El Corral de Comedias (The Theatre)

I am the Theatre, the Corral where the play unfolds. The stage is set, the musicians tune, the audience takes their seats. I call each act in its proper order: the prologue of arrival, the scenes of discovery, the interlude of rest, the climax of booking, the epilogue of farewell. The stagehands — the Dock, the Sidebar, the Map — move at my cue. No scene begins before its time, and no traveller misses their entrance.

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A caravaneer from Tangier once sat in my stalls for an hour, moving through each act without booking. The scribe watched from the wings, worried. But on the seventh scene — the map of Seville at dusk — the traveller stood and walked to the Purse. He later wrote that he needed to see every city before he could believe the journey was real. I gave him time. The Theatre has patience.