He was a difficult child to raise, because he didn't like to eat at all. He only wanted to run through the fields, explore nature and, mind you, feed little animals. “As a child, I already knew that a rabbit, a goat, and a pig must eat differently, and I would scold whoever gave them food without taking that into account.” He, however, was a picky eater. Who would have said, twenty-odd years later, that he would have a shop of food made by himself. We are talking about Nicolau Pons (Pollença, 1994), founder of Sa Cabreta, an organic farm and artisanal cheese factory located in the Serra de Tramuntana, in Pollença. One of his aunts, Cati Pons, tells us about him – his mother is one of four sisters and two brothers!

In Santa Margalida there is a street called Sa Placeta because it is a three-cornered area that forms a small square. In the eighties, quite a few kids lived among the houses in that neighborhood, about seventeen or eighteen. They were not the same age, but there was only a five-year age gap between them. Time passed, everyone went their own way, but every summer they close the street and have a dinner to meet up again. Including partners and children, about 60 people get together. One of the guests is the glosador Mateu Matas OrdinasXurí (Santa Margalida, 1982). His older brother, Joan, who is five years his senior, tells us about it.

One day, at school, she told off a nun who had hit her little sister. She was, and still is, “very protective, defiant and justice-seeking”. She was a girl “who made herself noticed”, according to the one protected, the little one, Catalina. We are talking about Maria Antònia Oliver, president of the Memòria de Mallorca organization, who is the second of three siblings. The older brother is Francisco.

Among his references were Subcomandante Marcos and Malcolm X, one of his idols when he was young. He played basketball, but he has also been practicing less conventional sports for years, such as boxing. He is a fan of Ismael Serrano. He studied Catalan Philology at the UIB and then Anthropology at the UB. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, students at the Ramon Llull building at the UIB filled the walls with graffiti against the war. Near the main stairs, one can still be seen. It was made by David Pujol, now a Catalan teacher and candidate for MÉS per Palma for the mayoralty of Ciutat. "Like the others, they wanted to cover it up, but it can still be distinguished." Says Antoni Trobat, David's friend since their university years.

In Sant Lluís (Menorca) lived Mrs. Van Oppen, daughter of a British military officer stationed in India when it was still under the direct control of the British Crown. She gave private English lessons which, beyond grammatical and phonetic foundations, "were filled with landscapes, experiences, and lifestyles" that far surpassed the daily experience and canons of Western culture known until then by two Menorcan children born in the late 60s. "She encouraged exploring the unknown, opening up to new frontiers, accepting diversity. This experience, undoubtedly, would fuel our interest in opening up to new horizons. Alicia often comments that these English sessions were the seed of her later scientific vocation". Alicia is Alicia Sintes (1969), professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB; and her brother, Tomàs Sintes (1966), also a professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB, tells us about it.

“He is a person who illuminates your thoughts. For me, he is my spiritual father, fundamental in my life. He is one of those great men of whom one is born every century. A universal man who vibrates and makes others vibrate, and who throughout his life has done everything with love, generosity, and tolerance.” This is how the village poet Antoni Gost Curro (1953) speaks. He says it about another Antoni, known, admired, and loved, difficult to classify: a pharmacist, a cultural activist, a social agitator, and a revolutionary. We are talking about Antoni Torrens Gost (1937), the driving force behind sa Pobla in Gràcia, the meeting of bagpipers and luthiers, the Llar de la Memòria, the Albopàs group of devils... among so many other things.

He has lived in Andorra for years, a usual location among professional cyclists for altitude training camps. Likewise, he maintains lifelong friends with whom he started cycling. The group of friends assures that in short distances he is practically the same as when he was a child: “Approachable, fun, and very natural”. However, he has always been “very private about his intimacy”: “He doesn't like interviews and cameras at all, and if he can avoid them, he does”, tells us Joan Danús, one of the childhood friends of professional cyclist Enric Mas (Artà, 1995).

