Our young past

   Like a waterfall, all the books on the shelf in the closet came running down towards. One of them hit me on the foot, but it was a small one, so the pain was not that bad. However, the incident reminded that stuff had been stored around the house for years and years. There were so many shelves and drawers and hidden little closets and tiny spaces to keep things, and we had all used them ever since I had lived there as a young boy. I even remember my mother telling me where and how to store everything.

The book that had hit my foot was one that I had read a lot when I was young: 1984 by George Orwell. I remember being fascinated by the world building this master of writing had achieved. I really felt there, with all the characters, enduring their hardships and helping them survive somehow. Of course, the book was maybe too dark for me as a young man, but it was one of those building blocks of my personality. I think everyone should be obliged to read such a masterpiece.

 I decided to grab all the books and put those I wanted to keep in a box. Of course, 1984 would go there but there were many others that I hadn’t seen for decades and now I had to decide whether to throw them away or not. The first thing I decided on was to put all my former schoolbooks and notebooks on trash bags. I had no use for that. School had been kind of a nightmare at the end, so it made no sense keeping something that reminded me of any bad moments in my life.

 Some people keep those kinds of books as souvenirs, even to help their children in the future with their homework, but I’m more of a realist. I will never have any children and even if I did, I wouldn’t put them through the trauma and boredom of watching how lousy I was at school when I was young. I’d rather help them with current knowledge and not by reminiscing about things that no one longer cares about. So I put the about ten books and seven notebooks in trash bags.

 I did the same thing with notebooks from college. I had already studied enough and keeping them would only occupy space for other books that I would like to keep. For example, I had a small but very well preserved collection of graphic novels that I had binged through during my college years. They had been great entertainment when I wanted to relax for a while and not be so dependent on internet or anything associated with it. They were a great source of a imagination and certainly helped me build my own creativity during those years. I loved them too much to part with them.

 The remaining books where old and had belonged to my parents. So it wasn’t my choice to put them away or throw them away. I had to ask before doing anything. So I put all of those in a different box and clean the whole space with care. I put on a mask on my mouth, as the amount of dust was just incredible. It took me a long while to properly clean the closet, every single corner and space, before leaving for my former bedroom and start doing the same thing there. It seemed like a job that wouldn’t end.

 But, in time, it did. Every single thing that I wanted to keep was in boxes that would be sent to my place. Some other things would be sent to mu parents home, where they could decided if they wanted to keep all that or if they want to throw something. Knowing them, a visit to their place would be necessary because parents are all the same, they have difficulty trying to part with anything that reminds them of something you did when you were young or that reminds them of a tiny thing they did year ago.

 It’s their choice anyway. I carried all the trash bags to the containers and said my final goodbyes. After all, many of those books and toys and so many other things had been there through my younger years. Years that had been difficult at some points and joyful at others. It is weird, but as humans we do tend to give this human quality to everything that is not alive. We care for our things as if they knew we cared for them and it goes beyond of trying to preserve them as long as possible. It’s a weird kind of love.

 Driving back home, with two boxes filled with my past, my eyes started to fill up and I had to take advantage of a red light in order to clean my eyes with a tissue and just try to compose myself. Cleaning the house in which I had lived for so long had been a very unexpected experience. It’s one of those things you don’t really think much about but, once you’re there doing the job, you realized that it’s not as simple as it looks. It’s difficult to stare at your past and just see it all in front of you, kind of like a movie.

 I was grateful to get home and put the boxes on the elevator. A young woman I had never seen on the building helped me hold the button for me, as I pushed the boxes into the steel container. She got down first. She seemed very nice and that made me realize I really had no idea who my neighbors were, except for the lady that lived next door who loved to sing opera at the top of her lungs every single afternoon. I guess she thought it would be less annoying at that time of day. Maybe she had been a famous opera singer or had failed to reach her life dream. Who knows?

