Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta changes. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta changes. Mostrar todas las entradas

jueves, 20 de octubre de 2016

The circumstances of love

   Anyone could have said it: their last kiss was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. After all, it wasn’t every day that two people were separated in such an awful way. One of them was going to jail and the other one was going to have to prove himself by trying to make a living alone. That last moment happened in the harbor, were the ferry for the prison island leaves. It was very hard for the people that had joined him to watch, especially as they knew everything that had happened before, all the hurdles they had to go over.

 Since the moment they had laid eyes on each other, they had known that something important was going to happen. But, to be fair, neither of them thought that it was going to be so intense and such a long relationship for the both of them. They met on a plane, on a very long flight that they took for different reasons. Lucas was travelling for work and Carlo had won the trip on a raffle his mother had put him into. She had done it as a way to have more possibilities to win and when the family did win, she decided to give the prize to him.

 After all, the rest of the family was not very fond of flying and he was the only one who was actually interested in it, once they had won the prize. When it happened, it was like a mouthful of fresh air as Carlo was desperate for something to do in his life. He had recently been fired from a job as a sales person on a big store. During that year, he had been laid off from at least five jobs. Sometimes it was the circumstances that made it happen but most of the time the problem was he didn’t care at all about what he did because he had no passion for it.

 He had gone to college and had a degree on architecture but the reality of the matter was that he didn’t care at all about it. He had studied it because his father had wanted that for him. Furthermore, Carlo had never voiced any will to study anything else so when the moment came, they just paid for whatever they wanted and he had to go there and do his works. From an academic standpoint, those were the most awful four years of his life. But he made a very big social life, meeting lots of friends and guys to date, so he never really complained.

 The trip came as a surprise and he was very happy to have something to do, even if it was for only seven days. He was going to take advantage of every single one of those days, going crazy in his destination and just enjoying himself for once in a very long time. He failed at every job he had because he hated everything except for having fun. He secretly hoped that he would learn something interesting and definitive about himself in that trip but he certainly didn’t said anything about that to anyone. It was hard to confess he actually cared.

 Lucas, on the other hand, was a very successful young man. He had finished high school at age fifteen and at twenty he was already walking out of college. After that, he worked for two years in his father’s company, which imported various products from other countries, and then decided to go and study abroad in order to have the experience to love by himself and getting to know more about what he wanted. His dream was to have his own company to buy and sell the best things for pets, as he absolutely loved animals.

 His trip was the one that would begin that stage of his life. He was young and eager to know what was ahead of him. Lucas was the kind of person that always has ideas, who’s always creating and imagining. He couldn’t stay still for long as he was very keen on doing something at all times whether it was to exercise or to design a new business model for his future pet company or whatever it was that made him passionate in a moment. He loved life and all that had to do with it and he couldn’t bear to stop and stay still.

 His father always told him he should take a break. When Lucas announced his trip, he was very happy for him but also worried because he thought he was going to use that experience to work even more. One day before departing, he sat down with him and asked him, almost demanded him to have fun, to relax, to just take a look around and enjoy all the other parts of life that he never really enjoyed. Lucas was reluctant to accept he would try but that was because he really didn’t know how to be that loose and carefree person.

 The day of the trip, Lucas had everything ready and arrived at the airport early. His father was the last one to say goodbye, hugging his son for a long time and telling him that if he needed anything he would be dare waiting for his call. This moment made Lucas realize that his father really wanted him to have that experience but he also wanted for him to chill a bit and just enjoy more of life, especially those things he wasn’t really attracted by like having intimate relationships or even just having drinks and going on a wild night from time to time.

 On the plane, they weren’t supposed to sit together but Lucas had to change seats because a woman wanted to be with her husband and changing seats would help her with that. She told him it was something very important as she suffered from some condition. He complied and it was then when he saw Carlo and they actually stared at each other for a couple of seconds before trying to make it seem it hadn’t happened. But they both through glances at each other until the dinner service came.

