After the summer storm, Badalona seemed unusually still. The old power station rose behind the graffiti reading “COVID 1984” — a crude echo of Orwell’s fears painted onto the city’s skin.

Two tempests overlapped for a moment: the literal one that had just passed, and the one the world lived through not long ago. A faint rainbow cut across the sky, softening the scene, as if reminding us that even dystopias eventually lose their grip.