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

viernes, 19 de diciembre de 2014

First time

It was bound to be difficult, David wasn't expecting anything different. Gero had told him everything would go perfectly but he personally didn't felt so.

The week prior to the Christmas dinner, David had gone almost crazy trying to buy presents for every single person that was going to be at the dinner: at least two aunts, an uncle, one grandmother, one grandfather, six cousins or so, Gero's parents and his brother and sister. And the dog and the cat...

It was pure luck or maybe a stupid move that he called Gero to ask what her mother would like better, if an apron or a baking set. His husband stopped him short and told him to wait for him at a restaurant in the mall. He met him there and tried to calm him down but exactly the opposite happened.

David crumbled, crying in silence, saying he felt Gero's family would hate him. Gero told him that was not going to be the case because he happened to be an endearing guy and any person would love to meet him and chat with him,

The man answered he felt guilty for making Gero live so far from his home and for never before having meeting them. And the worst, he thought, was the fact they still had no idea they were married.

Gero answered, calmly, that they did not lived far because of any of them but because of their jobs. Besides, he said, he would go insane if he lives too close from all his relatives. He reminded David they had never met his parents because they had always had a tough time thinking of him as their gay son and that was the same reason he had chosen not to tell anyone but their best friends.

David calmed down slowly and then, he decided he was too hungry to be sad which made Gero very happy. If there was something he loved was sharing a meal with the person he loved and that was exactly what they did.

The days passed faster than expected. David had managed to stay busy, visiting friends of Gero and visiting all the places his husband had loved when he was younger: the park where he had his first kiss, the school he hated so much, the ice cream parlor he and his friends were go to dish about guys. It was like entering Gero's thoughts and that was nice, as he had decided to share his life with him. It meant the relationship was stronger than ever.

They day came and they drove early to be the first ones there. Gero had decided he only wanted his "nuclear" family to meet David first, so the shock or weirdness would be less accentuated for all involved.

Indeed, only Gero's sister had arrived to their parents house before them. For David, it was a relief to see her there. She knew everything and she was very supportive and enthusiastic. Her and her husband had given them some money as a wedding present.

Then, it came time to meet the mother and father. No other situation is more surreal or strange, and all the Christmas ornaments around the house made it even more strange.  The greeting was quite simple: David smiled and the parents did small bows and fake smiles. It was obvious they weren't thrilled about this meeting. David looked at Gero and he was smiling too, but he appeared to be honest about it.

After that dreadful scene, everything was a little bit easier as many things had to be done in order to get the dinner ready. Gero's mother had decided to make fish for dinner so Gero decided to help her with that and David was assigned to do the salad, which was dreadful for him. What if he put in something they didn't like?

But that was not possible as his mother-in-law put every vegetable that needed to be in the salad in front of him. As she did that, she only spoke to herself, reminding to get fish in the oven for the right time and things as such.

When he finished the salad, the woman thanked David with another fake smile and asked him to fill the coolers with the beers they had on the garage. Apparently, there was a small picnic cooler everywhere in the house. Gero wanted to help but David stopped him short and told him, without saying a word, to leave him do this on his own.

He went out to the garage and saw they had a lot of beer cases. "They must love their beer", he thought. Each case was really heavy but he decided to lift it to carry it inside. But he dropped it when a loud honk scared him. As he saw all the spilled beer on the floor, the garage door opened: it was a van filled with people.

As people passed by him, he cleaned the beer of the floor with a mop he found behind the beer boxes. Not one of them said "Hi" but he knew every single one had looked at him, in different ways: with pity, with disgust, with resentment and even with a smile on their faces.

All aunts and uncles and cousins were in there and they settled in the living room with Gero's father, watching TV. They were watching some repetition of an old football game from Europe or so he thought it was. David had no idea about sports.

And as the hours passed, he entered with several boxes of beers and filled the damned coolers. And people that hadn't even acknowledged his presence would ask him for a bottle, even after seeing him putting them in a cooler. He felt like a glorified waiter.

When he finally finished, dinner was ready. They all sat down at the table, which had small names written on papers, placed on each plate. As people sat down, he realized his seat was not adjacent to Gero's seat which was just next to his mother. David decided not to say a word and breath deeply. The night was not going to go on forever.

So he sat between two of Gero's youngest cousins and served himself some of the salad he had made. But when he started chewing the first bite, he noticed something he hadn't put in there. So he grabbed a napkin and put on all the food there, all chewed up. And everyone, now, was looking at him. For a moment, he couldn't speak. He looked at David who had also noticed the attention his husband had attracted.