 It was Carlo that initiated the conversation because he noticed Lucas had asked for wine with his meal. Carlo asked him if alcohol didn’t made him to tipsy on a plane and Lucas told him that it made him more susceptible to sleep. Then, they went on to talk during their dinner, sharing points of view and experiences from the airport and the plane. Lucas had travelled a lot before but Carlo had not so he was really interested in many things Lucas knew and he wasn’t annoying about it, all the contrary, so it was a very interesting conversation for both.

 When time came to sleep, the plane’s lights went off and most people turned off their screens. The two guys continued their conversation and started talking about their lives. Lucas rapidly learned what kind of person Carlo was but he wasn’t bothered or anything by his behavior. He was actually very interested in someone that seemed to not mind much about what the world thought of him and that wasn’t really crazy about leaving a mark on the world. Meanwhile, Carlo was fascinated by many of the experiences Lucas told him about.

 A stewardess came to shut him up and they did but as soon as they could they talked more and when the flight ended they joined in each other to the taxi area. There, they parted ways but gave each other their email information in order to talk through social networks and so one. During the week Carlo stayed there, they met every single day and on the last night they had way too many drinks and ended up having sex and spending the night together. The next morning they shared breakfast in Lucas place and then he took Carlo to the airport.

 They didn’t expected to see each other in a year, at least. Lucas had thought he was going to stay in that country but as soon as his studies ended he came back home, a bit changed because he had new goals and priorities in his life. Inspired by Lucas, Carlo tried to make himself into someone new and created a small business selling cupcakes and brownies, all made by him. When they saw each other again, they knew what the next step was. With both of their savings, they decided to live together and tell everyone how happy they were together.


 So many years have passed since that decision. And now one of them was been taken away, who knows for how much time. He had been wrongfully sentenced after a trial had been held in order to determine if money had been stolen by him and other accusations. They were all lies, that’s what they said. But the truth doesn’t matter. The point is that two people that loved each other were broken apart. That was heartbreaking for everyone that believed in love to see. They were lost without each other.

sábado, 20 de agosto de 2016

Big versus small

   Amanda hated that big departments store, the one that had being opened just a few months ago by the highway. It was mainly because every time she drove past it, it was packed with people and everyone from every corner of town had at least been there looking around. Besides the crow factor, she really disliked all those big brands that didn’t really specialize in anything, instead selling every single thing under the sun. It seemed greedy to her, from a business point of view.

 Everyone else loved it, even her own family. The day they had the idea to go to buy some of the Christmas supplies to decorate the tree; she was adamant in buying them in the Christmas store she had always gone to in the neighborhood. It was owned by a very nice woman who brought all of the objects from her town, where many of her family members helped in the process of making the ornaments. But now the number of people going there was diminishing a lot due to the new big store opening so close by.

 She decided to due that shopping herself in the small store from the neighborhood and found everything she needed right there. It was appalling it see that there was not one other person buying anything in the store and it was the precise season to do it. The owner of the store was so grateful, so gave Amanda one extra box of silver handmade balls for the tree. She didn’t wanted to accept them but looking straight in the eye of the woman, she decided it was best not to argue.

 When she returned home, she discovered her family was not there. Amanda was very angry because it was clear they had gone against what she had said. Of course, she hadn’t forbidden them to go to the big store but she was very disappointed that her own family was not supportive of the people they had known their entire lives. When they arrived with bags full of stuff, she ignored them and had an early night.

 Her husband even attempted to have sex with her but she refused, turning all the lights off and giving her back to him. There was no way she was going to have sex with someone that didn’t respect her convictions and everything she stood for. So she just closed her eyes and tried very hard to go asleep fast. She took several hours to do so, whereas he fell asleep in a second.

 The following morning, she discovered the fridge and the cupboard had been filled with products from that big store. Every single thing from there was twice as big as a normal product: the cans of beans left no room in their space, the soda had to be displaced next to the fruit to fit into the fridge. And the ice cream occupied almost the whole freezer compartment. To Amanda, it was obscene.

