Monthly Archives: January 2014

Mansion

A large foot comes stomping down on my own little feet. The delicate flats now have a dark, dusty footprint stained on the purple suede. I whip my head around to glare at the rude person who ruined my new ballet flats but when I already have my mean face painted on, and I have turned to see them… They’re gone. I sigh and lean down to brush off the mark. Just as my fingertips have touched the suede, another person–no, boulder, comes knocking into my shoulder. The force sends me toppling over, and with identical dirty spots on my brand-new jeans. I shoot up from the musty old floor, prepared to explode in the person’s face. My blood is boiling over–my head is bubbling with flame–my face is bursting with fresh rage. I quickly locate my target and I start to storm towards them, creating rough clouds of dust behind me when BLAM! One, two, three men come hurtling in my direction. I shriek just as one crashes into my side, the next shoves me aside sharply against the left shoulder, and the third… He elbows me in the ribs and I’m left behind, gasping for air, like a fish out of water, in a clutter of people and a wispy swirl of dust. I desperately cough and claw at the ground, my voice is a ragged rasp, hacking and coughing hideously. Finally I let out one last harsh cough and stand up.

Dad thumps me on the back, “you okay girl?” He asks.
“Floating to heaven on cloud nine.” I grouch sarcastically.
“Then you’re just perfect!” Dad jokes. I just slap my palm to my forehead and wince. Ouch. Got a bruise or two… Or three… The crowd that has gathered begins to gradually trickle away, leaving me, my family, my pain, and my misery. I grumble and dust off my clothes and shove my hands into my pockets, only I realized to late that the pockets in my jeans are fake, and end up scratching myself on a button instead. Mom is gaping at my clothes and she immediately come racing up to brush me off. I have a very thorough pat down session that goes on for three minutes, with an extremely embarrassing scene of having your mom dust off the seat of your jeans.
“Moooooom!” I whine through gritted teeth, “People are staring again!”
“Well I won’t have my daughter walk through Spain looking like a hobo.” Mom snaps.
“Half the people here ARE hobos!” I spat back gruffly.
Mom just continues on, the rest of my family trailing behind her like a mother duck and her ducklings.

I’m the last in the line.

We arrive at a fancy market: there are a bunch of huge food and candy sections. The four of us kids zip eagerly up to the candy stand, our eyes already feasting hungrily on the colorful piles of treats that we will soon be filling our tummies with. My eyes locate my favorite sweets in a spilt second. Mom allows us to select a few goodies and drop them in a bag. The cashier rings us up. He is chubby and he looks grumpy, like he didn’t get enough sleep last night. I quickly snatch the candy from him, so I don’t have to touch his squishy-looking sweaty hand. “Gracias.” He mumbles. I gaze around the room. In every spot–every corner, there is some kind of delicious food stand. The seafood, the meat, the fruit, the sweets, the smoothie station, it’s all gloriously beautiful. It’s like a food mansion, a food palace here. I flip my head around every which way, trying to thirstily drink in all the sights. There is one particularly odd stand, you could even say gross. It sold every single cow product you could imagine, the heart, the stomach, the head, the liver, even the cows BLOOD, made into coagulated blood cubes. I pretended to gag at the sight of it, my sister giggled.
“Why would anybody want to eat cow-blood? Does it taste good?” I snickered.
“No way! That stuff probably tastes disgusting!” My dad shouted with a laugh.
“Then why would people want it?” I snorted.
“Maybe it’s good to bathe in it!” My older brother chuckled.
“Ewwwwww!” I shrieked, “Ewwwww! We have enough blood on the inside! We don’t need it on the outside!”
“No kids, people eat it ’cause it’s healthy, they probably totally hate it though!” Dad guffawed. Mom joined the laughter and so did the younger kids. We were all chortling uncontrollably after that. What was in the beginning, a bad day, turned into a hilarious memorable one after that! I’m still gagging and giggling now!

Firsts

There’s always a first time for everything. Your first words, your first steps, your first breath of life. Firsts are special, like yesterday was my birthday, and I got my very first camera.

On that camera. I took my very first picture.

That picture was special.

It was of one of my birthday cards. A beautiful card, with swirly, pearlescent blue writing that read, “Fancytastic.”
I know, I know, fancytastic isn’t a real word, but they were creative enough to make it up. That’s what made it special.

Or maybe it was because the card was decorated with jewels of turquoise, sea green, and deep purple. The card was silver and sparkly, and kind of fancy for a teen. But, I loved it very much.

Though I loved the picture even more.

Because that picture was a first.

My very first picture on my very first camera. I snapped off a few more, a second. A third.

The camera is silver and shines like crystal ice. The pictures are sharp, bright, filling like water in a clear glass. You can see the water splashing around, spilling glittering droplets that swish against the cool glass and slide down, still shimmering. In the pictures, you see the people, the plants, the animals, the light, the life filling the little square with memory. Some of the people spill out, then duck quickly back in. The light beams against the smooth surfaces of the tables and furniture, creating a gleam, a glare.

I kept only that one picture because it was so simple. You could only see the sparkle of the card, the gleam of the lettering, the glittering of the jewels. Then you saw a rough carpet behind it, the color of pale peaches. That brings the attention to the beauty of…

The picture.

The moment.

The first.

Have you had a favorite first?