Morning or October, the
fresh air and rain scents fill the bedroom. A silent sun rises warming the
breeze of this new born morning.
Before the alarm goes off
she is awaken by birds singing, and a stubborn sunray that plays on her sad
eyes. The bedroom is hot; from every corner lays neglected objects left by the
rush of the week ending.
They say today is witches
day – she remembers jumping up suddenly. The morning awakes in a rush; the day
will pass by very fast. Every day the same thing: Mother Nature explodes in a
gorgeous show outside that she won’t have any time to see.
_
Daddy, Wake up! Could you fix me some coffee?
He is a construction worker,
but he’s been unemployed for over three years, since he’s gotten sick and lost
a good job he had, exactly the same time when she realized her giant and almost
impossible dream: she got into College. She had to pretend not to have any
feelings and just take the only income in the household to pay for her classes.
The house is very tiny, four tiny rooms only, the mother
still asleep.
She brushes her teeth looking at the stained mirror in
the bathroom making witches faces, since today will be the first day of her
life she’ll go to a Halloween party.
The scent of coffee fills the house; daddy’s coffee is
the best coffee of the entire world, especially when he serves her in an old
porcelain cup, her favorite.
Daddy complains he’s running out of ethanol, it’s not
enough even to take her to work. Suddenly the coffee turns too bitter.
The car is really old, all they have. The house is borrowed;
some friends gifted the car. Her parents have such a big heart they can’t see
their own condition, they go, religiously to visit sick, needy people, they
take all they can share: words of peace, companionship and love. The mom
purchases for the poor, with the church funds, so many times she deliver to the
really poor, forgotten homes, with little kids hungry waiting on the dark
uneven gates built out of scraps, and she forgets her own need. She knows she
is really fortunate to be chosen to take hope.
They have lots of friends, the humble home is always
visited and people just seem to like spending time with them.
Finally the car starts, but it’s necessary to push it,
the reverse is not working. They leave,
she goes anxious, expecting that things will be better today in the store, she
loves her job, she wants to improve, to do her best, so she can make the store
profitable, for she works for someone’s dream, her boss’s dream. She knows so
much depends on her, and she goes out of her way to make things work, because
her work is a mirror that reflects herself.
Lunch
time. Today it will be impossible to eat home. She eats a cochinha and rushes to help organizing the
preparations for her class’s Halloween party.
She buys a huge rat with red eyes, wonderful, looks like
the real thing. She is going to use it in the decorations. She buys a spider to
use in her neck, since she will be the black widow. The minutes go by spinning.
Exhausted she heads back to work. Suddenly, in a bright
window she sees an opalescent ring and can’t stand herself: goes into the shop
and shows her amusement.
Solicit the seller opens up the window and offers her the
jewelry to try on.
It’s a golden ring, sculpted in nice curves with a big
blue topaz that rests on top of a square shaped box.
With her breath suspended she glides her eyes at the
transcended moment in which the jewelry rests on her finger, and the moment is
as real as the skies that some people
say isn’t blue but that is, if you just
look at it.
She is sorry to give the jewelry back to the sale girl,
but continues her way to the witches’ day that waits on her.
Things somehow are changed, she takes a sparkle more
intense than the one the jewelry had, reflected on her eyes. She keeps going
thinking that if she could afford that jewelry, she wouldn’t have all the
problems she have now.
The evening comes, and the rain, and then the witches,
odalisques, monsters of all kind invade town. The party is a success, and she
was stunning all in black with a spider crawling on her neck.
Contaminated by the happiness of the monsters she plays
and smiles, the sparkle of the ring won’t erase the hope from her eyes. She
knows life is lapidating her for some da she will be glisten somewhere.
November 1st 2003
3:00am
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