 - I'm... I'm allergic.

And then David saw his people and realized what happened.

 - Mom, David can't eat peanuts. I thought you hated them, too.

And the mom said she had read they were good for blood pressure and that she had no idea of knowing David was allergic to them. She apologized, but it looked as she was saying it to her glass of wine and not to David.

The dinner went on. They served the fish, which David hated but ate as much as he could, and the a surprise dessert made by one of the girls there, that wanted to be a chef. Her concoction was awful but no one said a word. They all ate at least a bite of it, saying they were too full to keep going.

Midnight was less than hour away when they stood up from the people and gathered on the living room, some chatting, others watching yet another game.

David tried to talk to Gero but that was impossible. His mother was always there, talking and talking and he didn't wanted her to have a reason to kick him out or something. Anyway, there was no need.

Gero's uncle asked for a beer and one of the kids told him there weren't any left in the cooler. The looked in another one and the same thing happened. Then the guy, visibly drunk already, said something everyone heard loud and clear.

 - That faggot doesn't even know how to fill a cooler. And he's allergic to peanuts. What a pussy.

David felt the world crumble around him. Now he was sick, really sick. The stupid lights all over and Santa Claus images and reindeers. All of it made him feel sick to his stomach. He couldn't move though, he was stuck there, in his chair at the dining table, still trying to eat the awful dessert the stupid kid had thought was a dessert.

Then something else, equally awful happened. Gero's dad answered:

 - Leave it alone. Here.

And he gave his brother a beer. "IT. Leave IT alone". It all happened in seconds but it had been enough. David had never been the kind of person to shut his mouth and stay down as he was being insulted. Love wasn't enough to ignore that.

So he stood up and practically ran towards the coat closet. He grabbed his and looked at his husband's stupid family and said:

 - I might be a fucking faggot but I'm not as full of shit as you people are. Merry Christmas.

And he went out the door, the cold night. In the distance he could hear other gatherings and parties but they made him even angrier. He arrived at the car but realized it was Gero that had the keys. He got his wallet out and saw he had some money.

 - Taxi it is. - he said to himself.

He started walking again but then someone's arm stopped him. It was Gero.

 - I don't want to do this now. I want to go to the hotel, have a decent meal and sleep.
 - I'm...
 - I don't care. Just let me go. Stay here and we'll talk tomorrow.

David released himself from Gero's arm and resumed his walking. Ten minutes later, he was sitting on a bus stop waiting for a taxi to pass by but no one drove by. Everyone was with family, obviously.

He knew he had been right all along but even so, he felt bad for leaving and hating Gero's family. He did hate them but he loved him so much. And now, all that had happened.

Then another honk scared him. But this time it wasn't a van full of annoying kids. It was his husband. He lowered the window and said:

 - I'm looking to get lucky tonight. You look hot. Wanna ride?

David burst in laughter and so did Gero. They looked at each other and smiled, with pure love. So the guy on the bus stop stood up and entered the car. After all, it was their first Christmas together as a married couple.

lunes, 15 de diciembre de 2014

Freedom in Chiyoda

Kumiko had already bought every single thing she needed to cook her mother's favorite dish: a soup filled with several types of seafood, native of her birth city. She boarded the train and sat down calmly: the trip was a long one, as her home was near the terminus station.

She decided to check her emails on her smartphone but a strange sound distracted her as she drew the phone out of her backpack. She looked up and stared at the people in the train with her: they were all distracted by their mobiles phones, some others were sleeping or trying to. She grabbed her phone and then heard the sound again. It came from inside her backpack, most precisely from the bag with all the things she had bought at the market. She tried to hear the sound again but nothing happened so she zipped the bag up and left it on the ground.

As she checked some messages, she heard another noise, this time from somewhere on the floor. As the wagon was filled with people, it was hard to determine its origin. Kumiko looked at every shoe and foot around her but couldn't see a thing.

"I must be very tired", she thought. She had been working too hard on her thesis, staying at home for days without ever going out or resting properly. She would fall asleep very late at night and wake up early to investigate and structure her work. Her mother would cook delicious things for her but she never finished any of them. To be honest, she always left more than half of what was served to her because the thesis absorbed her attention.

In a nutshell, she had been a zombie for almost a month. But the day before, she had finally finished it and today she had delivered it to college and, after that, had the idea to make her mother an special dinner, as a way to thank her for her support and understanding.

But all that was now on the back of her head. That sound, that strange sound that she could hear every so often, had taken the first place in her list of priorities. Maybe she had gone crazy from so much work... But it came again, she could hear it. Not able to stand it anymore, she stood up, her backpack tight on her body and followed the particular sound.