 I pushed the boxes all the way from the elevator to my doorstep. I was about to pull the keys out of my coat, when the door flung open and he stood there, smiling. Apparently, he had heard me coming from the elevator and had waited patiently to open the door. He grabbed one box and I took the other. We put them by the sofa and hen just fell on the furniture. I was exhausted and he seemed to be tired too. He had gone out with friends to hike some mountain or something like that. A sportsman, he was.

 We lay there for a while, slowly embracing each other, in silence. Then, the afternoon came and we realized we had fallen asleep for a short while. I woke up because my stomach was hurting. I had been working on the house all day and had not eaten a single thing. He proposed we should order takeout but I reminded him we had no money to spare for that. So I decided to stand up and cook something fast. Pasta came to mind, so I just started cooking right away, not even listening to what he was saying.

 He apparently grew tired of not getting real answers, because he then turned to the boxes and opened them. He grabbed some things, looked at my toys and browsed some of the old magazines I had wanted to save from the dumpster. He laughed when he saw my old video games, as he had never known I had played videogames when younger. It’s weird but we had never really talked about our childhood personas. Our younger self sometimes feels like a whole different person, away from us.

 I saw 1984 in his hands, just as I chopped some tomatoes for the sauce. I waited to hear if he had something to say about it, if he had any input about me owning such a book. He didn’t say a word for a while. He appeared to be checking the state of the book and some of the pages. But he wasn’t saying anything. For a moment, I asked myself what kind of couple lives together for almost a year and they don’t even share their tastes to one another. It made me feel like a failure, so much so that I almost cut off a finger.

 Then, he started reciting. He just opened the book on a random page, the one where Winston talks about Julia, and how he sees her and how he feels. The way he read it was just delightful and, as the water boiled and I put the pasta in, I smiled hearing his voice reading my favorite book ever.

 He only stopped when started serving. The food looked amazing and I think his reading inspired me. He left the book on the coffee table and, before sitting down to eat, he kissed me softly and I gently grabbed him by the waist. It felt different somehow. But different good. We smiled and ate, while talking.

From the gutter to the sky

   Grant Tower used to be a gigantic building located in the limit between downtown and the industrial districts. It had been abandoned for many years until it was bought by a mysterious person who recuperated its former splendor. In a city filled with strange things happening everyday, the destruction of Grant Tower did not go unnoticed. After all, it had been Captain Incredible the one to destroy it during his battle with his arch nemesis, Doctor Perdition.

 The battle had taken place all over the city. The superhero and the villain were able to fly, so they moved from one area to the other and the destruction was palpable all over the place. Captain Incredible had promised it would be the last battle to fight in the city as, according to him, every other gang and criminal organization had been dismantled. Only Doctor Perdition stood in the way of a pacified city. So every single person affected by the last battle, tried to understand what was as stake.

 Many inhabitants of the city fled beforehand, others just locked themselves home (if they had a basement). The battle took several hours and affected every single inhabitant in the same way. They knew what they would get in exchange, but many were already pissed at both the bad guy and the good one because for years and years, their battles against the other side had caused devastation once and again. People were tired of all of it and Captain Incredible knew he was risking a lot by saying that was going to be his last battle.

 Inspector Paulson was the first one to arrive to the site of the former Grant Tower. The battle was still going on but it had moved to the port, where they could be less damaging to the people. Pieces of the tower had fallen all over the neighboring streets and some of the neighbors were attempting to move the pieces by themselves. Others were looking for objects to recuperate from the destruction.

 Delia Paulson put on her gloves and entered the destroyed building. Only a couple floors were still standing. All the other seventy floors had disappeared. She used a mask to walk inside and join two men of her team who had gotten there before her. Neighbors had told them that a sound could be heard coming from the building, from below the ground. So they had to look where it was, probably a bomb made by Doctor Perdition.

 Inspector Paulson descended towards the lower levels of the building, that had received no damage, and encountered the noise was coming from a boiler room. The machine that used o heat up the water from the tower seemed to be about to explode. A rapid move by one of the policemen, helped to bring the pressure down.

 When he moved away from the boiler, with a face of triumph, the policemen pushed a pipeline that changed positions. But not only that, it also opened a door on the wall, just in front of the boiler. The inspector told everyone to be on the lookout and entered first; illuminating her path with a flashlight she took from her long coat.

