My dear old friend

People say that when you die your whole life flashes through your eyes. From my experience, that’s not entirely true, or maybe that’s just not what is happening to me right now. All I see is my dear old friend, and I remember all the times he got too close and I ran from him, I ran like the wind, because when you see him coming you just run, you run as fast as your legs can carry you towards someplace safe. Steve Jobs said “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be”. I believe that’s true, but I also believe I have escaped death for many years already.

When I was 10 years old I was playing in my tree house on the little balcony I had and that’s when I saw him in my yard looking up at me. He looked about my age but I had never seen him before, I tried to say something but my words failed me and everything went black.

I fell from my tree house that day and I broke my arm. That day when I opened my eyes in the white dull room in the hospital I saw him again. I couldn’t quite grasp why he was there, and what I remember most is the sad smile he gave me, the look on his face telling me that he didn’t want to be there. All of the sudden he left and later that day I overheard a conversation between my parents and my doctor. I heard the words cancer and chemotherapy, words too big to understand, and the doctor kept apologizing and I didn’t know why. Had he done this to me? Make me fall from that silly tree. My mind took me back to sad looking boy who had given me fear and sadness at the same time.

After that day I fell from my tree house my life changed completely. My parents started treating me differently and I lost all the good things in my life. The hospital became my second home and I had a life very different from other kids my age. I didn’t have friends because I couldn’t run too fast or jump too high or do something that could affect my body too much. My tree house was cut down and my parents fought all the time. Throughout the months that passed, my hair started to lose color, it wasn’t the regular strawberry blond that I was used to, my eyes didn’t look hazel anymore they look a deep shade of lifeless brown, my skin wasn’t as white, it was more of a light yellow tone. I was different and nothing anyone said to me would change that. I lost all appreciation for life, I was in a dark place and I was all alone.

Apart from the hospital nurses with whom I was on a first name basis, that boy I saw became the one thing that never went away. Every time the doctor had bad news for me he was there. Always there with his sad smile. He never came closer than a few feet from me, and I never tried to come closer either, we had a silent understanding and we were in the same room but we never spoke a word to each other. He became my omen of bad luck.

When I turned 20 I started to see less and less of the sad smiled boy. I was in remission. The doctors had said that the cancer was no longer spreading and I could live my life as I wanted to. My hair had grown again and my eyes looked alive. I traveled the world, I saw things in one year that people don’t see in a lifetime. I fell in love, I made friends, I tried mouthwatering food, I swam naked, and I danced all night. I did all the things I was never allowed to do when I was sick. I saw Italy, France, Austria and Greece. For those 12 months I didn’t see my sad looking friend and I was happy. I only thought about him a little when I was alone, I thought about what he would look like now, would he still look sad, would I ever see him smile at me again.

The day of my 21^st birthday I came back to my home town with a different point of view. I saw color everywhere so I started to paint. Everything I saw was inspiration for my canvas, people, a pretty landscape, a tree. My life started to have meaning and I was finally happy, for another year I was happy and I didn’t see my sad looking friend.

When I was about to turn 24, I had an art showing in a gallery in town. I had a couple of friends from my travels who had come to see me, my family was there, and I was glowing with love and companionship. I was talking to someone who wanted to buy one of my paintings, and when I looked up I saw the same sad smile that I hadn’t seen in years and I knew. I recognized him immediately. The last thing I remember from that day is giving a loud “NO”, and then everything went black.

It was like someone had pressed the rewind button and just like that I was back at the hospital with my dear old friend in the back, always looking at me, always with the sad smile. The news weren’t as bad as I was expecting them to be, the doctor said that I had just fainted from exhaustion and that I should avoid stressful situations for the future. But something didn’t add up, the sad looking boy turned man was still here. I decided to not pay too much attention to that fact, I did the only thing I could, and that was to run, so I did just that. I traveled again, saw new places and stayed away. I just wanted the sad looking man to never lay eyes upon me again.

Running didn’t work this time, everywhere I went I would see him looking at me with his sad smile. Every time I saw him I ran the other way. I ran to another city, to another country, I ran like the devil himself was coming after me. I stopped enjoying what I was seeing, the food wasn’t as tasteful as it should’ve been, I didn’t make new friends because I didn’t stay in one place long enough. All that running and thinking of running didn’t leave any room for taking care of myself and I didn’t notice what was happening to my body or to my mental state. When I called my mother I rambled about some man who had been following me since I was 10 years old. I was 26 and I sounded like a lunatic. My mother asked me to come home after the third time I called her talking about nothing else.

I was back home and I hadn’t been successful in avoiding the sad looking man. I sat on my window and there he was, looking up at me with the same sad smile, but this time he extended his arm to me, like an invitation. I can’t remember being so afraid in my entire life, not when I had surgery, not when the doctor had bad news. Never had I been more afraid than that moment when the sad smiled man stretched his arm at me and invited me to come with him.

