The Seville–Madrid AVE Hijacking: A Triana Comedy

Or How Triana Tried to Declare Independence in Tracksuits, Armed with Rustic Bread.

Prologue

In this fictional tale, the Seville–Madrid AVE, train 01093, leaves Santa Justa punctually at 7:32 on a Tuesday. Aboard: 237 passengers, four attendants and three people who should not be there.

Illustration for The Seville–Madrid AVE Hijacking: A Triana Comedy

Their codenames are:

  • Camas: Former building labourer, now a YouTube fishing influencer.
  • La Buhaira: Yoga teacher, incense workshop leader and emotional revolutionary.
  • Los Remedios: Retired hairdresser and amateur military strategist, thanks to Call of Duty and his army service.

The Plan

Their goal is clear: proclaim Triana’s independence from the first-class carriage, using the train as a symbol of oppression by Seville and Madrid. Why the AVE? The suburban train seems insufficiently serious.

They bring:

  • Three tortilla sandwiches.
  • A bedsheet banner reading “Free Triana Now!”—misspelled, then corrected with a marker.
  • A speech by El Gamba, a former street poet who mistook a residents’ meeting for a Got Talent audition.

The Hijacking

At 7:54, near Dos Hermanas in the tale’s cheerfully implausible geography, Camas stands:
“Nobody move! This is a symbolic manifesto of territorial demands!”
Nobody panics: he is speaking with a mouthful of sandwich.
La Buhaira burns incense, triggering the fire alarms. Los Remedios enters the driver’s cab, only to discover he cannot operate the train—or even a supermarket trolley.

The train continues. Nobody is hurt. The Wi-Fi still works.

The Speech

El Gamba’s manifesto is read through the café microphone:

“Triana, mother of deep song and justice,
rises on rails like Goliath in a dressing gown.
No more settlers from El Arenal,
no more tribute to the Giraldillo.
Independence—or slow death by coffee sugar sachet!”

Light applause from Erasmus students who think it is performance art. A woman from Cuenca asks whether it is included in her ticket.

The End

Near Ciudad Real, police board. Nobody resists.
Camas surrenders: “But it was symbolic, darling.”
La Buhaira offers incense. Los Remedios claims he was only passing and nothing like this happens in his neighbourhood.

They are arrested. The tale’s charges:

  • Disrupting railway order.
  • Misusing the microphone.
  • Emotionally hijacking the passengers.

Epilogue

The banner ends up in a Triana bar. El Gamba gets an invitation to an urban-politics podcast. In the story, every 13 March becomes “Poetic Hijacking Day”, celebrated on bus five with clown noses and tortilla sandwiches.

Being from Triana is not a choice. It is a hijacking.

What about you?
Would you enter the Teatro de la Maestranza on a night of empty rehearsal?
Would you sit in row 13?

Some applause does not come from the audience, and some actors never leave the stage.

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