 She walked slowly, covering her face because the air was charged with dust particles, probably because of the violent movement suffered by the building when it had been destroyed. It was a long corridor and then a path that seemed to descend in a spiral, down into the ground. Paulson ordered one policeman to stay at the entrance and was only joined by two of them, one being the one that had stopped the boiler from exploding.

 They walked slowly through the narrow passaged until finally they could see artificial light. They arrived at a massive room, carved into the natural rock. It was very humid but there wasn’t as much dust as there was above. They could breath at ease and not feel trapped anymore. The policemen were visibly scared because they remained just behind Paulson and she didn’t say anything because she was scared too. What was that place? Why was it there?

 On the wall, there were dozens, hundreds of screens showing different TV channels and also some footage from closed circuit cameras. Paulson saw the inside of the Central Bank, the security cameras from the police department building and the mayor’s office. It was all live. Someone had them all cornered and they hadn’t realized it.

 One of the policemen attracted her attention to one of the screens. It was a news channel reporting that the battle between the superhero and the villain had ended: good had one versus evil. The two men cheered but Paulson did not say anything. The existence of that room was proof that things did not stop with Doctor Perdition. She kept walking to find more clues and all she saw were plans of every building in the city, including Grant Tower, weapons of every kind and a diary hidden on the drawer of a work table.

 She started reading and, at first, it didn’t make much sense. It was all about a boy telling his sad high school stories. Apparently he was mocked because of the way he dressed and the way he looked. He hated people for laughing at him but would only find solace in one friend he had away from school, another kid. Paulson kept on reading as the policemen looked around, still happy that the last evil plaguing their city had finally been defeated and was dead for good.

 Paulson kept on reading and realized the diary belonged to no other than Doctor Perdition. She then raised her head and told her men to stop walking round and touching everything. She did so just in the moment were one of the weapons fired a set of arrows against a wall, piercing the wall with incredible strength. The men decided to get closer the inspector, who told them to bring their scientific team in order to bag every single thing in that lab.  She told them they had probably gotten the big prize of the night.

 The two men went back upstairs but Delia stayed behind to wait for the science team and in order to keep reading. She didn’t excuse Doctor Perdition for what he had done; after all he was a felon that had served time after killing people and doing the most unspeakable acts of violence. But she kind of felt sorry for him, as she read more and more of the diary. Apparently, he was the only son in a family of only women and he had been mistreated by his parents because he wasn’t the man they wanted him to be.

 He also hated his family. Paulson wondered if he had them killed at some point but the diary didn’t say. It only spoke about his childhood and the most beautiful pages, because they actually were, were dedicated to his encounters with a friend that shared his vision of the world. He was a bit younger but seemed older than him because of his convictions. He was a strong believer that people that did wrong should pay, no matter what is was that they had done.

 She stopped reading and looked for more diaries in the drawer but it was the only one. When the scientific team arrived, she ordered them to scan the room for hidden compartments and traps. They found a small hiding space beneath a huge metal table, which the inspector moved by herself. There, covered in dust, she found something else. There were no diaries but papers that assigned this property to the kid she had been reading about. If the kid was Doctor Perdition, the building must have been his. He was the one to renew it, all those years ago.

 There was also an electronic book, which could be turned on but had a password to protect it. A member of the scientific team helped Paulson bypass the password in order to read whatever it was she had on her hands. And when she was able to read it, she almost dropped it on the floor. Because what was in that book was not only a diary or some legal papers. There were pictures, and statements and videos and text that talked about that other kid, the one that had been Perdition’s friend when he had been bullied in school.

 That friend had helped him seek revenge, which had resulted in the death of at least two children and it had been Perdition who had put a stop to it.

 That kid… That kid was Frederick Edwards AKA Captain Incredible.

A Sea of Words

The rain had gotten me there. It was a rather small library, with shelves all around and a few tables filled with piles and piles of books.

I had never gotten in there. Actually, I had never seen the place before. This was very strange as my house was not that far.

