Collegare, Young Writers of Earth [graded readers TXT] 📗

We never thought we’d ever be given the chance to have a child. Hell, we hoped indeed, but after six years of waiting, we almost finally accepted that our home was never going to be the one we’ve dreamt of. A childless home, that was. Or maybe, home—just home. I don’t know if I can ever conceive of a home without a child. But on one ordinary Thursday, Carol embraced me from behind and whispered, “You’re going to be a father.” It was the best thing I’ve heard in my adult life. I’ve been a musician and composer for fourteen years but I’ve never heard or made such beautiful line.

Two weeks later, I composed a lullaby for our daughter. I told Carol I would play it to her when she’s born. It’s the lullaby I decided she would hear every day. Time breezed by so fast and our Christina was born. I could not believe she’s mine, she’s ours. And so every afternoon, Carol carried Christina beside the piano, while I played the lullaby we then called Perfect Melody. I knew Christina loved it. It had always sent her to a pleased sleep and never failed to make her smile.

“I’ll compose another lullaby”, I told Carol one night while she was preparing dinner. Christina was beside the table, down on her belly, playing colored blocks we gave her earlier that day. “Honey, that’s really sweet of you but you have to write a couple of songs for Marie. They’re all due this month.” She was right. I almost forgot about the contract I had with a singer. Christina was crawling towards Carol, near the stove. As I was coming to pick her up, Carol slid an empty metal pan from beside the sink and it fell inches away from Christina. We both gasped and immediately were both relieved that it did not hit her. Carol picked her up and kissed her on the cheek. She did not notice what I did notice. The loud sound created by the pan that fell on the floor did not shock or in any way grabbed Christina’s attention. Was she not supposed to cry out of shock? I was speechless for the rest of the night. But in the morning that came after, I told my wife while we’re still lying in bed, “Honey, I don’t think Christina can hear.”

And I was right. Our daughter was deprived of the right to hear the world. Forever deprived of sounds. The universe knows how broken I feel till now because my child is deaf and dumb. But those days when I first played Perfect Melody to her will always be a mystery. I swear she was smiling when I would play it. I swear the song did send her to sleep. But then again… maybe it was not the sound that she was hearing. Maybe she just knew that the lullaby was for her. Maybe she listened with her heart.


THE TEARS OF CASSIEL ALVARADO
Theresa Ellsworth

I fell in love with her the first time our hands touched. We were in the elevator, and we had never said a word to each other, though I had watched her from the corner of my eye, unsure if she was true or not. When our hands brushed, I knew.

We started to talk, first in the nights, and then I became so obsessed I knew we needed to spend every waking moment together. I started to talk to her during the day, always waiting for the time when we were close enough to be able to kiss.

The day came one night, as I lay in my bed thinking about her. We were holding hands, not a word leaving our lips, but our strong, beating hearts giving away our feelings. We leaned over at the same time, me to the right and her to the left, and our lips touched gently.

I didn’t have a job, so I was never able to please her with expensive gifts. She never seemed to mind, however. It was as if all she wanted was me, and that was enough.

I longed to get her a ring and ask for her hand, so I managed to get a job as a janitor at a nearby public elementary school. We would walk to work together, since she was a teacher there. I often waved to her when I saw her in school.

After several months, I had the money saved up, and I walked to the jewelry store right down the road from our apartment, doing it at a time of day I knew she wouldn’t walk by so that the surprise wouldn’t be ruined.

I bought a one-karat ring with the six hundred dollars I had saved up. By this time, I knew I was broke. But it was for her, for the woman I loved. She couldn’t say no.

There was a skip in my step as I walked back to the apartment building, and I noticed for the first time that all the windows were always shut, with the curtains drawn, bringing a sort of grey shade to the complex. It was always so empty, where I lived, and would be more so without her.

She lived in apartment 10C, the largest one in the entire building. Always, I had envied her for it, until I had met her. And she deserved it.

I rode the elevator up to the tenth floor. I had it all planned out. The ring was in my coat pocket and I would hand her my coat. Then, I would tell her she had left something of hers in my apartment the day before and it was in my coat pocket. She would open it. She would see the ring. I would go down on one knee and ask. She would say yes.

My hands were shaking when I knocked on her door and waited.

It was open a second later and an old couple greeted me. For a second, I thought these were her parents. “Hello,” I said. I wanted to greet them, but I realized I didn’t know her last name. “I’m looking for Cheryl.”

The old couple looked at each other and the man said, “I’m sorry, but you’ve come to the wrong apartment.”

“No,” I told them. Didn’t they understand? “This is 10C. Cheryl lives here.” They still had those blank looks on their faces. I could feel myself getting angry. “Why have you taken her house? Who are you?”

The man went on, “Yes, I think I do remember a Cheryl. But she doesn’t live here anymore. She passed away a year ago.”

I stared at the couple, shocked. My eyes watered, but no tears would fall. I wouldn’t believe it. This fantasy couldn’t just end. I still had to give her the ring. She still had to say yes.

I pushed past the couple and ran through the door to her bedroom. Then I knelt down and took out the ring, asking, again and again, “Marry me? Please, marry me? I love you so much. Please.” But I got no answer, because there was nobody there.

I dropped the ring onto the bed and ran back out. I needed to leave. This apartment brought too many memories. I could see her in every corner, but it was her face with blood gushing out her eyes and mouth. Her face stabbed or shot. Not angelic like I remembered it.

She couldn’t be dead. This woman whose earring had fallen, and I had stooped to pick up, placing it in her hand and making contact for the first time. This woman who I had dreamed about every night, our conversations something precious to me. This woman I had even begun to daydream about, what with the happiness she made me feel.

This woman I had kissed one night while I lay on my bed, eyes closed.

I had got that job at the school for her, and had walked there every morning, always seeing her shadow across the street. Whenever she had class, I would wait around for her so that we could have a cup of coffee at lunch.

The tears now ran freely down my face. A wasted year was all it was. Had it really been worth it, in the end? Where was she now? I would never see her beautiful smile and her sea blue eyes. Never again would I be able to stroke that smooth auburn hair.

I entered my apartment in a sort of daze and headed straight to the room I never entered. It was the office, and in it held things I had tried to forget, memories that burned too brightly now to ignore.

The newspaper was still there, as I had left it the year before. And there she was, her smiling face jolting my heart. We had never had a chance, when she’d died the day I found my love for her. She drove me mad.

October 10, 2010: the day of her death.

I would give anything to go back to that day, to tell myself to have the courage to take her out for a cup of coffee. I could have prevented her from crossing the street, because the coffee place didn’t require our crossing. But she had done just that. She had crossed to the other side, and never made it back.

I imagined our life together, and how happy we could have been. I pined over her still.

A teardrop fell on the newspaper, then another and another, raining on her face and the words of death.

I hadn’t cried