It was something small, on the floor. Kumiko could see she wasn't the only one hearing the sound: a little girl was staring at the floor without saying a word and an older gentleman was staring at the roof, most likely trying to remember if he had ever heard that same sound.

Then, Kumiko heard a scream. It was a crazy scream to be honest, she even thought someone was been killed or stabbed or mugged but it was nothing like that. She ran towards the woman that had screamed and she was pointing to the floor. So... that was it.

On the floor, crawling slowly, was a tiny octopus. It looked wet, slimy and weird. The woman screamed again and Kumiko put a hand over her ear: too much exaggeration for such a small and defenseless creature. He must have escaped the cup the vendor had put him in. And Kumiko had asked for fresh octopus so he had taken it a little bit to literal. She started to reach down for it but then the train slowed down: it was nearing a station.

The girl only stared at the window for a single second but that was enough for the tiny creature to crawl very fast and exit through the nearest door. She reacted clumsily and ran for the door, as it was closing. If she had been late for a couple more seconds, her hand would have been caught by the metal doors.

Now, on the platform, people were staring at her, which was funny: there was an octopus somewhere in the station and she was the one been looked at. She looked to every side but couldn't see anything. So she turned around and walked towards the edge of the platform. Well, she didn't walked too much as a security guard grabbed her strongly by the arm and started yelling at her. He clearly thought she was going to commit suicide.

And then she reacted in the worst way possible: she started laughing, which made the scene even crazier. The man yelled even more and she just couldn't stop laughing. The situation was so ridiculous. And then, over the man's shoulder, she saw the tiny creature getting on an elevator. She didn't stay for the rest of the lecture, instead running towards the elevator which doors closed right in her face.

Kumiko ran up the stairs, for three floors, until she saw the tiny creature gliding down the handle of some other stairs. She wanted to laugh again but stopped herself from that as it would take a lot of her time. She ran, again, after the creature. Kumiko smiled as she ran down the stairs after the creature: it had been a long time since she had had this much fun. And it made her feel alive to see such a tiny fellow gliding and jumping and crawling. It was amazing to see it, so alive and desperate to keep living.

They got to a different platform to the one they had been before and the creature jump right into a waiting train and she did the same but through a different door. As the train began moving, she grabbed a metal pole and rested. She remembered playing with her friend in school ,running around and just being young. She missed badly, she missed them so much. Kumiko had invested her life on the thesis and in her career and she had left out all those other important things.

The train stopped and she stared through the window. The creature must have left already. No need to chase it. He would be able to fight for his life, hopefully not being stepped on or caught before he gets to a water source.

Kumiko walked past some busy people on the train, towards the back of the wagon, and stared at their faces while stroking the phone on her pocket. It was so sad for her, to be always so busy and giving importance to such stupid things, missing out so much from life.

The train slowed down again, this time on Takebashi station. Kumiko began thinking how to get back home from there, when suddenly the small creature jumped out of the train. She ran after him again and chased him to another elevator. The difference was this time she was able to get in with the octopus.

The trip towards the street was short but it was enough for her to see the small animal was not feeling very good. Its skin seemed pale and its tentacles were drying. Its escape stunts had taken their toll, leaving it too tired and almost dead.

When the elevator opened, they could see car and a street. The creature stepped out first and Kumiko decided not to intervene. It seemed as if the octopus knew were to go, which seemed crazy but the girl was sure something had brought it this far.

Then, she noticed were she was and she understood, as the octopus crawled towards the edge of the sidewalk. No, not to throw itself at the moving cars but on the other side. They were steps away from the Imperial Palace. And it had a surrounding moat and that was were the octopus was going. With its last breath, the creature used all of its tentacles to jumo over the railing to the water below.

Kumiko saw it all but was worried not to see it anymore. She knew the canals around the palace led, somehow, to the ocean but that must be a harder journey.

As she was getting worried, she saw the head and eyes of the creature, that sunk almost inmediately in the water, leaving a small trace in the water. Kumiko stayed there until she wasn't able to see nothing else.

An hour later, she was cooking in her house. Her mother had thanked her for the unexpected present but was disappointed to see Kumiko hadn't bought her favorite food, octopus. The daughter then told her she had a story to tell her. Her mother smiled and kissed her in the forehead.

 - You're a free woman now. And I want to hear all of your stories.

And for Kumiko, that was the cherry on top of such a strange and wonderful day.

martes, 28 de octubre de 2014

The Rain

There was no way of seeing anything in the downpour. It was as if the sky had been ripped apart and all the water from the clouds came rushing down, hitting rocks and houses, trees and mountains.

