Anecdotes of a Fleeting Mind – Chapter One

IRENE

Irene was a 5-year-old dark-haired girl with big green eyes full of questions about life and the world.

She loved to sing, she even had a long repertoire of songs that she liked to dedicate to her family or simply sing on her way to school.

In the afternoons, her greatest joy was to eat mangoes at her grandmother’s house. She would devour them without caring about her whole face ending up sticky because of that delicious juice. For her, that only made the fruit taste even better. And she always found it funny to test her grandma’s patience since she was the one who had to clean her afterwards.

But, without a doubt, her favorite thing to do was to take a walk around in the community, greet people and learn about the lives of her neighbours.

OLD JUAN

The first one was Old Juan. He was always out for a walk with his dog Bill and never missed an opportunity to tell stories about his youth. However, it was impossible to understand a word of what he said because of his lack of teeth, but the neighbours had all reached the silent mutual agreement of smiling at him, nodding and ignoring the spit that he desecrated when showing the exaggerated excitement his memories brought on him.

His favorite stories were those about his involvement in the strikes of the communist group at the university. He always had with him the newspaper of the year 1959 to proudly show the page on which he appeared making fun of President Fuentes.

Of course, these demonstrations had serious consequences, as no act against the government was tolerated. But, thanks to a stroke of luck or, to put it as it is, to his great ability to flirt, Old Juan never received any type of punishment. Since the then Secretary of the Government was deeply in love with him, when she recognized his name on the blacklist, she decided to make the only “mistake” in her life and erase it.

That is how Old Juan was the only one in his class to be saved from the mysterious disappearances.