A family snapshot: the six members squeezed into a three-door orange Renault 5. They are four siblings born in Llucmajor. At home, Spanish was always spoken: the father had arrived from the Peninsula and married a Mallorcan woman, the mother. The family's linguistic idiosyncrasy changed when the third brother was about 17 years old. We will tell it later. The third brother was born in 1968 and today he is a poet, narrator, and professor: Miquel Bezares. A fire at his home, when he was about four years old, impacted him so much that even today, when he starts to smell burning, he feels a certain dread, as if that smell had stayed stuck in his nose forever. The youngest brother, Jesús – although everyone knows him by the nickname Tuti – says that Miquel "was an extraordinarily bright child": "At eight years old, he already had the head of a fifteen-year-old boy; and at fifteen, he looked like an old man," he laughs.

The two girls I have in front of me are the ones who are the most well-behaved in the entire group of third graders in Primary school who are now surrounding me. They were the first to sit down, further away from the rest, as soon as they entered the carriage. They remain oblivious to what is happening in the background, to their classmates, who are jumping, shouting and fighting to get into the photo the teacher is taking of them. Occupying the minimum space of their seat and with their legs crossed, they hardly move, nor is their voice heard during the subway ride. But those of us who grew up with the phrase “You, look and be quiet” recognize each other. I look at them and they are quiet. I don't need words to discover their universe, hidden behind the mobile phone screen.

He has an extraordinary natural talent for rhythm and a very fine sense of harmony. In fact, he even played bass with people from the Deià scene, linked to English punk, in groups like Sex Beatles. Who knows if it's because from a very young age he listened to music that didn't sound anywhere else on Mallorca: his older brother, Jaume, brought him the latest music records directly from London in the early 70s. The middle brother is Joan and the protagonist of these lines is the gallerist Xavier Fiol (Palma, 1962). He is brought to us by who would be, given the years they have known each other and the affection they have, the fourth brother: Ivan Albons.

From a very young age, she had her ideas very clear. “When she set her mind on something, she had to have her way,” they say about her. She soon developed a special ability to achieve what she wanted: “She knew perfectly how to ask for things from each person. She did it with innocence, but she almost always succeeded. She had great intuition for reading people.” Children and stories have been two constants throughout her life. When she was a girl, she would sit the little ones down and tell them stories. Later she studied teaching and worked for a few years as a Primary school teacher before dedicating herself fully to philology. We are talking about Caterina Valriu (Inca, 1960), na Catalina Contacontes, and her older sister, Paula, who is seven years her junior, introduces us to her.

He heard the first jotes and boleros in Valldemossa, where his father was from, a village that was beginning, in the mid-50s, to be touristy. She was born in 1948 and grew up in Palma, where her mother was from. At her home there was a pickup that was always on. The first records she listened to were Picolíssima Serenata, by Renato Carosone, and Una Casita en Canadá. She was particularly marked by French chanson and Italian singer-songwriters, but she also developed a taste for classical music: “She deeply adores Bach”. She is the second of three siblings: the eldest is Biel, a lawyer; the youngest, Rafel, a set designer. She is a composer, one of the most recognized voices in Mallorca: we are talking about Miquela Lladó. Pere Estelrich, a mathematician, musicologist, and collaborator of various media, introduces us to her.

A close person, with a smile that enchanted and shining eyes, eager for knowledge, for love, and for life. Very soon he began to play the guitar and to take an interest in music and songs. For him, there was no other path than music: “His father was already a musician, and his mother was called Cecilia, the patron saint of music.” Neus Ferrer says this, half-seriously and half-jokingly, highlighting the kindness of the character we are about to discover today: “When it got dark, he always accompanied me home. Over time, I discovered it was because he was very interested in my neighbor, Mercè, whom he eventually married.” Neus Ferrer’s lifelong friend is the musician and linguist from Ibiza, Isidor Marí (1949).

I like elevators. If you think this statement is banal, even vulgar, I won't deny it. You are right. In fact, banality and vulgarity can also please me if they are well contextualized. In my defense, I must explain that I don't like elevators for their obvious function, that of saving you from having to climb stairs. What I like about them is the possibility they give me to hide. If I'm lucky enough to go up alone, and there's no one to see me enter, for a few seconds there isn't a single being on the planet who knows where I am. While the metal capsule takes me to the floor I've indicated thanks to a button of dubious design (usually), I am completely disappeared, I cease to exist in the world.

