It was in the late summer of 1964 when I first met Mrs Batista. Her husband of 44 years, Mr Batista had just passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Mother insisted that we pay our respects to the family by inviting Mrs Batista over for dinner. I was given the somewhat daunting task of going over to the house and asking. At first I had tried to palm this task off to my younger brother Joseph, but when mother overheard me trying to do so she insisted I went. There had been little movement at the house since the funeral had taken place two weeks ago. Mrs Batista had been too distraught to attend the funeral apparently. Mrs Batista according to my mother had one daughter. My mother knew this as she had attended the funeral and met her …show more content…
She nodded her head in recognition to what I am saying. I had one more glance at the woman who is never seen but always known. She is extremely poised and elegant yet so painfully thin. Her long grey hair braided intricately down her spine. The accent and her skin combined suggest she is from somewhere exotic, maybe Spain? As I walked home I could not get the pained look from which was hidden deep in her eyes. The same look which haunts me as I fell asleep that night.
The next morning when I walked to the house, an unusual chill fills the air. The light softly filters through the canopy of leaves above me. The chill of air brings small goose bumps to the surface of my skin. I walked up the steps as I did the last time and knock lightly. This time there is no answer however. Thinking to myself that maybe it was not a good idea to come back after all. I turn and begin to walk back down the steps. Until I hear a woman voice coming from the window.
“Leaving already eh? You have read no books yet” she sings down at me “Come
…show more content…
As the winter had begun to unfold, the walks became harder but the reward was sweeter. I had begun to learn snippets of Mrs Batista’s life. However it wasn’t until one afternoon at the end of autumn that she began to open up. By now I had started to call her Frieda, her first name. She told me of her life in Cuba as a young girl. How she had met Mr Batista at a dance when she was 17 and he had stolen her heart. Mr Batista had been an officer in the army but when he was injured in attack they had decided to move to England. They had together had two children, Maria and Rico. Maria had been the woman who my mother had met at the funeral. Mrs Batista’s son however had gone to fight in World War 1 and never returned home. He had wanted to be a poet but his father had not allowed this. “He must grow up and become a man”, he would tell him. It was not until she had cleared out her husband’s desk that she had found her sons notebook. As a young girl she had never been taught to read and so could not read her sons
“On March 20, 2000, he goes to his grandmother Águeda’s house. He stands on the same porch that his mother disappeared from eleven years ago. He hugs Maria Isabel and Aunt Rosa Amelia. Then he steps off” (44).
I noticed that my window had been open, though I know I had closed it. It must have been my mom or dad who opened it for fresh air for me. I went to close my window when I felt the strange feeling that someone was watching me. I just brushed it off as just nothing and went back to bed. That’s when I heard like someone was breathing inside my closet. I sat up to see what it was, and almost had a heart attack. There staring back at me were two dark devilish-like eyes that never blinked. Then a large smile appeared from his face.
After a few more minutes of waiting Anna decided to get out of bed and walk down to the food court to see if her father was there. After getting out of bed, Anna found a note taped to her father’s chair that she hadn’t seen before scripted in scribbly letters saying Based on your actions he might come back don’t tell anyone about this and he will come back unharmed. Anna hurriedly found the bag of her clothes that her mother had delivered overnight and pulled on a hot pink mini skirt and a white long sleeve crop top. After getting dressed Anna opened her door and stepped outside, there was no one anywhere to be seen. She continued to walk down the hall and there was still no noise and no one in sight. She walked straight to the elevator and went down to the first floor where the food court should be, but there was no one there either, the hospital had been abandoned and she was sure that the songbook and the object that played her melody the night before were somehow behind it all. She ran back up to her room as carefully as she could trying not to hurt her arm, and once she arrived at the door she grabbed the music book off the desk beside of her bed, tried to flush it down the toilet, and stuffed her cell phone in her bag of clothes that her mom had bought. She was about to pick up her bag when she heard a new melody right outside of her door. La, La, La, La, La, La. La, La, La, La, La. La, La, La, La, La. La, La, La, La, La, La, La. She wanted to see what was making the noise so she carefully opened her door and peeked through the opened crack. There nothing was there! She grabbed her bag of clothes and ran down the steps as quickly as she could but then she heard a voice behind her, “Aaaaannnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa!!!!” the voice moaned “Aaaaannnnnnnnnnnaaaaaaa it isn’t safe at your house!!!!” said the voice. She spun around and saw a scrawny old man
Together we raised an outstanding child. I had also remained friends with Fortunato. We would dine together at each others’ homes and, of course, Léonie would also dine with us. I was truly happy, but all of those happy memories I had created with her and my son, were later destroyed. One evening I went over to Fortunato’s home for a share of drinks, for I had found a rare wine. A maid had welcome me in the mansion. While, I was strolling through the halls in search of him, I saw something I should have not seen. My wife in the arms of my most trusted friend. I froze where I stood… I overheard what was being spoken by the two in the other room. “When will I have time to spend with my son?” He asked. The amount of anger that filled me began to flood. I wanted Fortunato to suffer by my hands. I left his home as if I had not been there from the
It was early in the morning, and I had just woken up because I hear voices and objects being moved around in my grandma’s kitchen. I got up from the bed and made my way down the hallway straight to the kitchen. Once I entered the kitchen I saw all of my aunts with my grandma kneading the corn flour. I just stood there by the wooden door and watched as my aunts would laugh and talk to each other while the kneaded the corn flour. It was a beautiful sight to see because of the sunlight that was coming in from the window was hitting their faces and making it look like they were glowing. I started to look around the medium size room and saw the big dining table in the middle of the kitchen leaving little space to walk around properly.