I live in a small cottage, on the outskirts of a small town in the highest mountains in the region. I love living here but sometimes it gets lonely. Although, to be honest, I don't really mind. Since George, my husband, died all those years ago, I have grown accustomed to being alone, only with Nancy as my companion. Nancy is a golden retriever and a present from George.

The day of the downpour, I had just come back from hunting with her and we were exhausted. I twas then when it started and it didn't seem to end. Actually, the rain went on all night and continued the next morning, with the same intensity.

After having lunch, I decided to check my computer for news about the storm, as I thought it was for sure related to a storm somewhere. Not a surprise, my internet feed was down and by sunset I had no electricity in the house. Nancy was restless as she hated complete darkness which is quite uncommon for a dog.

We sat by the fireplace to heat ourselves, she slept while I read. And then I heard someone knocking at the door. We were both startled and, for a moment, I thought I was imagining it. I relaxed my muscles but then I heard it again and I couldn't ignore it. Someone was outside and it seemed impossible but it was real. As I came close to the door, I realized that the town was not very near but the road was and maybe someone had an accident. So I opened.

On the other side there was a young boy, maybe ten years old. He was trembling from the cold, his clothes damped and about to collapse. I let him in and look for a towel, as Nancy helped him get close to the fire. After drying him a bit, I told him to take of his clothes in order to dry them by the fire.

As I waited outside the bathroom, I noticed a fragrance in the air, like flowers. Somehow, that reminded me of something but I had no clue what. The boy came out, covered in the towel, leaving his clothes in the sink.

He didn't spoke a word. He sat next to Nancy, by the fire and the dog seemed calm as the boy stroke her back. I twisted his clothes, leaving them a little less wet and then put them in a chair next to the fire. I didn't thought they would dry a lot but it was better than nothing.

I then asked the boy where were his parents and what had happened to him. But he just looked at me and said nothing. He was probably shocked or something. Maybe he was in a car accident and his family was on the road. I had to check. I put on my jacket, a hat, gloves, other pants and my boots. I told the boy to stay there but I never knew if he heard me.

Outside was awful. I had never witnessed a hurricane but I thought that storm must have been very similar. I couldn't see much so I decided not to head down to the road but rather to a an area that overlooked it from above. The rain was a pain in the ass but when I got there, I saw nothing. No people, no cars, nothing.

When I came back to my house, and it took time, I smelled again flowers and something else. When I got to the kitchen I realized it was the boy, cooking. Nancy stood by him as he dropped some vegetables into a big pot filled with water. He realized I was there and then he finally spoke.

 - I was hungry. Do you want some?

I nodded. He was cooking on my portable stove and I was frankly surprised he had poured my gasoline on it. After a few minutes the night fell and the boy served the soup. 

We sat by the fire and enjoyed our meal. Even Nancy had some and she loved it. To be honest, his cooking reminded me of my husband, as he always loved to use vegetables in his preparations. Not that he cooked much, but when he did it was all about mother nature and its gifts.

When we were finished, I asked the boy again about his parents and why he was alone in the rain. A thunder fell and I was startled, even more when he started speaking just after it.

 - You have always been scared of them.
 - How do you know that?

He raised his shoulders and grabbed the plates. After washing them, he came back and stroke Nancy again as she fell asleep.

I felt a bit nervous by then. The kid didn't seem too normal, he knew things and hadn't said a word about his family. Other kids would be terrified and would scream or cry or fight. But he just looked to the fire and stroke my dog. He seemed at peace.

Later, I told him it was bed time. He would sleep on the sofa, by the fire, and I would heat some water for me to sleep in my room. Nancy could stay with him. I gave him a think quilt my mother had made many years ago and he said another puzzling thing:

 - I've always loved this quilt.

I ignored this and put the quilt over him. When I did he grabbed my hand and looked at me to the eyes. This made me nervous but he pressed harder and then spoke:

 - You should do something with your life. Don't close yourself to the world. You have a lot to offer.

The only thing I could do was smile and not sleep. Not for the whole night. It was after 5 AM when I finally fell asleep. My last thought was: "Why am I not hearing the rain?".

I later realized the storm had stopped and that my guest, the little boy, had left in the morning. He had folded the quilt as George did and then I realized what had happened. I opened to the door and called for him, knowing it was useless.

My one true love had come to me and I didn't realize it. Although, he was right. I had come here to be away of everything, as life reminded me of him every second but that had been a wrong move from my part. That day, I decided to sell the cottage and move to the city, closer to my son and to his children.