Part 14: An obscure proposal

"Do you see how this woman has me? And now she has you too?

It's really the last straw.

Is she going to treat her own flesh and blood the same way she treats me?

But don't worry son, I'm going to help you get something that will rot us in silver. You are going to become one of those great millionaires... they all speak English, the language of power".

When Luz left school she never thought that her mother was not at home and had left Esteban alone. The worst thing was that his father had come home early.

For the first time, Luz could see that the power of the word was not something that the father only exercised with the women in his house. The difference was that he "spoke" to her brother in private and not in front of the whole family.

"As I am now a driver for the big leagues, I have heard about the call for millionaire or innovative projects in the world of technology".

Luz saw her brother's eyes light up, no doubt he was thinking about the dollars.

"If only your sister would listen to me and run for political party spokesperson. If she would stop using her talent in ridiculous things like poetry, songs and I don't know how many other cheesy things. If she thought more in English than in Spanish, we wouldn't be like this anymore. No doubt it is her fault that we are still like this. He doesn't honor his father by giving one hundred percent of his effort.

He dedicates himself to La Literatura as if that is going to be enough for us to finish building the second floor.

Isn't Luz ashamed that we're the only ones who have our panties on the rooftop clothesline; where the whole neighborhood can see that she has an obsession with pink trunks and I have an obsession with blue?"

It seemed to Luz that she had already heard something about that student contest thanks to Margot, the friend from one night.

"I'll do whatever you tell me father. I'll put up with women's stupidities as long as we get to have the good life we deserve."

The father smiles and many wrinkles hidden among so much dry and dull skin stand out.

"While I continue to tell you, prepare steam water with Eucalyptus leaves to open my pores. Your sister fits in this world, she is pretty and has brains and we have plenty of them; but you see we have to take care of the merchandise as much as possible."

The father points to his face and the brother laughs; as he returns to the kitchen to prepare the water.

The father begins to rant from his wooden seat, and with his legs on the table, everything he knew about the contest that allowed you to enter one of those foreign universities.

The contest was still three years away, during which time Esteban had to concentrate on creating a revolutionary invention. Besides, of course, having an impeccable record, full of diplomas and awards.

"Your sister could also apply, but she must internalize English, so that her words coming from her soul reach the scheming soul of the jury. They are people who move the world; so their soul is practical, they need new leaders who will stand up for them and be able to transmit what is convenient for them.... Luz has magic in her words, but they need to kill her innocence".

When the brother returned and placed the boiling pot on the table, he did not stop scrutinizing the father with great expectation; but something told Luz that his look and his brother's were too different. She and her brother differed in their feelings about the father. I don't know about him, but Luz did believe blindly in her father.

"What about Flavia? She's already two years away and I doubt she's thinking of something mature. Although I don't care, she only annoys and annoys, the best thing is that you don't help her, dad. She doesn't deserve any of your teachings, she only disrespects you and mom."

The father was watching in awe of the white anti-heat pot his son had created. He was proud and auspicious of a great future for his son, but the mere mention of Flavia makes his wrinkles multiply in a second.

"I'm sure it's because of her that your mother is failing in her duties as a mother; so I'm quite aware that Flavia is a parasite who wants to eat away at the family.

I don't know how, but I'll get her a scholarship at the state university in town. While I'm at it, I'll get a job there and keep an eye on her. One pretty girl alone and the wolves descend.

I'm not going to let an innocent be born to suffer for hotness at first sight.

I have never wavered in the education of any of the three, but your mother did it with Flavia and you see she falls into the disgusting cliché."

The father raised his face above the pot and a bubble in the shape of a Eucalyptus leaf emerged. It floats in the air until it covers the father's face; while the son keeps his finger pressed on the red button.

At first, Luz was amused that her father's face was taking the shape of a Eucalyptus leaf. She visualized the pores of his skin opening up and making holes in the bubble.

However, the bubble was not going to burst until all of the father's pores were opened.

"Now I'm going to have to bolt out of here to pick up your sister."

As soon as Luz heard this, she remembered that she, unlike her companions, could not go anywhere alone. So, she turned around and ran back to school.

When she arrived she went straight into the hallway where an hour ago she had been crushed by a number of girls, Margot's friends. This characteristic at school was equivalent to a noble title. Luz only cared about her friendship with Margot, but there was someone who did care about her status at school.

"I knew you were going to be here, you and darkness are more sisters than you and Flavia."

