The Stroyteller

They called her Abuela Inés. Grandmother Inés. She lives down the street from me, in a brick coloured house. In a town like this one, stories and scandals do not escape anybody. They say that the wind here is such that it transpires stories even to the deaf.

However, when it came to Abuela Inés, no one ever said a thing. It was as if her aura or even a small part of her soul is near you when you think of her, and lulls you to a silence when you are about to speak of her.

At Pop’s one afternoon, between mouthfuls of soda, a little jingle made me look up. Abuela was seated in front of me- her light blue eyes were fixed on me and the translucent ageing skin of her arms extended towards mine.

“You sent a little bit of your soul to God yesterday”, she said. The ice-cream and the soda made a little lump on its way down my food pipe; I muttered a semi-choke in question.

She went on in her Peruvian accent, her crystal earrings jingling ever so gently as she shook her head.

“He likes reminders to see how you are doing down here. When your cat died yesterday, a small little part of you died with it and went straight up to Him.

Sometimes, he keeps asking these reminders of you- when you lose a job, have an accident, mourn a beloved, get your heartbroken. The little parts of you that die, go straight up to Him.

When finally the day comes for you to meet The Creator, you are then united again with all your treasures. Good health that you lost in the spring of youth, innocence that you lost in the clutches of a man, a pet that you lost in a fire- all of it is restored back to you.

So then you are whole, and every part of you is alive and breathing.

That is why, Up There is called heaven.”

With that, she reached over and her fingertips touched my cheekbone. The storyteller then got up and left, as silently as she crept in.

A little fizz and a tiny jingle remains in the air.