The Rooftop Communion Wafer: A Triana Tale
A classified file from the Brotherhood of Silence: Dubious Miracles and Other Complications.
The Setting
A rooftop on Calle Pureza, opposite the bell tower. Every Monday, the Brotherhood of Triana’s Sceptics meets there: pensioners who believe only what they can see, or what Manolo at the tobacconist tells them.
The Character
Bartolo, a waiter since the age of thirteen, has spent forty years serving in a bar that no longer exists, though he still opens it out of habit. After seeing a pigeon with human-looking eyes perched on his air conditioner, he gave up aniseed liqueur and began documenting local paranormal phenomena. He is considered Callejón del Agua’s answer to paranormal broadcaster Iker Jiménez.
The Incident
One Saturday afternoon, during Seville’s siesta—the most powerful hour of the day—Bartolo claims to have seen a consecrated Communion wafer floating above the rooftop. It did not fall. It did not fly. It floated.
He described it as “levitating with an attitude”, giving off a faint LED glow and turning slowly to a Marian pasodoble that, he said, could only be heard inside your head.
He tried filming it on his phone, but the camera showed only his ex-wife repeating “I told you!” on a loop. Frightened but fascinated, Bartolo summoned the sceptics. Nobody believed him… until the ceiling fan began reciting the Creed backwards.
A pensioner who had worked as a railway electrician suggested “an electromagnetic field fault caused by ionised yellow sand”. Another blamed the ghost of Fray Servando, a friar said to have died on that rooftop after refusing to bring down the chairs following the fair.
The parish priest arrived with holy water, offered a conditional prayer—“if this is real, let it be purified”—and ran away.
The Epilogue
The wafer vanished when somebody played an Isabel Pantoja copla on the Bluetooth speaker. Bartolo took it as a divine sign. Since then, says the story, a growing group gathers every Saturday at the same hour to watch the sky in case the miracle returns.
City Hall denies it. So does the archdiocese. Yet certain market stalls supposedly sell ceramic “Flying Wafer” figurines under the counter. With built-in sound.
Only those who were there know the truth. As good Sevillians, they will never tell. Unless you buy them a carajillo.
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