Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta people. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta people. Mostrar todas las entradas

lunes, 13 de noviembre de 2017

In fashion

   Every single night, Maddie Compton would fix every single piece of clothing she had been able to find in the second hand stores she visited that week. Sometimes they weren’t even fashion stores but places where she could buy the fabric she liked the most and modify it enough to create something no one had ever wore before. She had the advantage of having a great eye for design and a great taste in clothing. After all, she read all the magazines she could get her hands on, for free of course.

 Maddie was not a wealthy woman but she pretended to be, going to the most prestigious parties with the elite of the city. Many loved her designs and praised her for it. She even got some friends during those parties but the truth was that she had accepted the fact she couldn’t’ really get too close to anyone. Realizing that she was not who she said she was wouldn’t have been too hard for someone close to her, so she tried hard not to overstay her welcome in such events.

 She had made some mistakes in the past, as going out after with a guy she had met at the party. It would normally be a one-night stand, as she would escape the room as silently as she could and then leave to her life far away from the skyscrapers and lovely apartments those people had. Sometimes it was really hard for her, because she really wanted to be like them. She wanted that life which was certainly much easier than her own. She wanted to feel people cared about who she was.

 Of course, Maddie knew many of the people she met in those parties were not fully honest with her but it wasn’t possible that among so many people there wasn’t at least one person that actually liked what she did. One of her ideas at first had been to find someone willing to give her money to design dresses for some brand, at least as a test. They were certainly the type to do that but it came to be much more difficult than what she had anticipated. Rich people were too in love with themselves.

 To be fair, she was too. Maddie was the kind of woman that always looks at her own reflection on the mirror in the morning and then several more times during the day. She couldn’t avoid taking pictures of herself and it wasn’t even to share with friends or family, it was just to take a look at herself and try to reinforce some weird acceptance of her own being in her brain. She knew she needed people’s approval to feel she had made it and that’s why she had gone after the opinions of people who mattered, the ones that had money and could take decisions.

 The young woman had made several dresses and then she would sell them in the same stores she bought the ones that she modified and turned into sensations. Many store owners were very grateful for what she did because many of her designs sold very well with younger women that wanted something different to wear at an affordable price. It was the only way for her to make some money, besides working some days in a call center, helping with pizza deliveries from around the world.

 Maddies wanted to live of her designs. That or get one of those rich men to make her a rich woman through marriage but that was a lot trickier because she would began their life together by lying at that was never the best way to initiate a new relationship. Luckily, none of the guys she had dated had ever asked too much about her. Most men her age were too focused on themselves and their own achievements to even ask about what she really wanted out of life.

 It wasn’t the life she would have wanted for herself but it was the one she had and the one that made sense. She needed to insist on her only talent and if making clothes were the way to go, she would try it as long as she could. She made a very small amount of money out of it but it was the only activity that clamed her down and made her feel the world is not as awful as one would think it is, at least sometimes. The sound of her machine was the perfect way to distract her brain.

 It was the exact opposite of the parties she attended where most people were vicious and just loved to tear others apart, especially the women. Maybe it was because they had always been under appreciated, even when they were such wealthy people, but the ladies could be savage with newcomers and when the tastes of others didn’t match what was generally accepted. Maddie had to check all that out before going out to one of those events, in order to be praised but never mocked.

 She was very successful that way. She even decided to learn a bit more about make up and how to achieve a complete look that would fool anyone. She would imitate looks from magazines or inspire herself from those, with her cheap fabrics and dresses and accessories she practically remade herself. She always laughed alone in her apartment, thinking that if a policeman found her there he would think she was managing the least successful pirating ring ever. She did it all perfectly but always in a very small scale, in order not to attract the wrong attention.

 After a very long time trying to make it, Maddie finally attracted the right person for what she wanted to do. Her name was Emilia Gobstone and she was one of the wealthiest women in the city. She had an amazing apartment where many parties were held, having appeared in numerous occasions in many magazines. She fell in love with Maddie and one of her dresses and asked the young woman to make her and her daughters the same dress for a special party in a country club.

 Maddie did as asked and Mrs. Gobstone could not have been happier. The fabric Maddie had used was one of the best she had ever worked with, spending a very large sum to get it. But she knew she needed the best to be successful with that particular request. She was right. The wealthy woman was so happy, that she paid double what they had agreed on in the first place and asked Maddie to make her clothes for every event in the fall season that was getting nearer by the minute.