After that first time I saw him doing that I never saw him do anything else. Every time it was the same sad smile and his right arm stretched out to me. Now that I think about it, before that day I couldn’t actually see him well, I could just see his smile, it was with time that I started to see him clearly.

A week before my birthday, my mother drove me to the mall to get my present. We were having so much fun just the two of us talking about boys and looking for a dress I could wear to my party. I was trying my best not to look away from her in fear of seeing my sad looking friend inviting me to go with him. At one point in the day my mother went to the bathroom and I was sitting in a bench when I saw a boy fall in front of me. I immediately got up to help him, only to look at him and see the sad smile that had been haunting me for almost seventeen years. I stumbled backwards and I must’ve lost my footing because I fell and hit my head, and yes, just like that, everything went black.

So here I am, at 11.30pm the day before my birthday. I have spent the past week in the hospital because after that fall I took a week ago I couldn’t move my legs again, and I am currently on a respirator because I can’t breathe on my own. I can’t say that I am surprised about the outcome, I have failed to get to my checkups in time and that’s why there wasn’t anything they could do about it, the cancer spread to my hip and my lungs. Dr. Lawrence said that I had been lucky so far to have survived for so long when I could’ve died about a year ago.

My parents brought a lawyer earlier today because I signed a DNR (Do not resuscitate) form and they are trying to get it overruled because they don’t want me to die. But you see, when you die you don’t suffer, it’s the people around you that suffer the most, those who love you. I want to say something to them, to ask them to stop this because I just want them to let me go. Too many years they’ve had to deal with this, too much pain and doctor visits and bad news, just to have them get sucked back in after a little bit of peace.

I think it’s 11.58pm now, I don’t know exactly because the clock is too far to the left and I can’t move that far. My parents are nowhere to be seen, they’ve probably gone to bring decorations for the room or just to get some fresh air. I scan the room once more and I find the sad looking man with his arm stretched out towards me and I can finally see him clearly. Now he doesn’t look so sad and his smile is genuine, his eyes are welcoming. I take a deep breath and I find that my legs can move so I smile back and I sit up and try to call out to my parents to share with them, only they can’t hear me and the nurses are moving frantically outside looking for something and yelling but I’m too enthralled to even make out what they’re saying. Somehow I know that the man in front of me can hear me.

“It’s time, Lily” he said.

“Time for what?” I asked him, even though deep down I knew what he was talking about.

“Time for your greatest adventure yet”

I got up and for the first time in all those years I come close to him and I grab his hand.

I went to my dear old friend who was always there in the background but I was too busy running to understand.

I went to my dear old friend and for the first time I knew who he was.

I went to my dear old friend and his name is Death.

Short story-thing 4th and last

Beautiful Chaos

When you come from a family as big as mine, you know that you’re not getting away from a big Sunday lunch without having to discuss your personal life. Just imagine thirty people in the same house, the women all blabbering nonsense and criticizing everyone else, the men gathered around the grill with my father, discussing whether the meat is going to take long to cook or how long it took to get the fire going. There’s children running and screaming all around, an occasional cry because someone fell or a full blown freak out because the children went somewhere they weren’t supposed to go.

So here I am, towering above everyone as usual, stuck listening to my mother brag to my aunts about my older brother’s medical career or about my younger sister’s new job, because my uncle sent me to the women zone to grab a drink and I got held up when my mother asked me to remind her of the name of someone I really should’ve said I didn’t remember. The upside of being tall like me – I am 6 feet 4 – is that you hear every single thing everyone is saying but you can pretend like you didn’t catch all of it which is what I normally do when the conversation starts to move in my direction, and right now they’re starting to do that so I just give my aunt the fakest smile there is and I walk as fast as I can towards the grill. As soon as I reach it, my father grabs his beer and asks me to let everyone know that the food is ready.

A series of things unfold after that announcement. First, all the women start moving fast to get the salads from the kitchen to the table, the men move like a unit and clear the tables so that everyone can find a spot to sit and have their lunch comfortably. Second, my cousins and siblings – myself included – get a scold from our respective mothers because we didn’t move fast enough or because we didn’t guess that they needed help, so we rush to see what our tasks are. Third, I am charged with grabbing the children because I am the biggest and strongest of all, so it’s easy for me to take the five mini humans and bring them to their moms. Fourth and last, everyone starts moving towards the salad table or the grill to grab whatever they’re eating. Personally, I wait until almost everyone is seated because I don’t feel like pushing anyone for food.

Once everyone is served with something to eat and to drink everything gets a little calmer. That’s when I get my moment of peace, those two and a half minutes when everyone starts to taste their food, the meat is good and the homemade corn cake and cheese corn bread never tasted better. That’s when I take my time to really look at everyone and realize that it doesn’t get better than this. Yes, they’re annoying and they all get in your business, but it’s my family and I wouldn’t change a thing.

The peaceful minutes are gone, and I laugh out loud when I see my sister slapping my cousin on the back of the head and my mother yells at her for doing so, then my other cousin says something which gets him a slap as well and just like that the peace is gone and everything is back to beautiful chaos.