Luz was all soaked and the water chilled her to the bone. Nevertheless, she had to endure and know where her sister was. She already suspected, by certain attitudes (such as demanding from her mother clothes and cosmetics of brands Luz had never heard of, not even in dog fights), that Flavia was being instructed by someone who knew the world and luxuries.

"Tell me where is she, where is Flavia?"

Margot opens her eyes wide and shakes her head.

"You are very bad sister. Don't blame it on me that you only have a head for your own problems. The same ones you never solve; so they remain as excuses for another session of rotting in your own thoughts.

Why are you so afraid to live?"

Luz hated it when others tried to analyze her. Just as she did with everyone who caught her attention and now it was her whom someone else, besides her dad, was studying.

"If you're not going to tell me where you've sent her, I don't see the point of this conversation. Besides you're dry and I'm wet."

It was a clear warning from Luz. She was just going to turn around to leave, but Margot was looking for something more from her.

"I don't know where your sister is and I don't care, but appealing to your careerist side, appealing to that girl who wonders: how will I do to be accepted within the elite society to which my dear prince charming belongs?"

Luz immediately turned and looked at Margot's sneering smile. She wondered why she had such a need for someone like Margot to be her friend. She was never really her friend. Not even when they were kids. Alexis always made it clear to her that she could only find violence from her side if she approached him; instead Margot, she let Luz approach her and they talked well, as long as the topic was chosen by Margot. Everything between them had to be as Margot saw fit. She would only let Luz come close to make her cry afterwards.

If she thought about it better, the one who started to analyze was not Luz, it was always Margot. She and Alexis were always on the lookout for danger.

"Elite society? What does that have to do with what we're talking about?"

Margot purses her lip and clacks her sneakers against the gray floor with obvious impatience.

"That's your problem, you're dumb, but you're twice the average because you like playing that blessed good girl role. Forget about paranormal romances and focus on your reality.

Don't play dumb it makes me desperate."

Luz walked right up to her and slapped her. Margot just flashed a smile and touched her cheek with a bored expression.

"It doesn't matter what you do because I have the means to pay you all back with double the pain; so it's about time you stop living upside down and pay attention to what I'm about to propose."

Margot told him that she needed her to participate in the debate contest that would be held starting next year. The winner of the contest would get a scholarship to one of those universities Luz's father was talking about.

Margot needed to enter to take from her father all the money that rightfully belonged to her and her mother.

"You will make, your specialty, a fumble in the semi-final and they will look for a replacement for you; then you will tell them about me. For the final you prepare a good speech for me and, if I win, I will look for the means by which you too can belong to the elite circle.

You must know that if you don't belong to the elite, you can never be in love with Alexis... you can't live without loving him and I can't live without using him."

Alexis belonged to some kind of world elite?

With that question in mind, Luz watched Margot walk away in her cheerleader miniskirt. Maybe in that topsy-turvy world Luz lived in, she would be the cheerleader and not Margot.

In a topsy-turvy world, reality would be fantasy and fantasy would be the best reality.

She kept thinking about Margot, Alexis and her father; in the darkness of the empty hallway. Watching the shadows, which he felt as his only ones on earth, dance on the walls. The confusion in his thoughts made him create new fantastic and gloomy shapes in the shadows.

"The gold of the poor is imagination."

Luz searched for the voice that said exactly what she was thinking at that very moment.

"Do you think you could let me take a picture of your look?"

Luz tried to walk toward the voice in the darkness, but it asked her to stop.

"You don't have to come closer, it's my camera that's going to create a flash right into your eyes. Although this flash is not as harmless as that of other cameras.

There may be certain side effects if you let me take the picture of your gaze. It can be good or bad, but I think you know your situation can't get any worse."

Her voice did not possess a hint of condescension, it was very serious and serious, like a falsetto that wants to survive the lack of control of the air you manage when singing.

"And what would you gain by taking a picture of my look?"

There was for a few seconds a certain silence that gave way to an anxiety that left Luz's throat dry and; a desperate desire to play with her voice.

"The same thing you would gain by obsessing over a certain boy's gaze."

Those words hurt her as if together they built a dagger that has gone straight to open her belly. Her stomach began to ache like when, on the sly, she eats Chancaca or sugar from the cupboard. She did the same thing the day before the binge. Maybe that produced certain effects: a sweet, sour and pasty taste, all at the same time, came from the pit of her stomach to her taste buds.

"And what's in it for me?"

He sat down on the floor and hugged his knees, leaning his back against the wall.

