Chapter 26

When he left, Luz was already able to read on the computer some of James Dean's life. What caught her attention the most was the number 24. He was 24 years old when he died. Undoubtedly some of his phrases caused a great impact on the little girl's mind: "Dream as if you were going to live forever, live as if you were going to die today".

Although another phrase said: "Only tender people are really strong".

Luz did not understand very well what each phrase meant, but something inside her told her that she was very close to discovering it.

The dark child left an earphone over her ear to communicate with her. It was invisible to the eyes, but Luz felt it wet against her pinna.

"I'm dying to get started, so get moving. And if you're worried about knowing about the other movie, don't worry, I've already seen it...by the way, I have a better idea before the forest."

His dry smile was far from convincing, but she had no choice.

Luz began to squeal because the computer was filtered and would not allow her to do her research properly. The teacher explained to her for the umpteenth time the need to filter the information, but Luz started to get up and sit down, again and again, without a coherent reason for the teacher.

Until Luz said that her head and stomach hurt very badly. The teacher took her to the infirmary, but there was no staff. So she took her home herself.

Mary, who was already stressed because she was preparing everything for the barbecue, thanked the teacher and took her daughter to the room. She was going to give her one of her herbal remedies, but her father intervened and bought her pills.

"You'll be better in no time, but I don't want you downstairs before three o'clock or your mother will make a mess of things by having to divide her attention."

When the father was out of the room, Luz took out the pill which she left under her tongue. Both the syrups and the pills tasted awful to her. Other than that, the dark child also forbade her to digest that pill, for the duration of this sort of deal between them.

"Is being home again part of your plan?"

She asks him while observing how messy his room was. Even Esteban's wasn't like this. She didn't care, but her mother did and she wanted him to give her a couple of the apples the father bought.

Apparently, this was more than just barbecue.

"The Eris Myth comic book has something in it that belongs to me and I need it back."

Luz sneaked out of her room and went to Esteban's. He found the comic on the dresser and on top of it was a flashlight in the shape of an apple.

"Leave the comic book, give me the flashlight."

Luz didn't like being surrounded by so much indecision. It was bad enough having to deal with hers.

"Didn't you say the comic had something of yours in it?

Besides, that flashlight must have been bought by dad from Esteban. I can't give it to you."

She didn't even know the reason to protest, she knew she would still have to give it to him. Maybe she wants to feel a little strong.

"Your father buys everything used, that's plain to see if you are used to having everything new. That lantern he bought it from a woman who passes through this and other neighborhoods to sell her antiques.

Never buy anything from her, she's a witch..."

Luz got curious and asked, "A witch? is she bad? has she been bad to you?"

The dark child cautioned, "I don't know if I should define someone as good or bad by their actions or by the motives that generate those actions.

That witch has killed hundreds of babies so that they will never leave their dream of true love.

According to her, in this world hell is for children and she feels it is her mission to end that eternal plague."

Luz couldn't help but ask the following question: "Did she try to end your life when you were a baby?

You can't remember those times, it's impossible..."

The dark child thinks she has already spoken too much and reprimanded her as if he were her father.

"Don't talk to me like that, I won't tolerate more people than the 5 people in this house..."

Luz couldn't say anything else because her father found her talking to herself, or so it seemed.

"Put that flashlight back..."

She had to think fast, "Daddy, don't be like that, I'm bored alone in my room.

Won't you let me make a shadow theater with the light of the flashlight?

I know I can't turn on the switch because it's my duty as a daughter to make you save your money as much as you can. But I'm a kid and I want to have fun.

Can't I have friends, even if they are fictitious?"

A tear rolled down her cheek and her father stroked her cheek.

"It's okay, but don't break it. I fell in love with this lamp as soon as I saw it. It reminded me of my firstborn: Luz." She couldn't believe what her father was telling her. "Don't you want to watch a movie with me first...I'm leaving tomorrow."

Luz didn't care about the dark child's claims and went with her father to the living room to watch "The five o'clock club".