 Every time in the following days and weeks leading to Christmas, it was really hard to pass by the small store and seeing how no one was entering. One day, she decided to do something about it. She stopped by and looked for the owner. She spoke to her briefly about wanting to help her make the store the preferred Christmas store once again. The old woman was not convinced as she thought the big store was too attractive for people to stop going there.

 She confessed Amanda to have been there and told her hat the boxes of decorated balls and other ornaments for trees had many more product inside and the cost was ridiculously cheap. It was practically impossible to sell something cheaper; it would be like giving it away for free. She seemed very sad about her discovery; maybe even to the point she wanted to cry. But Amanda told her they could make something about it.

 The first step of her plan was doing what Fanny, the owner of the small Christmas store, had done before her: Amanda had to go to the big store and see for herself what it was that people bought there and why they all went there instead of shopping for nicer things in the small family store. It was difficult for her to confess that she had to go there and that’s why she waited for everyone to be busy to do it. Her husband and kids were in their final weeks of work and school, respectively, so it was perfect timing.

 The day she went to the big store, she was able to find a parking space in no time, even with most of them being already occupied. For a moment she felt please but then remembered what her mission was there. Inside, she decided not to ask anyone where to go because she thought it would look kind of strange if she ask for Christmas decorations and days later the other store got new things.

 So she wandered around, looking at the frozen foods section, which consisted of five very long aisles, the pet area that was like a small city and the automobile department, which had a very strong smell of new car, an aroma she had always loved. It was something very difficult to ignore but she was able to do it once she finally got to the Christmas ornaments area, which was packed with people looking for stuff.

First, she took pictures with her cellphone of what they had on display. Then, he paid close attention to the items that people seemed to be buying more. She pretended to be curious about some teddy bears to hang on the tree every time a worker went by her. She knew they wouldn’t appreciate her corporate spying at all. After an hour or so, she decided to go back home and analyze the situation.

 The very next day, she visited Fanny to have a talk about the ideas she had for the store and its products. The first thing was to give it a new look, inside and out. So she did a whole presentation, kind of a proposal to Fanny, of what to do and how to it. Fanny was so moved by the passion Amanda had put into it that she decided to go along and let her try to make her store an important part of the Christmas tradition again.

 Amanda’s family began to wonder where she went every single morning and afternoon. Her and her car disappeared so often that her children began to miss her mother’s presence, even if it was only to complain about something or if they needed her to take them somewhere in the car. Those duties were passed on to the father, which was definitely not very pleased to be the new chauffeur of the house.

 Back in the store, Amanda and Fanny had bought supplies in order to start the remodeling. They weren’t going to do something very deep because there was no time to hire professional to do any profound work. Besides, Christmas was not very far away and they had to take advantage of every single day they had. The idea was to have the store ready by December the 1st, in order for Fanny to get at least three weeks of good sales. Amanda felt they could do it easily.

 The first thing was to ask Fanny’s family in her hometown to change the design on the balls. They had to make new designs, more modern but still hand made. They decided to go with new colors and themes for each of the boxes. The idea was to make every single box of ornaments a very unique one. Fanny’s family was very happy with the idea and they got to work immediately.

 The second part of the remodeling was decoration. They spent a whole afternoon looking for the right paper with the perfect colors to do the decorating inside and outside. They also bought a 3D projector, which illuminated a wall in the outside and gave nice images of Santa Claus and other Christmas characters. That was the most expensive thing but she assured Fanny that it was going to be a great investment.


 They worked together intensely for the remainder of November and when December the 1st came, they held a big inauguration party where they invited every single person in the neighborhood. The new ornaments arrived just in time and they flew off the shelves, having to order a second bigger batch the next day. The store was a success and it was Amanda who had made it possible. She felt really proud of her work. She had proven everyone, including herself, that she had a very good head above her shoulders.

jueves, 16 de junio de 2016

Below

   The walk couldn’t be too long. They were allowed to reach a big boulder on the top of the hill and then go back almost instantly. There was no way to really enjoy the moment, although no one got out for a walk to enjoy themselves. They did it because it was necessary to walk, to train for longer walks in the future. The funny thing was that the distance had not change in a year so they couldn’t really know if they were able to do more in the suits or not.

