"Hello, EMPAR. We remind you that your appointment to get vaccinated against covid-19 is on May 18 at 12:45 at Fira de Barcelona-Pabellón 4-Nivel 5B, Avenida de Rius i Taulet, 12, Barcelona. Avoid waiting by coming only 5 minutes before." How easy it is to tell someone, by SMS, to arrive only five minutes before. Someone over fifty will never be able to comply.
What I will do, I tell myself (because those fifty and up talk to themselves, and even more so if we wear a mask) is to arrive at the place half an hour early and, once I have it well localized (and know which is the complicated door through which I have to pass with my generation mates) wait behind a lamppost, so as not to make a fool of myself ("el ridi", someone from my generation would say). What happens is that my generation mates have had the same idea. Around me, men and women who know who Leif Garret is, chicles Niño and chicles Niña, Bandoleros candies, Bony and Bucanero, Sabrina and Samantha Fox and the lesser known (but also pectorally developed) Danutta Latto wait nervously like me.
I enter ten minutes early, just in case they skip me. Like when I go to the Tax Agency and they tell me my number will appear on the screen. I always worry they might ignore me and I keep going back and forth from the counter. "The Pfaiser, the Pfaiser," a man says on the phone. I enter the Fira, then, through Rius i Taulet street, from behind. "Enter through this door!" a boy keeps repeating, who has "volunteer" written on his back. "Have your ID and health card in hand," a woman reminds us. The ID and health card! I have to have them in my hand, but I can't stop, because behind me there are former buccaneer eaters who are in as much of a hurry as I am to get who knows where. Then, later, later I will stop and look for it. Not now. Now I cannot interrupt the generational flow.
"Hello!", a man tells me. I don't know who he is, because he's wearing a mask, and because if he weren't wearing one, I wouldn't know him either. I don't know anyone, that's why I greet everyone. "Do you know me?", he asks me. "I saw you're carrying a backpack from the Can Caralleu fitness club...", I tell him, wondering if I've ever been to Can Caralleu. "I'm Jofre Janué", he tells me, smiling. He's a weatherman from TV3. "Everything goes so fast, doesn't it?", I tell him. "Yes!", he replies. There are fences around us and lots of agents telling us where we have to go. It's like an immigration queue, but very fast. Here and there, fences with names. 5.A7, 5.A8, 5.A9... A guard makes us go to the right, and tells us to stop at the sign on the floor. It's a pair of feet and a legend that says: "I'll wait here".
"I've run out of vaccines!", exclaims a nurse. "Oh, now we're going to the warehouse", replies a male nurse. And then he greets us, very kindly. "Hello!" and immediately asks me: "Are you pregnant?". I, without thinking it's a joke, answer: "No". And we laugh. He tells me he has a blog, elblogderosa, where he gives advice ("now, especially for covid") related to nursing. "Baby care, burns...".
"You know what?", says Jofre. "I've realized I'm old, because I see the people around me". I laugh. The opposite happens to me. I swear I see them all very young and handsome, it's a brain defense, perhaps. Many women, in the queue, take photos of the moment.
"Hello, sit here", another nurse tells me. I put my things down and sit on a stool. "Are you scared?", she asks me. "No, not at all", I say. And I show her my right arm, because they told me the vaccine hurts and I'm left-handed. "Have you given many injections?", I ask her. She smiles (or so it seems, under the mask). "Many!". Then she asks me if I've had covid. "I don't know...", I say. "Have you had symptoms?". I answer no. And I ask her, of course, what would happen if I had had it? "The dose would be different".
She gives me the shot, which doesn't hurt at all, and tells me to go out and wait fifteen minutes. "Why?", I ask. "In case you have a reaction".
Outside the set, a group of people sitting, smiling, chat with each other. We take photos with the guards, with the nurses, with the emergency personnel, with the other vaccinated people, some vaccinated people who watched the program Aplauso and remember Giorgio Aresu's Zoom ballet, which had that girl, named Yu-Lan, as its prima ballerina, and everyone said she was his girlfriend, but who knows? "Goodbye! I'm not waiting!" I tell my vaccinated friends, who watched Heidi on their neighbors' color TVs, who went to the cinema to see Grease, who followed on TV how the Berlin Wall fell.