Before putting on the movie, Luz asked her father: "Why, if the lamp reminded you of me, did you give it to Esteban?"

The father gave her to understanding that the lamp was only a consolation prize for Stephen. It was the least he could give him after having him sleep on a sponge mattress. Poor his back.

Luz couldn't say anything else because the movie captured her attention so much. It was funny, romantic and the characters had a personality that, for a cliché, was unique to her.

It is a deep film, but without hurting the sensibility. On the contrary, it feeds her with, as the 16-year-old girl would say, "adolescent self-knowledge".

However, her father left the movie halfway through and decided to put on a cartoon instead. Luz saw him certainly troubled by a movie that rather wanted to make him happy. And his father was looking for happiness, he always asked his passengers what happiness was.

Could it be that this is one of the many unanswered human questions?

While her father was looking in the movie basket, Luz saw that "Bambi" was playing and felt very relieved. In that picture, a human kills a doe and leaves her calf, Bambi, an orphan.

The drawing had become real, only now she was the hunter.

"Stop playing with me."

Luz had forgotten him for a moment and guessed that he, too, was engrossed in The 5's Club.

"Dad, what if I write a story for our guests?"

The father squints his eyes, trying to fend for himself the reason for her offer.

"I can't give you the lamp, but I can let you play with it in your room before your brothers get out of school."

The father, for the first time in life, did not force her into anything and left it to her free will.

Even though the dark child yelled in her ear, Luz stayed in the hallway to watch the drawing her father put up. The chosen one was Meteor. Not even 5 seconds passed and she was about to cry.

When Luz saw that her father was highly absorbed by the drawing; she walked crouched behind the armchair where her father seemed happy. Although that made the dark child transmit a high-pitched noise through the headphones.

Luz put aside the lamp and asked in a whisper to her father, "What is happiness?"

Luz believed that, now that her father looked so fragile and tender, he would finally dare to answer her eternal question.

"The carriages, my eternal revenge, and my passengers."

Every time her father saw Meteor, it was as if another person would enter him. There was no hesitation in his voice, his lips were still in firm conviction, his eyebrows were still at the same height and his gaze did not try to intimidate or persuade her.

When he was a child, his fears were bent by the will of his beliefs.

Perhaps James Dean was right: "Only tender people are really strong".

Children are not afraid of anything, that's why they always tell the truth.

The father did not mention her or anyone else in the family among the people who make him happy. And boy, did Mary try hard and prove it to him. She was not like Luz who did things on the sly.

"What is family?"

Her father answered instantly, "The book that describes the pain as pleasure."

Luz crawled away with the lamp and, before turning down the hall, took one last look at her father.

For an instant, he came to himself and turned to look behind him. There was no one there and she knew what he was thinking. The father had already told Mary: "I hear voices, especially when he took naps. In the car or in the house. I just fell sound asleep or so deep in thought that I don't even notice the ground I walk on."

The voices during the naps the father took at home were really just one voice. Luz practiced hypnosis on her father. It was useful to know his real opinion about certain concerns, but not to heal him.

Sigmund Freud at least helped her to know something of her father's truth.

What was not Luz's fault were the voices during the naps that her father took in his cab. Luz knew that her father, like her at times, talks to himself.

Could it be that so much hypnosis on Luz's part, did the father end up confusing his daughter's voice with the one in his head?

There were questions that Luz still did not dare to ask.

"Are you a witch too?"

His sly voice only caused Luz to feel like landing a blow on him when she saw him. If it ever happened.

The dark child or the dark being?

Perhaps it was the same nasty living thing.

"Take a car, whatever, you're too slow."

Luz slipped out of her house, no problem at all, carrying the lamp in a small basket. And yes, she was a bit slow as at times her imagination sought to trap it inside her head. Like her father, she sometimes couldn't feel the ground either.

"Forget it, no... I have no friends and no money to spend or waste."

But the boy did have an easy target: "In your neighbors' yards there are bicycles everywhere. Just take one and give it back."

With parents at work, in the kitchen, or with friends; no one would notice or check until later...

to be continue.