 Helena arrived at the Boulder and looked up, to the sun. The veil that covered the sky was especially thick that day, blocking most of the sunlight from arriving to the ground. The sun appeared to be cold, as if it didn’t care of what had happened. And he certainly didn’t because everything that had happened had nothing to do with the sun but with the planet and its inhabitants. They had always been a real danger but no one ever thought something might actually happen.

 The alarm begun. She had enough oxygen to go back to the Hut and couldn’t waist more time looking at the sun or at the reddish sky. She wanted the oxygen tank to be bigger, she had asked that several times. But they couldn’t do it. They had no materials and also no interest in letting anyone wander to far off. The truth was that the government of the Hut was not interested at all in reconquering the surface, only in surviving for a hundred years or more.

 When she stepped into the entrance and the airlock decontaminated the chamber, she felt sad. The world outside was no different than in the books and the images she had on her computer. Yet, there was death and desolation all over the place. As a team of people cleaned her outfit with a variety of chemicals, she wondered if the human race could ever be what it once was.

 As she removed the suit in the next room, Frank came to talk to her. He was the person that controlled every walk outside and had some questions, the same questions they always asked people. It was some kind of an obligatory test for every single person that asked to have a walk. There weren’t many who did, not all wanted to go back and see what their house was like now or what the world looked like. Some had actually moved on.

 She answered the same as always: there was no plant life, no animal life, the concentration of particles had not changed and the deterioration of the different materials was advancing as scheduled. She was obliged to take pictures but this time she hadn’t taken any. She told the man it was because her earlier walk had only been a week ago and nothing had change out there in such a short time.

 Frank wasn’t happy about the pictures. He wasn’t really the boss and he knew someone else would get all over him because of that. But he didn’t insisted. Helena was one of the few people that dared to go outside and walk around, they needed her more that she needed them or at least that was the way he saw it. So he wrote in his report that the camera inside the suit was damaged and that they hadn’t realized before she had stepped out. That way, the questions would be less.

 Helena thanked him and, walking slowly, she went directly to the food court. According to her mother, that wasn’t the term they should use but it was the one promoted by the government. They wanted people to feel they were in a safe and fun environment, even if it was below ground. And “food court” was one of those terms that reminisced something good, or so it seemed, from a long time ago. Everyone ate there although they didn’t have many options, only one.

 As always, the young woman did the line and the cashier scanned the code on her wrist to check that she hadn’t eaten earlier. She received her tray and some minutes later she had hot food and was looking for a place to sit down. Luckily, her friend Patricia was finishing her meal so she sat down with her. Patricia was alone, as it happened very often. Many people thought she was obsessed with the outside.

 During the following twenty minutes, Helena discussed with her friend every single thing she had seen outside. Of course, it was nothing new for the scientific team but it was new to Patricia, who was not allowed to go outside on mental health grounds. She had always wanted to do it but from the first time she asked for permission, it was denied. And after many times trying to apply, they finally told her why they wouldn’t let her out.

 She loved to hear every detail about the outside and Helena knew how much her friend like her tales so she tried to make as entertaining as she could. The tale ended when she arrived at the boulder and looked at the sun. Patricia was smiling and her eyes were full of water. She told Helena she was very lucky to have seen that because the world, as she knew, was very beautiful.

 Helena did not really know if the world was beautiful. In theory, it was. The millions of pictures available to them seemed to tell the story of a bright world were people were happy and lived very complete lives. Yet, those same people had been the ones to destroy it, her parents for example. So she always had problems processing that. Besides, the world outside was dead and no sign of that beauty remained.