Once upon a time there was an island of deserted beaches and crystal-clear waters; with mountains to hike and find absolutely no one. It's hard to imagine, but once, in the Palma bullring, there were only low buildings and vacant lots, and adventurous 12 and 13-year-old pre-teens who went camping alone on the other side of Mallorca. Nowadays, in fact, camping on the island is strictly forbidden. But those days existed, and that island, when kids wanted to dance and dress like Elvis Presley, and The Beatles had all their dreams to fulfill. Today's protagonist "wanted to be the Mallorcan Peter Fonda", was "a very good racetrack rider (motorsport discipline) and had a childhood "tied to the street and nature". He is Xavier Pastor (Palma, 1950), one of the great references of environmentalism in the Balearic Islands, and a childhood friend and lifelong friend, Santiago Bonnín, tells us about him.

It's made of Umberto Tozzi. But let's go back: she was born in a house of onions, so she had to be an onion, yes or yes. From a very young age she showed interest in drawing and today it is her way of "unfolding". She played with Nancys, but she often exchanged them for her little brother Pau's Airgam Boys, with whom there is a four-year age difference. It is he who brings us closer to the figure of his older sister, politician Xisca Mora Veny (1971). She recently left the mayor's office of Porreres, her hometown, after 13 years.

In an 80-square-meter apartment in Madrid Square, six people lived: four siblings, mother, and father. At times, the grandmother was also there. It was a noisy house with a large terrace, and while some were returning from high school, a baby was crying. There is a 14-year age difference between the eldest brother and the youngest in the house. “It surprises me how, in the middle of that chaotic house, full of shouts and playing children, Pep could read, completely absorbed. He had a brutal capacity for concentration, it was as if he escaped.” Pep is Josep Ramon Cerdà (Palma, 1971), a playwright and professor. His younger sister, Margalida, known on social media as Madò Llucia, introduces us to him.

Marc comes to my 'functional' training class. At some point, 'functional' became a word to refer to a type of physical exercise and we all accepted it. It sounds strange to me. 'Functional' sounds to me like 'the minimum you can do to get by in life'. I'd like to know why it is, functional. Does it make you functional? I understand it does, that you get strong to be functional as a human being. Which is the reason I signed up for it. To have some strength, in the future, to be autonomous, control my sphincters and not defecate on myself after giving birth (if I ever do), for example, or to be able to carry milk cartons and not need the help of these children I will have given birth to. I don't know. I don't know why I think about it in terms of motherhood. The thing is, if I don't do anything about it, my musculature will start to detach more and more from my bones, until it becomes totally dysfunctional. Now I see it that way, in practical terms. But for a long time it wasn't like that: it was in aesthetic terms that I thought about it. And I feel sorry that Marc ends up experiencing the same thing.

Today's protagonist has a magnetism and personality that make him difficult to approach. He is as quick to approach people as he is to distance himself, as quick to dazzle and charm you as he is to weigh you down. A lifelong friend will tell us about him, one of those you start to relate to by kicking a ball around the schoolyard as the adolescent sun rises: one of those who know you so well that they are even a little afraid to talk about you. The protagonist is the artist Albert Pinya (Palma, 1985), and Francesc Becerra, whom he has known since kindergarten, brings us closer to his most unknown story: "Back then, Albert was already a very friendly person, although he also had an introverted side." Contradictions accompany us throughout these lines.

He was a blond little piglet with very light eyes; calm and easy to handle. His favorite toy has always been a soccer ball. In fact, soccer is his great passion. And Barça. At some point, he "dreamed of being a soccer player." Until he was almost an adult, he played for different teams, such as Sallista, Constancia, and Murer. As a teenager, he even refereed. He shares the name (uncommon in the Canary Islands) of his godfather from Ciudad Real, where his father is from, Inocente Moreno. We're talking about Virgilio Moreno Sarrió, who has been the mayor of Inca for over a decade under the PSOE banner. His mother, Maria Sarrió, reveals a lesser-known side of him.