La luz es como el agua; originally written in 1978, is the eleventh of a compendium of twelve stories written and edited by Gabriel García Márquez over the course of eighteen years, which make up the book called Doce cuentos peregrinos (Twelve Pilgrim Stories). ^[1]

Totó and Joel are two brothers who insistently ask their parents for a rowboat for Christmas. Despite living in Madrid where there are no navigable waters, their father buys it for them. The boys enlisted the help of their schoolmates to carry the boat up the stairs to the utility room.

As every Wednesday their parents went to the movies, the children alone at home, broke the bulb of a lamp and let the light spill to a good level, then cut the current and took the boat out to sail. -Light is like water," I replied, "you turn on the tap and it comes out. They continued sailing secretly on Wednesdays when their parents went to the movies, and when they returned they found them asleep. ^[2]

Some time later they asked their parents for a complete diving kit. Because of their good grades and recognition at school, they bought it for them. In the same way, the following Wednesdays, they filled the apartment to the height of two fathoms and dived to the bottom of the light. At the end of term the brothers were recognized and the parents offered them a gift; they just asked for a party at home with their classmates.

The following Wednesday, people began to see a cascade of light coming from the balconies and running down the front of the building to the street, they called the firemen who forced the door of the apartment and found the house flooded with light up to the ceiling.

All the furniture was floating as well as the kitchen utensils and personal belongings. At the end of the corridor, Totó was sitting on the stern of the boat with his mask on as far as the air could reach. Joel floated in the bow and his schoolmates floated throughout the house. They had opened so many lights at the same time that the house was flooded and the entire fourth year of St. Julian the Hospitaller's school had drowned.

Reading "Light is like water" we are very impressed by the fact that children play with light as if it were water. They navigate in it, but they do it on the sly, because their immense imagination is dangerous, it has no limits. This can be affirmed because a person with imagination is inventive, sees things that others do not, defies the reality imposed by society and defines his own meaning about what is possible or real.

This power gives the ability to contradict, to challenge people, which was not very convenient for the children's parents, so they play with their imagination without being seen.