 After lunch, both women went through the Market. It was a large and long corridor filled with different stores. Each one of them sold something different, so there was no competition. And the amount of things each store sold was very limited. Yet, most people loved to stroll around to check if they had pulled out something new from their vaults or something. People still had hope that things would change suddenly, even if they hadn’t changed at all for so long.

 But that day, the fifth store on the left was filled with people in front of it trying to look for something the vendor had put in display. It was the store that sold paintings and pictures and such things. Most of the things the man there sold were made by him or his family. But the little image in the transparent urn he had put on display was something another walker, the people that go outside, had found in a recent walk.

 When they were able to get closer, Helena and Patricia realized the image was very small. It was a black and white photography, probably a very old one. It pictured three baby boys, or so it seemed. One of the babies was crying, while the other two held hands and were apparently playing with some cubes with letters. The most intriguing part of the image was a shadow behind the crying baby. It seemed to be the arms of an adult, or maybe the legs.

 They could only see the picture for a while before those who had just arrived pushed them aside to have a look. They talked about the picture all the way to the dormitories, wondering if the shadow behind the babies was really another person or maybe even an animal. It was a very weird picture too: who would take a photo of a crying baby instead of taking a look at what he needed.

 Patricia concluded that it might have been a fake. Maybe the vendor had taken the picture and he said they had found it outside. That was very hard to do, thought Helena, but not impossible. They separated in a corridor, as Helena lived further ahead and Patricia lived one floor below. They committed to see each other the next day and then parted ways. Not a minute had passed when Helena fell to the ground.

 A very large, very powerful earthquake was shaking every single part of the complex. It had been built for that but that didn’t mean people wouldn’t get scared. It was the first one in a long while. Helena could hear screaming behind the doors, where people lived. When it stopped, she stood up fast and ran towards her home. But she never made it there. A general alarm was issued: the compound had been breached.


 No one knew what that meant. Was it toxic gas or something like that? What did they mean with “breach”? Helena wasn’t sure she wanted to find out but, instead of going to check on her mother, she decided to turn around towards the laboratory. She had to know what was going on.

miércoles, 20 de abril de 2016

Sweet life

   Peter had in front of him a huge selection of pastry. As the correspondent of the most important magazine in the business, he had the advantage of being able to go to any bakery in the city and being treated like royalty there. The owners would normally go out of their way in order to please him, showing him their latest innovations.

 They often tried too hard, combining too many flavors in one single piece of confectionery or trying to make a fantastic setting for the dessert when the flavor was not really the best part of it. And Peter always had the last word. He had eaten it all, everywhere, and his palate was respected by every single person except, of course, the people who he had damaged with his articles.

 He had being the cause of closure of more than one bakery, cupcake store and tearoom. With his writing, he really crushed the lives and aspirations of many people, all of whom only had the simple dream of baking the best desserts possible. It seemed like a simple dream, an easy one if you will, but it wasn’t because the competition was tough and everything had already being done. Nothing was good enough and every single idea had to be checked thoroughly in order to know if it was really original or just another copy.

 However, Peter was just another man. He only had this kind of power in a small community, where they all knew who he was. For many of his friends and people that knew him, Peter was just a big guy obsessed with desserts and he had been that guy since high school. However, people respected him because he had turned his love of sweets into a career and that wasn’t something just anyone could do.

 So you would think he should have been a happy person, doing what he had always wanted which was eating and writing about it. Well, Peter certainly wasn’t what you could call “happy”. The first reason was that he was overweight. He had always been and had been mocked tirelessly by his fellow classmates back in school. He had been called all kinds of names and had asked his parents to educate him at home because he couldn’t really take it anymore. He felt trapped.

 That was when he started learning more about what he ate and his interest in food grew and in turned into a career. He wasn’t just a fat guy who ate desserts for a living. He was also a man that knew every single nuance of every ingredient that had ever been using in the making of any sweet good. He could tell the ingredients of any dessert after just one bite and that made him a huge star in the small world he had entered in. But he was still mocked.