"Nothing and in nothing you can create whatever you want, including a mixture of sour and sweet..."

I have to tell you reader that when a unicorn kicks other humans to save one's life; its legs change hooves just as snakes shed their skin.

In those moments the unicorn knew that his fate was sealed and he would have new hind hooves: Luz's nostrils.

When the world was of cats and unicorns, we did not see our paws, there were only clouds under our feet. In this world, unicorns can see their own white, black or brown hooves; as long as they travel the world through the wind with "the end to find an end", worth the redundancy.

I don't find it odd that our girl's unicorn, Luz, is the one with the black hooves.

Didn't Margot say that Luz and darkness are confidants?

As for her forelegs, both have entered Luz's womb. Let's say her belly is now like quicksand. All thanks to the blessed contact of the unicorn's paws against her abdomen.

It's just that the unicorn's paws have spent enough time in the clouds and the clouds melt as soon as you touch them. The gases from the clouds spread across the sky and the wind transports these gases to another reality.

Everything that has had contact with these clouds in my wonderful world has the ability to transmit the sensations of that other reality where the clouds now go.

That is why some people say things like: "Being in the clouds is like being with him. When he hugs me it's like... no, I really melt in his arms".

That is one of the verses that, the day before, Luz was composing at Margot's house for her to sing to Alexis for his birthday. Of course, Luz would never dare to sing it face to face to the boy for whom her attraction was undeniable.

Remembering the things she did drunk is a product of the fact that the effect of the pills that kept her sober is wearing off. The technology in this town is quite deficient.

No technology can defeat unicorns.

And perhaps, because one of the front legs of the unicorn was positioned in the large intestine and the other front leg, in the small intestine; is that now Luz is returning the pill whole, which she vomits on the floor.

It is that black-hoofed unicorns do not tolerate anything that is not of a nature known to them.

The paw that ended up in the large intestine is so that no unicorn dares to even speak a word to the unicorn that is tied, like me, to the feelings of a little girl.

The unicorn could not resist the impossible dreams of our protagonist. Just as no one can resist the tremendous aroma of all the rotten food in Luz's large intestine.

What unicorn could withstand such a stench?

Maybe that's why love enters through the eyes, they can't see beyond the skin and words.

If the legs were covered by clouds again, the stench would smell like roses. As long as the unicorn coexists with the stench of the intestine; it will be part of something that is completely unknown to me.

That is the idea, the unicorn will not be able to differentiate the good smell from the not so good; but the others will. No one will go to save it.

And the other leg in the small intestine?

Well, this case is more interesting. While the leg in the large intestine serves to repel potential "unicorn heroes"; the legs in the large intestine serve to draw attention to the only thing in the nature of my wonderful world that survived the destruction.

I don't know what it is, but I do know that this "beautiful thing" provides food for the unicorn. You see the small intestine also delivers nutrients to the cells, it sends them through the blood.

Anyway, as for the head of the unicorn, this is the one that sees the world after the clouds break up... the world upside down.

Those expressions like: "cheers" after coughing or "break a leg", in the case of actors before going on stage.

Why do you think the first term has to do with nostrils and the second with paws?

Do you think that everything we say is pure invention?

Just produced by the lesson of the moment?

And why did you have to go through that lesson?

Why does Luz have to go through this hellish scrutiny of her adolescent life cycle?

"Maybe that upside down world wasn't always the one that was upside down."

Luz panicked at the certainty that the unknown, unseen photographer could read her thoughts.

"Who is he, does he know about the cat, how can he read my thoughts?"

Luz began to imagine a guy with a smile more twisted than her father's.

"Don't you know you talk in your sleep?"

And why do you think I'm trying to convince you there's a world you can't remember?

Well, because when Luz is asleep you have to talk about something that is linked to the act of sleeping or dreams. You see there are dreams that we cannot remember. It was a way for the moving dreams of Luz not to knock down my red shadow.

Just as new information that you memorize can replace old information; dreams that are too old in origin can overshadow the new ones, one of them is my red shadow.

"Have you been there the whole time I've been asleep?"

Luz finds it impossible not to be attracted to the mystery of the photographer.

Is he her age?

Will he be as attractive as the actor Taylor Lander?

Will he be as reserved and persevering as Alexis?

"I have no better place to go and you haven't told me if you'll let me take a picture of your gaze."

Luz was going to quit, but she just remembered she has a decisive question.

"First answer: how do you know about my childish obsession with Alexis' look?"

