shame. He was a big yellow cat who surely did not want to die. Anyway, itâs too late now. And I kept on walking.
As it was still early, I stopped by the pastry shop. Itâs far from school, but it always has freshly baked, delicious pastries. There are two old ladies always standing by the door of the shop, each one carrying a shopping bag and asking for charity, hand extended. One day I gave each lady a nickel, and they both said at the same time, âMay God bless your soul.â That really made me laugh, so I grabbed two more nickels to put in their awfully wrinkled, freckly hands. Again they said together, âMay God bless your soul,â but by that time I didnât feel like laughing anymore. And since then, every time I walk by, these wrinkled black women give me a knowing look, and I canât help but give each one a nickel. Except yesterday: I really couldnât give them anything âcause I had already spent the whole quarter I have for my afternoon snack on chocolate cookies. I had to leave through the back door so they wouldnât see me.
I only needed then to get across the bridge and walk two more blocks to school.
I stopped at the bridge for a moment because I heard a lot of noise below by the riverâs edge. I leaned as far as possible over the railing in order to be able to see. A group of boys of all ages had trapped a water rat in a corner and were throwing rocks and hollering at it. The rat was running from one side of the corner to the other and squealing sharply in desperation: it had no escape. Finally one of the boys took a bamboo pole and hit it on the back with all his might, squashing it. After the others ran to it, jumping up and down with the joy of victory, one of them picked up the body and hurled it into the middle of the river. The dead rat did not sink. It floated on its back for a while until it disappeared under the current.
The boys kept on shouting and moved to another part of the river. I started walking also.
Gosh, I told myself, itâs so easy to walk over the bridge. I can even do it with my eyes closed. There is a railing to prevent you from falling in the water on one side and, on the other, the edge of the curb warns you not to step on the road. And to prove it, I closed my eyes and kept walking. At first I held on to the bridge railing with one hand, but after a while I didnât need to. And I kept walking with my eyes closed. And donât you go and tell it to my mother, but with your eyes closed there are many things you can see, even better than when you keep them open. The first thing I saw was a big yellowish cloud that sometimes shone more brightly than others, just like the sun when itâs filtering through the trees. Then I closed my eyes really tight and the reddish cloud turned blue. And not only blue, but green. Green, then purple. Bright purple, like a rainbow that comes out after it has rained a lot and the earth is almost drowning.
And, with my eyes closed, I began thinking about the streets and about other things, and I kept on walking without stopping. And I saw my grandaunt Angela as she was leaving the house. Except she wasnât in the red polka-dot dress that she always wears when she goes to Oriente but in a long, white dress. And being so tall, she was like a telephone pole wrapped in a bedsheet. But she looked fine.
And I kept walking. I stumbled again over the cat on the curb. But this time, when I touched him with the tip of my shoe, he jumped up and ran away. The bright yellow cat ran away because he was alive and got scared when I woke him up. And I laughed a lot when I saw him vanish like a tornado, his back arched, his hair bristling with electricity.
I kept walking, with my eyes closed tight, of course. And thatâs how I got back to the pastry shop. Since I couldnât buy any pastries for myself because I had already spent all my food money, I could only look at the ones in the shop window. And
Dates Mates, Sole Survivors (Html)