by Danilo Lopez

Created on: February 01, 2009

Condega Town

"a stream

runs through my mind

amber honey and beeswax

coat my mouth"

Richard Weakley, "A Stream Through the Mind"

E
ach time I went to buy tortillas, I repeated in my mind the recommendations of my mother, "One peso or tortillas, and come back quickly, I don't want you to stay playing on the streets". But after a while I only remembered the first part, so on my way back, since I had to walk by the plaza, where everyday the boys of my town were playing with spin tops and flying kites, crossing it was like a torture to me.

I would approach the guy who had the highest kite and ask him to lend it to me for a moment, because it was cool. I

remember the feeling of the rope between my fingers, the wind pulling me, suddenly it starts to fall, "pull it! Pull it! You dummy!" and I pull, I give some rope, pull again, until it reaches the desired height.

In the distance I see my cousin approaching, waving his hands, snapping his fingers, announcing a storm, "you son of a gun, they're gonna kill you this time, your mother says it was an hour ago she sent you for the tortillas!"

My face blushes hot, my body itches all over, I'm back to reality in a shock, cold air running through my lungs. I pick up the tortillas from the ground, clean the few that fell off the napkin...

Back home a different world awaits me, yells, spanks, weeping, "don't cry mister, don't cry!" a gnarl in my throat, tears... but I don't cry.

- - -

Bread Man

W
hen I was a child, days began at eight or nine in the morning. I was still too young for school, so I enjoyed the luxury of waking up late. When I started elementary school though, it was a different story. I had to ride public buses for an hour before arriving at school. I used to get up so early, at about six a.m. It was then that I saw him for the first time.

Bread Man arrived in his bicycle at six or five thirty in the morning. The felt hat slanted to the right, his pants tied with a rubber band at the cuff so they wouldn't be caught in the bike's chain. A big basket in the back seat with a huge table cloth wrapping the varied pieces of bread he sold: French bread, monkey fingers, large loaves, small ones, semitas, triangles, all warm, right out of the carbon oven his wife had at home. Eating that bread with real, homemade butter, soaked in cafe

con leche, was a heavenly breakfast, with frijolitos, love eggs, you know, real eggs, made by hen and rooster, with a brown shell, good sized, orange-yellow yolk. Not

like the ones we swallow today, all pale

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