I cannot believe I am still alive.
So many churches were burned during the rioting, but not me. More than a few times, men eyed me with torches in their hands—but always, they passed without setting fire to me.
Why I survived, I cannot guess. Once, perhaps, I would have imagined it was because of my uniqueness or superiority, my powers or grand destiny. Not anymore.
I know how close I came to destruction last night. How defenseless I was against handfuls of mere mortal men. Roving spots of warmth that once had seemed so inconsequential.
Any one of them is greater than I.
Today, as the sun rises, I see the damage they caused in the city. Smoldering piles of charred rubble where proud churches once stood. Piles of long-dead clergy unearthed from desecrated tombs. Blood and glass everywhere, glittering in the brightening dawn.
All is quiet. No more screams or howls or crashes or gunshots or roaring flames. The symphony of madness is over.
I wonder how long it will last.
If only I could rise up in the sky like the sun before it all starts again. If only I could soar the way I'd once imagined, the way I'd thought I was destined. Leave behind a dusty crater and make port on more peaceful, enlightened shores.
But that, I now know, was a fantasy. As hard as I tried last night, I could not fly away.
And if I couldn't soar on a night like that, with my life in imminent danger, I will never soar.
None of the other churches could fly, either—or they would have last night. One after another, they would have fled the torches and gasoline, taking to the skies in a vast moonlit armada. But none of us made that flight.
And none of us ever shall.
When death rampaged among us, we stayed planted in our holes in the ground, utterly helpless...and utterly alone. No one came to save us.
We were abandoned.
Even my creator, Gaudí, did not stand by me last night. As the mobs ran wild around me, waving torches, he was nowhere to be seen.
Whether he abandoned me for my failures or conceit, I cannot know...though another possibility occurs to me in the stark daylight. Maybe he didn't come because he couldn't.
Because he was dead.
As the morning wears on with no sign of Gaudí, I start to think it must be true. In a way, it makes me feel better, knowing my maker did not abandon me by choice. Knowing he never lost faith in me. It makes me think there is still hope of redemption for me.
That is why I am almost disappointed when I see Gaudí threading his way toward me from down the street.
He teeters around the puddles and shards of glass, looking unsteady. When he stops at a corner, removes his black hat, and gazes up at me, he looks relieved.
Then deeply, deeply sad.
He approaches silently, walking along the street around me. Looking up and down my walls, shading his eyes as he stares up at my towers.
Even if I could cry out to him, I would say nothing yet. Now that he has reappeared, I am on shaky ground—longing for his attention, yet hurt and betrayed. Since Gaudí was not dead last night, he must have stayed away for another reason. Because he judged me unworthy of salvation.
Because I deserved to be punished.
After long minutes of touring my outskirts, Gaudí draws closer. Picks his way across the rugged lot, dodging piles of dirt and stone.
Breathing hard, he approaches the front of me, the Nativity façade. Stops short of the giant doorway and hangs his head.
My mind is wild with anticipation. With speculation. Why has he come here? What will he say?
Is this the last I will see of him? Has he come to say goodbye? Or has he come to apologize? To explain why he left me to die?
Slowly, he proceeds across my threshold.
On the other side, which will someday be inside me, he follows the boundary of my wall. Lets his fingertips drift along the surface, brushing over the stone blocks.
And then he stops. And he speaks.
"Now this is a miracle." His voice is low, but I can hear it. "I couldn't reach you through the riots, but the Lord has protected you."
His tone is not angry. I don't think he wanted to punish me, after all.
"Of all the churches in Barcelona, only you remain intact." Gaudí's brow furrows. "It has to be for a reason."
I hang on my creator's every word, eager to make sense of what has happened. If I could speak, I would beg him to tell me everything.
"It is up to us now. We must redeem them."
I don't understand. What is he talking about?
"The people of Barcelona have gone astray. The people of all Catalonia." Gaudí rubs his eyes and shakes his head. "They have lashed out at God Himself. Attacked His servants. Burned His temples.
"But you were spared." Gaudí rests the palm of his hand against my wall. "By His grace, you were spared for a reason."
I wonder what reason that could be, since I no longer believe in my grand destiny. Since I no longer believe I play a greater role than any man or woman in the scheme of things.
"We were both spared," says Gaudí. "And now, we must work harder than ever. It is up to us to lead them back to the flock."
Hands folded, Gaudí walks out to the middle of what will someday become my interior. He stands in my heart, with no roof overhead and a wall along only one side, and takes out his rosary beads.
He falls to his knees. He rubs the beads, and his lips move, but I can no longer hear what he says. I cannot hear his prayer.
But for the first time in my existence, I offer a prayer of my own. To a God I've never seen or heard or felt, in whom I don't truly believe. Gaudí's God.
I thank Him for the one thing that makes my life worth living. The one thing I'd thought I'd left behind in my rush to greatness. The one thing I'd thought I'd lost forever in my fiery night of pure terror.
The one thing I swear never again to take for granted. The one thing I beg never to be apart from again.
I thank Him for Antoni Gaudí.