To Luz the photographer's silence went on forever, but he answered.

"I have lived here before, then I left and now I'm back for work.

You know, better not answer me, I can show you first what's good about earning you a nothing."

Luz had put up with enough, to tell the truth, all her life she has just been quiet and cautious.

Alexis was the only one who gave Luz a good excuse to get her hopes up.

However, that deep voice inspired in her a certain uncertainty and insecurity. She knew these feelings so well; but, since this guy was a stranger, he couldn't inspire her to create a beautiful illusion. She didn't have the confidence to dream of being the protagonist of a paranormal romance.

This photographer made her unable to create a beautiful explanation for what caused her so much sadness. The rage could no longer be tasted sour and sweet at the same time.

The acid that flowed on the threshold of Luz's tongue was something impossible to ignore. She did not believe in coincidences. That stranger was there so that Luz's steps in the world would not be found upside down.

She was convinced that she had to endure the terrible headache that seemed to break her neurons.

She barely got up from the floor and not because of the physical pain; it was because the drunkenness was beginning to run through her whole body like an insatiable virus.

With a questionable sense of direction, Luz walks towards the darkest part of the corridor and tries to find the photographer.

She wanted to touch him so she wouldn't think she was losing her mind.

"Going to come back, I'm in an endless circle..."

She walked with her hands resting on the wall, she felt as if the coldness of it gave her the sobriety that her organism did not accept from the pill. Maybe because she wasn't the only one about to fall into those walls.

Luz heard a familiar sound, a part of it reminded her of the melody of a great rock band's song. To be more exact, the melody of a rock ballad. The same musical genre she had been composing the day before for Alexis' birthday.

However these agitated sounds are mixed with the noise of something being pushed against the wall.

"Flavia!.."

Those sounds were moans and they just screamed named the darkness with only one name: Flavia.

Luz screams her name and, when she thinks she is close to her sister and her secret lover, she rushes against them; but she falls into the arms of the personification of the cruelest autumn for her heart.

"You reek of alcohol, have you been drinking?"

Her father tries to pull his arms away from hers, but she clings to the possibility of being different and being happy.

"Dad, dad, it's Flavia, she..."

She couldn't finish speaking because her father managed to get rid of her arms. Consequently, Luz hits the ground and, thanks to his quick hands, only her knees were left with a few pygmy scrapes.

"She swims, Flavia swims, of her people have already been talking about how moved your sister is; but you....

Does a good father deserve a drunken daughter?

Does a father deserve a daughter who half-heartedly listens to him?

I don't do drugs, I'm not a drunkard and I don't go around without taking a bath once a week. He always buys me good perfume, but you... you... you... you're lucky that no one is around; because without a good reputation you're nobody in this world full of cynics and cunning people."

As Luz listens to her father's sermon, she notices a short distance away, beside a bush, a broken pencil in the palm of one hand.

She immediately gets up and runs to see one of her mother's prophetic dreams come true.

Alexis was lying on the ground with his eyes open and motionless. She screams for help because he doesn't answer her. Thanks to her high-pitched voice, Nick, Margot and Lisa, a friend of Margot's, appear.

Luz's father pulls her by the arm and drags her to the car; but Luz was not willing to ride shotgun this time.

She pushed her father aside and climbed into the driver's seat. She didn't need a key. That car had been bought with the money Luz earned from her columns written in the local newspaper under a pseudonym.

The car was a black Lexus and operated with a voice recognizer.

As the engine roared, Luz wondered if there was any point in trying to get people to pay attention to her by using the English words...

"My English words are electric blue

An inexhaustible sorrow that needs you

Needs to be flattered to trust

Every spark of my electric blue will bake your love

Can you feel your lips want to fly?

Can you feel that desire is freezing your soul?

Believe that I can trust

Is believing that I can love you

Even if the gold outshines my faith

My faith is the faith with which I've painted your look

It's electric blue with a black shield

Black as my vision every time you embrace me

Black as my soul when you speak to me

Black as my touch when I detect the hidden intention

Black as our breath

When we accept a foreign power to put us to sleep

To sleep with its electric blue

To sleep to dream of feeling its brightness

Do you feel how the sparks of an electric blue are uncooking your love so that you bind it to the force of my resentment?

For if I can love you I can deceive us..."

Yes Luz, it makes you the chorus because no one wants to repeat to you that you must deceive yourself and believe that there will be some pleasure in the pain that will produce the photographer's proposal... a dark proposal.