slows. It rises deliberately, like a real angel turning as it gains the sky.
Clusters of men stand and watch, hands a-pockets, hats tipped back on their heads. Clusters of women, too, with aprons and baskets and shawls. All of them gone out of their way to see me, to see us—to see what we become.
So I have already begun to do my good work, haven't I? I have already started to capture their imaginations.
I mean "we." We have already started.
"Left!" says Gaudí. "Further to the left!"
Atop the scaffolding, the workmen haul the angel its last few feet and guide it toward its niche. Three more statues on the ground await ascension alongside it. Someday, there will be many more—figures of saints and angels and sinners and devils, studding my walls like fruit on a vine, life-size and lifelike as if they were men and women dipped in cement.
I will be like a museum turned inside-out, masterpieces laid bare for all to see.
"Back to the right!" says Gaudí. "That's good!"
I feel the angel settle into its niche, an expected and welcome weight. As the men work to secure it, their heat darts over me like fleeting sparks. Roving spots of warmth, each one indistinguishable from the rest.
As I think of them, I wonder. As fleeting and unremarkable as they are, they are capable of great accomplishments. They are able to build something massive and matchless and bold.
Does it make sense, then, for me to think that my only purpose is to bring them together? To draw these roving sparks to relieve Gaudí's loneliness?
"No!" Down on the ground, Gaudí swats a worker's hands from a statue. "That's not right!" He jabs a finger at another statue nearby. "That one's next!"
I wish I could ask him. I wish he would tell me.
He doesn't talk to me much anymore, though. Most of the time, his workers are the ones I see. His subordinates. Gaudí himself is too busy to confide, running between other jobs that are only names to me: Casa Calvet, Bellesguard Tower, Park Güell.
And so, I am left to think it over on my own. To decide for myself.
Is my purpose limited to relieving my creator's loneliness? Is he building something so grand, so expansive, so alive, with only that limited mission in mind?
Or does he have greater plans for me? And if so, what are they?
Or should I be asking a different question all together?
As I continue to grow and evolve, can anyone—even my creator—provide all the answers I seek? Does my destiny even exist as a fixed, predictable thing?
Or is it up to me to take a hand in it myself?
"Excellent!" Gaudí looks up from down below, giving a thumbs-up to the men on the scaffold working with the angel. "Perfect!"
As he smiles up at me, I feel a surge of love for him. He has been with me almost from the beginning. He has made me what I am.
I respect and admire him. I have no doubt of his visionary genius and tenacity. He is truly a great man, worthy of the great love I feel for him.
Yet I feel something else as well. For the first time, as he storms about the worksite, snapping out orders and slapping backs, I am jealous. Jealous of his greatness, which flares so brightly even in the face of a rising, thriving masterpiece. Jealous of the simple gifts of his speech and mobility, which I am denied.
Jealous of the answers that fill his head. The answers I crave.