Scrambled Days

Anytime he got bored of every week being the same, he’d pick up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, put them into his pocket and start walking until he was far away from everything. Once he felt no one was watching him, he would carefully take them out of his pocket and start shaking his hand. And as he shook it, he would bring it closer to his ear —squinting his eyes to make sure the days were there, all seven of them. He’d repeat this movement for ten, fifteen seconds. Once he felt he had scrambled them enough, he would stretch out his arm and slowly open his fingers one by one as if he were releasing a dove, to let the days settle in the order they wanted. This is how Monday appeared in the middle of the week and stopped being the worst and most hated day of all. Saturday would squeeze into Tuesday’s place, and all of a sudden people would run to the movies, meet up with friends, eat like cannibals and forget about their diet, drinking soda with wine and wine with soda, like people do on Saturdays. Thursdays were for football fans, eyes glued to their TV screens, wrapped in their team colors. On Friday, moms would send their kids early to bed, because the week had just begun and there was a lot of homework to do. On Wednesday, abuelas would make enough ravioli to feed a platoon. Unfortunately, Tuesday was sent to the end of the week and had to deal with a hangover. And on Sunday at 8 am, you couldn't find anyone on the street without a suit and tie, ready to start the week again.

Sunset

It was still early, but the moon was already on its way.

Like any other day

Like every single day of his almost five hundred years, the old man wakes up, pours hot water into his teacup and as he yawns for the third time that morning, he begins to put away the stars in the sky one by one. He does this almost by heart, though some days he’s so sleepy he may put a star in the wrong constellation, altering the zodiac for the week. Once he’s done with this, he puts on his gloves. And with scientific precision, he slowly pulls up the sun from the horizon to position it in the exact same spot that he does every morning. Next, he places blank sheets of paper into huge buckets filled with black ink and dyes them with the latest news, making sure they get to newsstands on time. As he sips his tea, he begins pulling out the balconies from all of the buildings as if they were drawers that come out to greet the sun. The most complicated part is when he must decide how he would like to dress the day. Pleasing billions of people is not an easy task, so he fashions a handful of warmth, a couple gusts of wind, a pinch of cold and just a few drops of rain. He adds a rainbow as the final touch. Once he's made sure everything is working perfectly, he snaps his fingers to awaken the world and spins the planet to officially begin a new day. Finally, he can then sit down and enjoy breakfast while another day unfolds.


Tear

Missing him was a torture. One day she decided to cry. She cried so hard that a big tear spilled from her eye. It was so big that she decided to dive into it and start swimming. She swam nonstop without going up to breath even once. She wandered around every ocean, every river, every little puddle, until one day, the tear dried.

Balloon (A short story about a dream)

Suddenly, she desperately wanted to be a little girl again. The desire was so strong that she had to release the balloon she imagined she was holding, afraid she would fly away and never again be able to return to her beautiful dream.


Scar

After she left, the heart splinters pierced each part of his body slowly until he died bleeding.

Deep Sleep

He turned the alarm clock off and went straight to the bathroom. He peed, brushed his teeth and grab a gun from the drawer. Looking in the mirror, he blew his head up. Only then did he realize he was no longer dreaming.

The fighter

He knelt on the ground, rose up his head and saw the strength of a hundred men wrapped in a glove galloping towards his jaw.

Two brothers and a hug

The brothers sat on the couch next to each other. Only a few inches separated them, enough space to fit so many years of distance. He decided to sit on his left as if that would bring him closer to his brother’s heart. Every once in a while they would say something, but not saying much, almost avoiding the responsibility. And if by any chance they looked at each other, their eyes would repel like two magnets from the same pole. They’d had thousands of opportunities like this one, but they wasted them, taking for granted that life always gives us second chances.

From pinky to thumb, his fingers started tapping impatiently against the couch’s arm, always in that order, quickly repeating the same movement, like he was waiting for the brain to execute an order. At the same time, his brother’s legs started nervously moving from top to bottom, heels going up and down, without separating the feet from the floor. There was an uncomfortable silence, and there was nothing that could break it into a million pieces to spill the sorrow across the floor. Well, actually there was something, but those who know about disenchantments know that you need more than muscle effort to do something like that. It requires a lot of mental strength and an ancestral level of concentration. The clock hanging on the wall had a lot of time left, and it hung there, waiting for them to do something about it. Just when they realized that only a miracle could make a miracle happen, they decided to act.

As if it was a perfectly rehearsed, they turned their torsos to face each other. That movement made their necks turn too, putting them face to face, still avoiding eye contact. Slowly, they raised their arms up to each other’s shoulders. Then they stretched their arms, just enough so they could reach the back of the other one, and with an unmeasurable shyness, they crossed their arms around each other’s back. By then, both hearts started pumping, taking turns beating. They would do it louder and louder, almost as if they were trying to awaken the rest of the twenty-one organs inside their bodies, so they could know what was about to happen. As the blood ran through their veins, the coldness on the bones started to defrost. They still couldn’t look at each other's eyes. Suddenly, a humongous archive of memories was unlocked and invaded their brains. They felt a strong desire to cry, but crying would’ve been a huge risk that would interrupt the culmination of such a precious moment. Their bodies were so close that they could recognize each other’s smells. They found each other's eyes on purpose and after a couple of neverending seconds, they finally melted into an unforgettable hug. The hug was so strong that it hurt. But it was a sweet pain, the kind of pain that washes the guilt away. A regretful pain that would’ve liked to go back in time to repeat that hug for all the times they haven’t done it, who knows why. But at this point, it didn’t matter because they weren’t there to find a why, but a forever.