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Wooden Suit
An old man came running through the door, exasperated. He searched through the backyard, looking desperately for his suit. He looked at the boy with frightening eyes,
-”Have you seen my suit?” he asked.
-”Which suit?”
-”The wooden one.”
-”Ah, that thing. I threw it away, it was full of termites.”
-”WHAT, HOW COULD YOU!”
The old man kneeled down and with his wrinkled old hand grabbed some sand from the earth and let it seep through the wind. This sand, however only reached the boy’s eyes, leaving them sore. An engine was heard at the distance.
-”That was basically trash, you know.” said the boy while rubbing his right eye.
-”You’re wrong, boy. That was an ancient Aztec artifact, handed down through generations of wood keepers who get together every 2 weeks to appreciate the shining wooden armor.”
The old man looked to the sky.
-”This, however, will no longer be possible, because of YOU.”
-”You bought this at a garage sale 5 days ago.” said the boy.
-”In that you are wrong my friend, That was disguised as a garage sale, however it was and has always been a point of reunion for the ancestral beings.”
-”The ones who supposedly contact you every last Thursday of the month?”
-”Exactly, those. The ones that originated from nothingness. They are darkness to the light, they are light to the darkness. That is why, my boy, this suit is very significant. The future of mankind is at stake here. I need to get it back.”
-”You know that you could have just grabbed it all this time, it was in the front yard. You never use it anyways.”
The engine’s noise became lower and lower.
-”That must be the garbage truck, you better get the suit back or else we are all going to die.” The boy said unamused.
The old man raced through the house, not caring about the furniture in front of him. He went outside just to see the truck disappearing through the horizon. At that moment everything went silent, only the man’s breath was heard from miles away.
-”It’s gone,,,” he said.
The wind blew, moving his three white hairs through the air. The man knew the end was near, sorrow, remorse and deception would fill people’s hearts. He stayed there kneeled down for 3 hours and 39 minutes, until dusk. It was at that very moment that full of determination, he stood up, grabbed his cane and called for the boy.
The boy came running with a bag on his hand.
-”What happened, why so eager?”
-”Look.”
He paused.
-”We are going on an adventure. Grab your things, we are leaving immediately.”
-”Hey, wait. You must take your vitamins first; they will make you big and strong, so we can both go and get your suit back”
The boy took a small bottle of pills from his bag, and handed one to the old man.
-”Thanks, now we are off to go, please give me some water.”
They went back inside, and as time slowly passed by, the old man couldn’t even remember why he was so upset, or that he once owned a wooden suit.
-By Deborah de la Jara and Raúl Villalta
