That is the name of a song. It belongs to Evgeny Grinko, a pianist and composer. There are no words in it, but the name gives you a starting point. The rest is yours to imagine, and here is what I imagined: Aureliano Buendia is the main character in Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. He is the loneliest character of all time, “solitude” is his. Like all lonesome people, he is dangerously curious. When he is a child; his father takes him to a traveling circus. Here; gypsies display toys, creatures, and objects that are never seen before. The crowd is lined up in front of one specific tent, murmuring and trying to see what’s inside. When Aureliano gets in, he sees the most wonderful thing ever. Something he never saw in his land before, as it never gets cold. Something that has magic: he sees Ice. It is shining, people are paying to touch it. Aureliano begs his father to pay money for him to touch. When he does, his finger gets stuck. It's cold… When his turn is over, he begs again. He can’t leave it there, it is so capturing. Father gives the last penny to him to touch it again, and then he has to go. He does, but he never forgets.
Many years later, he grows up to be a communist leader. He becomes the most famous commander of all time. People admire him, people want to kill him. He dodges many bullets on the battlefield, he fights assassins that are crawling into his bed while he is asleep, and he shots himself in the chest to commit suicide. He survives all the time, he lives to see another year of solitude. The government puts a death sentence for him, yet he escapes. His solitude grows bigger than him. He commands fights, falls in love, and dedicates himself to ideas Yet, all those just don’t stick with him. Every single journey feels meaningless after a while. Years go by, and the government finds him. This time, the death sentence is to be executed. As waits in front of the soldiers to shoot him, he gets close to death for the first time. May death has the answer, could it be the meaning that he’s been searching for all of his life? He just cannot feel it. Even death cannot seem to pass his walls. While he stands there, he realizes that the only thing in his mind is that moment from his childhood. He just remembers ice. Ice is the only thing that could pierce his solitude, even while he is waiting alone to die. Ice is the wonder for him. It sticks to his finger, it sticks to his soul.
Everyone has that one magical thing. One thing that brightens their eyes, one thing that shines through their blurry life. It stuns them, and makes them beg for another time. For some, it’s a lover; for some, it’s a book. It may be anger, money, religion, a song or a question.
For Aureliano Buendia, it’s just ice.
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