Short Story-thing 3

Object Personification

I remember waking up to darkness and movement. I was disoriented and a bit afraid of what the scenario could be. There were voices around me, human voices, which could only mean one thing: I had been bought and taken to a house. The fear disappeared and happiness coursed through me like a lightning bolt.

I made friends straight away. The cupboards were very friendly. I felt right at home thanks to them, and they helped me understand some things that have allowed me a very peaceful existence so far. My best friend is the plastic water jar. We hit it off right away after we found out neither of us was going anywhere. To be honest, at first I didn’t want to talk to her, because I didn’t want to like her and then have her taken away, but she explained that the only reason they could have to take her was to refill her, so that was good.

Unfortunately, not everyone is friendly. I am scared of the oven. I feel very lucky that he isn’t right next to me, we are complete opposites. He is heat and I am cold, and he is an evil appliance who actually enjoys it when the family puts something inside of him and he gets to kill them.

One thing I reluctantly had to accept, was that no matter how many things the family put in me, it would be best if I didn’t interact with the ones who were only there for a short time, because they could be taken at any time and never be heard from again. After all, they were what the family needed for sustenance. I made the mistake of befriending a tomato once, until he was taken away one morning, and a few minutes later he returned with half his body cut off.

Please, don’t hate my owners, we all have things we need to do if we want to stay alive, and they’re doing just that. They take good care of me. Whenever there’s a stain on my exterior, they immediately clean it, and they use the product I like, the one that makes my silver exterior shine. Or when someone accidentally spills inside of me, they make sure I’m just as white inside as I was before.

I have learned that my life is bittersweet, and I’m okay with that. I’d rather be alive and bittersweet than being dead in a junkyard and forgotten.

My story-thing 2

Okay for this one I need to explain that the assignment was to find someone you've never met, describe said person and create a background/thoughts. So this is literally a description of someone real, but the story behind her is all made up!! Let me know what you think.

The Stranger

As she stared at her reflection on the window, she saw things as they came. Her headphones in place, as always, keeping her from having to interact with anyone other than herself. The red shorts and black AC/DC t-shirt with no sleeves were serving their purpose right. She didn’t want to hide her scars, she showed them proudly. The ones on her back were uncovered, and the ones on her legs were colorfully placed as the stem of her red roses tattoo. Her backpack carefully placed on her shoulders so that the scars on her back wouldn’t hurt. Her choices were carefully made, from her clothing to her accessories.

Her hazelnut brown hair was tied in a ponytail, and her bright green ends could be seen perfectly from any direction.

She couldn’t help thinking briefly about the accident, so she did, and noticed her expression had gotten gloomy once again. The memories were too intense, too painful to keep reliving. Her thoughts drifted to her friends as her phone chimed, indicating a new message. She couldn’t help the smile that came to her lips, they always knew just how to make her feel better, what she needed to get out of that dark place.

As the train began to stop, she stood up and walked to the doors. She had a long way to go, but she knew she would make it. So she smiled, and took one step after the other, and she got off the train.

Short story-thing 1

My name

There are different opinions on the origins of my name. Some say it’s Hebrew, others that it’s of Spanish origin, but the meaning is always the same. Gabriela is the feminine form of Gabriel, which means God’s able-bodied one, or messenger of God.

My parents never said that they chose my name for its meaning though. My mother told me that she always liked it, and that my father thought about it and after a while he loved it because it reminded him of a Brazilian romance novel called Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon. I guess I was always destined to be a hopeless romantic and loving literature.

Every year on my birthday, my father tells me that they wanted a girl so bad that from the very first pregnancy they named it Gabriela, but alas came my older brother Diego. When the second one came round, they thought this was me for sure, and along came my brother Federico. So when the third one came, they wanted to change the name because it’d been six years of waiting. I could’ve been Mariana which means bitter, or Veronica which means honesty. Days before I was born, they looked at each other and said “No, it’s always been our Gabriela, it’s been her identity for years and we can’t change it now”. They’ve always said that any other name would’ve just sounded like someone else.

When you say my name correctly in Spanish, it sounds angry and hard, which is why I’ve always preferred my nicknames. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t ever change my name. I t is who I am and I can’t imagine calling myself or hearing someone call me by any other. My last name though… Now that’s another story altogether.

Little stories!!

Hello lovelies!!

So, given that I am like the worst blogger in the world, I have decided to share something else with you guys and get your opinions on the matter!
As I explained before, I am currently in Montreal CA doing a Creative Writing course to help with my writing and get the insight I need to FINALLY start writing novels and short stories!! YAAAAY. 

Anyway, since middle of June I have been writing one short assignment on character development for my class, and I want to put it up here so that you guys can see what I've been up to and maybe tell me if you'd like to know more about a certain character or not. That would help me A LOT in finding a new character for a new novel! Please take into consideration that these are NOT short stories, I don't even know what they are, they're juse one page introductions to characters.

I will be posting one story-thingy per day starting today, and next week I will post my final short story!

So be ready and comment please!

Until next time dearies!