 Of course, it was always the people that he had attacked with his articles. They felt the best way to attack him was to create rumors or to write pieces about him online. With the Internet, he often saw videos appearing all over the places with pictures of him doing pig sounds and things like that. People were never really creative when it came to insulting. They always attacked the same spot and, to Peter’s chagrin, it always worked. Because he was fat and he didn’t want to be.

 But his job depended on him eating. He couldn’t just stop eating and then go on with life as normal. That wasn’t an option. Besides, he loved eating and the flavors and everything that had to do with confectionery and sweets. He had never properly learned to do it himself because he thought it would be counterproductive. In other words, baking himself would not help his problem and would only fuel the hate that people felt towards him

 So one day, in secret, he decided to try several ways to lose weight. The first attempts were somewhat light, relying on a diverse set of pills and massages and kind of “magical” techniques to become skinny. Of course, those didn’t work at all. He was hoping they did but none of those products ever worked, except on the ad were the fat guy or lady always becomes this weightlifter or something like that. So after one month, he moved on to dieting.

 That wasn’t as hard as he thought. He just reduced his meals drastically, trying to eat healthier and less without really pulling the plug on the desserts. He just couldn’t do that because most of them he had to eat because it was his job. That sounds like an excuse but it certainly wasn’t. His boss was very pleased with his work. After all, it was the best food magazine in the country, so any absence or refusal to work would be just devastating.

 The diet thing kind of worked but it took time and, like anyone in his position, Peter wanted to have instant results. He wanted to be leaner and more beautiful in the blink of an eye but that wasn’t possible. So he decided to go to a doctor and try to learn more about his body in order to know how to solve the problem.

 It was really confusing to have to go and eat at least four different desserts in the morning and then having an appointment with his doctor in the afternoon and complain about his weight. It was crazy but he had no other way of doing things. The doctor told him that he was fat because of the food. It wasn’t a hormonal thing. So he could lose the weight easily. He gave him advice on dieting and sent him on his way.

 Four months after that, people started noting Peter had changed his posture and walked a bit differently. His waist seemed less prominent, as well as his behind. Everyone looked at him; especially in the bakery shops where they noticed his face had changed too. He had a bit more color in his skin and seemed to be happier. Of course, his enemies took the time to attack him for this changes too, saying that a person that wasn’t proud of who they were, was always a danger for the rest because you could never really trust them.

 Those were real haters, never really setting on one thing, always having an excuse to attack someone. But, strangely, Peter lost any interest in them. His relationship with many friends had improved, mainly because they noticed he really cared for his health and that he had qualities they had never realized like a great sense of humor and a way of giving very good advice. They had never realized that because they judged too soon and Peter had paid for that.

 But things were changing. Even his boss noticed the small changes and decided to have a talk with Peter. He asked him if he wanted to have some time for himself or if he needed someone to talk to. The boss thought his weight loss was due to something bad but then Peter explained and he understood. Incredibly, his boss cried and explained he had a son who was having kind if the same problems, being bullied at school and all. Peter promised to talk to him.

 He realized soon that it wasn’t about being skinny. That’s not why people pay attention to other people. It’s when they notice you have the will to care about yourself that they make contact with you. If you are a decent human being you don’t really care about someone’s weight or their physical appearance or anything like that. But it certainly makes you interested if someone is making the impossible to improve themselves, in any way possible.

 Peter did it with his body but many people try to learn new things or create new stuff for others. He realized that’s what people really were interested in and soon, although he didn’t loose all the weight he had envisioned, he became happier with his own self. He would always be more willing to help the bakers that were starting and just ate less because he had more to do.

 A couple of years after his decision to make something different, he met a baker named Anna and they married and had two girls who became the love of their father. And Anna was always there for him, supporting Peter in new adventures like writing books about his passions, whether they were sweets or fighting yourself.


 Of course, haters were still around. But Peter just lost his ability to care about them.