I have to say I don't read very much as I prefer creation than reading. I know this is a controversial point of view but I'm looking for approval. However, it was refreshing to see places like this still existed. I walked around the room and only saw a one small and elderly woman in a corner, sitting in a high stool, reading a book. I think it was Moby Dick but I wouldn't say for sure.

There were first editions, new books and old books, big ones and small ones and in every single language you could think of.

A guy, a bit older than me, appeared from behind one of the piles of books. I was startled and tried to fake it but he had noticed and started to laugh. I was really annoyed by this so I turned around and started checking the books in the opposite shelf. I gazed at the window: the downpour appeared to have gotten worse, if possible. I could even see the light of a thunder and the sound, this time, didn't startled me although I felt worried I wouldn't make it to my date.

The guy appeared again, blocking my view of the window. He asked if I was looking for a particular book. I told him I wasn't. He then asked if I had just entered the store because of the rain to which I answered with a soft "Yes".

I grabbed one of the books and I attempted to fake reading but the book happened to be an illustrated version of the Kamasutra so I put it back on the shelf as the guy laughed hard. I turned around to check on the older lady but she appeared to be to immersed in her book.

Trying to come up with something to say, I didn't realized the guy had grabbed my hand and was making me walk towards the back of the room. When I did realize what was going on, I felt blood rushing to my face and tried to release myself from him but he only tightened his grip. He opened a door and then made me follow him up, to a second floor.

There, there was a room as large as the one below. Shelves were also all around but in the center of the room there were only a few tables, to be shared by two people at most. Each one had a lamp and they seemed to be really comfortable.

He released my hand and went to the back of the room, close to a circular window through which I could see the rain continuing to fall. The guy started looking for a book as I watched around, seeing only one of the tables occupied. There was an older man that went back and forth in the book, apparently comparing phrases or maybe images.

I got closer to him and tried to watch over his shoulder. He then said "You can come closer if you want". So I did. He was reading an encyclopedia, apparently only dealing with sea creatures. He was comparing two types of salmon. I smiled at him as I saw the guy telling me to come closer.

As I walked across the room, he sat on a chair and turned on the lamp. I sat down in front of him. He told me he had a present for me. I smiled and asked him "Why would you give a present? We don't know each other?". He answered "Precisely".

He gave me the book and I realized it was a first edition of the first book of the Harry Potter series. I couldn't refrain myself from laughing. But he didn't laughed. He actually look at me disappointed, as if I had hurt him horribly.

I realized it was the wrong response so I stopped and apologized. I laughed, I told him, because I thought he was going to pick a strange and weird book for me, to make me feel stupid for coming into his store.

He corrected me: the store was owned by his grandparents. "You have already met them". I turned around to see the older gentleman flipping pages and scratching his head. Salmons were puzzling him indeed. His grandmother was the Moby Dick lady, he confirmed.

 - What's your name?

That was his next question. I told him my name and then he told me his: Marcus. He told me his parents loved the Antiquity and if he had been a girl he would have been named Cleopatra.

I smiled at this. It was a sweet anecdote. He smiled back and told me he loved Harry Potter and thought it would be a nice present for someone who doesn't read much or so it seemed. I told him he was right. We started talking for a while: I told him what I did for a life and what I liked and he told me about his deceased parents, his love for books and his grandparents.

I have no idea how much time I spent there. What's true is that, when we came down to the ground floor, rain had stopped and the orange light of the afternoon was filtering through the window.

Marcus told me we should meet when I finish the book. I agreed. I was about to come out of the store when I realized I wanted to ask something more. He looked at me and then I thought it was better to ask about it the next time we would meet.

Some time later I was on the bus calling my friend, telling her I would be arriving a bit late due to the rain. She said it was ok and we hung up. I then thought of Marcus and how guilty I felt having not told him that I had known Harry Potter for years. I read the books when I was younger, as they came out. I really liked the story and that was, in part, the reason why I laughed when he gave me the book.

Anyway, I wanted to meet him and go that place again. So I felt good about lying and thanked the rain for its wisdom.