Wandering through the graveyard it felt like something was watching me. Every step I took I could feel a chill run down my spine. The flowers in my hand are already dying. I look down at each gravestone, and finally saw the words Anna Ayers. I sat down next to it and prayed. I cried the whole time. I let the emptiness fill up inside of me, until I saw something colorful. It was a person. I thought it was just the person who watches the cemetery at night. I said that I would leave any minute. He stood there and then made a creepy laugh, almost like…
“They are living in a lie. They told me not to mention anything to you, because they don’t want this rumor to be shipped to Colombia. That’s why this must remain between the two of us. But, there was a big quarrel, my mother was having an affair with somebody else, who my father used to refer as ‘El Gorilla,’ and he found out about it after he pried inside my mother’s purse and found a bundle of love letters from ‘El Gorilla.’ What’s worse is that I used to know everything; I used to conceal all the truth from my father. The day he discovered about the affair the walls rumbled and threatened to collapse, I had no other option but to lie to him; to tell him that I didn’t have the most mere notion of what was going on with my mother. He was acting
It was a cold, quiet night in Manhattan. A father of three is walking home from work in a alley at the dead of night. He gets a nervous feeling whenever he thinks someone is is following him, when he does he stops and tries to listen to any sound coming from behind, either from a newspaper that is scraping the ground from the wind or footsteps from somebody trying to rob him. He turns around slowly not to cause attention to whoever it is behind him, (whrr...whrr) the wind blew fast that it almost knocked him over. Looking behind him he saw no one, nothing.
It was early one summer afternoon, shortly after lunchtime, when I heard my mom scramble towards the door. There was little noise, besides her loud stomps and faint cries through the drywall. The wind whistled faintly through my slightly open windows. Suddenly, the air conditioning kicked in startling me. It sounded as if it was a faint boat in the distance. I could make out the sound of the air conditioning through my vents. My brother’s television powered on, as well as my dad’s. They whispered silently through the insulation. Eventually, it all turned off and once again there was my mom’s loud stomps and faint cries.
Anastazie’s cherry red lipstick smelled of clove cigarettes and cheap cologne. Her lips tasted spicy as I pressed mine into her’s. I missed that spicy taste, the taste of Libena; her deep blue shirtwaist dress painted with a surge of electric crimson. Back when she was alive, a long clove cigarette always hung between her slightly gapped teeth as she spoke, then she would effortlessly pull back to produce a thick puff of smoke. She was from a small town slightly east of Potsdam; orphaned after her parents were heard for war crimes. They held American ideals, ones of libertarianism, and that was not acceptable in the east. She couldn’t stay Potsdam due to the memories of her family, and her family’s store was quickly bankrupt thanks to the rations.
Going into the house, a chill just ran down my spine and the hair on the back of my neck is standing up. The cold almost feels like someone is watching me, but it is more likely that the house is chilled with no fire burning in the fireplace. It will be warm soon enough, with all of the wood we are chopping outside. I can hear the butler rustling around in his pantry, I wonder what we will be having for dinner. I am locking this door, just in case, since everyone is outside and can’t hear me if I need help. Creak.... the closet door is opening. I see a gleam out of the corner of my eye as I start to smell a strong chemical
This morning was crisp with a wisp of new autumn air flowing through the window where Jeremy Smith slept peacefully in his bed. He dreamed of the fall leaves swirling through the air, but then something changed. Jeremy tossed and turned becoming cold in his sleep as he could sense something near. Jeremy was awake now, but didn’t open his eyes for he was afraid of what would stand in front of him. He became ever colder as he heard it come closer. Once he was shivering with goosebumps he opened his eyelids just for a peek.
As I open my eyes, an overwhelming anxiety floods through my veins. Paralyzed unable to bat a single eyelash, I move my eyes throughout the room. The mirror in the corner of the bedroom was luminescent from the crescent clear moon outside. As my eyes circled back to the mirror, the silhouette of a young women began to appear along with a cold breeze bringing shivers up and down my spine. She began approaching my bedside , one hand extended towards me, unable to see her face. I began screaming yearning for someone to hear my pleas for help. The sound of my own screams inside my head began to make my hands and feet clammy. As the silhouette reached out and brushed her hand along my cheek I felt the heat leave my body instantaneously. She has
I strode up the curved concrete path that led to the double doors of my house. As I walked, I could feel the freezing rain seeping in through my clothes, cooling my heated skin. It felt good, calming. However, more than anything, I was anxious to get inside. My eyes flickered down at my keychain, and mechanically I flicked through one key after another, but where was the house key? I stopped. And instantly, I had remembered that my mom had taken it two days before, to make a copy for the cleaning lady.
It was a sunny afternoon, clouds were spread around the sky. Standing in the front yard the trees were dancing and it felt like the leaves were waving to me and making a slapping sound Stepping away from the tree shade, the rays of the sun strikes at my face like a flashing light that blinded my eyes. I covered my eyes with my hands and slowly removed them. I took few steps to move to the other side and stepped down to the hard concrete ground. My bare feet felt the hot concrete ground; it was like I stepped on hot lava. I quickly ran to the backyard to feel the cold grass touching my feet. Slowly I felt the grass and I had a refreshing feeling in my whole body. I could smell the fresh cut blade the texture of needles poked at first, but then