 With such a success, she decided to retire from going to parties and such and focus more on her dresses and their quality. From the point of view of her craft, she had made the best choice. However, many people wondered where she had left to and it was then when they found out who she really was. Everyone made fun of her in social media, posting pictures they had with her and telling the most awful stories about her. Some were based on things she had said, but they all twisted her words and some were only lies.

 She finished her work on Mrs. Gobstone’s dresses and wrote her a letter apologizing for everything. She sent her creations and the letter one afternoon and then decided to leave the city for a while, needing some fresh air, something she wouldn’t be able to get in such a city, which felt a little bit too crowded sometimes. She grabbed a suitcase, put some of her clothes and just left, trying not to think too much about everything that had happened in the last few years. 

 To her surprise, Mrs. Gobstone’s personal butler found her in her parent’s home, many kilometers away from the city. He told her his mistress needed her urgently and that it couldn’t wait. Maddie accepted the ride and, a few hours later, she was in the woman’s apartment.


 There, the socialite gave her a check to pay for her dresses and told her she wouldn’t be able to hire her again. However, she could do something else for her, as a personal way to thank her for her work. The following week, an specialized magazine called Maddie, in order to arrange an interview.

viernes, 3 de noviembre de 2017

You simply cannot please everyone

   Suddenly, Maxine felt guilty of everything she had ever done and also guilty of things she couldn’t have possibly done. For a single moment, she felt responsible for everything and anything that had ever happened around her. Of course, she was just being silly but that tiny fraction of time sunk itself deep into her core. For days, she felt badly about it all and thinking about not being sad made her even sadder. That unease even translated itself into a powerful aching of the whole body.

 She curled up in bed and stayed there for a whole week, deciding not to go out for her own well being but also for the well being of others. She felt she needed to fix too many things about herself and it wasn’t a good idea to expose others to the mess that was happening inside of her. That guilt was much too powerful and it had taken hold of her. Yet, the only way to get it out was or her to be strong enough and really deal with it instead of trying to shield herself from further harm.

 Maxine felt she had alienated everyone and that it was her fault that all relationships she had with other people had failed miserably in a matter of months. She had been too busy doing her things, trying to stay alive in a world filled with barriers and traps. The woman had expected people to understand her, to get why she couldn’t go out anymore or talk to them as often as they once did. She forgot she had never been a very talkative person, not a really “in touch” friend.

And yet, they blamed her and her decisions for the destruction of their friendships. She was to blame for a lack of communications. When she had heard these accusations, which had come in the form of text messages in her phone, she realized she couldn’t possibly fight the allegations. How in the hell could she make any sense by writing on a cellphone? She couldn’t possibly defend her position and made herself be understood by typing on a machine, waiting for an answer.

 Max asked for all of them to meet, her closest friends and her, in order to sort things out and clear the air. But they all suddenly said they were much too busy for that to happen. Maybe in the future but not right away, not when it mattered and when she could make the most sense. She felt awful because they made her feel she was the one to blame and it was that moment that send her down a spiral of guilt and internal pain that she couldn’t really handle by herself. Or that’s what she had taught. Because that woman, and everyone, is stronger than they think.

 After that awful week, she realized she had to accept that changes happen in life, that she hadn’t done anything badly or said anything that would make anyone part ways with her. She had lived her life in the way she thought she had to in order to achieve what she wanted. It would be very unfair to judge her because of that, to make her the one to blame just because she had decided to take care of herself completely. Maybe it hadn’t been the best thing to do but it was her choice.

 They told her they were also very taken aback by her failures in life, that it was exhausting to hear her complain every time about things that were or were not happening in her life. They told her they were tired of trying to help and they had decided it was not worth it anymore. That was the knife in the back, a big and sharpened knife that they plunged deep into her, an attack that was decisive on how she decided to proceed days later. Every word was branded on her mind.

 It was true she was a failure. She had accepted that as a part of herself, of her personality and of everything that she seemed to be up to that point in her life. It was also true that, once or twice, she had asked for advice. It was only natural to do so with friends. However, it wasn’t true she had been begging for advice or help, as they made it seem. She had only reached out to them, worried that so much time had passed since their last conversation, seeking to rekindle the connection.

 Well, those words had been more that knife, more than any weapon. None of the arms created by mankind could ever hurt as much as those words had. Because they were not only hurtful but they were also mixed with lies and a clear objective to destroy, they had been prepared in advance in order to be ready for the moment she spoke about their clear shortcomings, the same ones she had but that she had been the only one to recognize. Modesty be damned, it was Maxine who spoke!

 It is revolting to think about it now. She had talked about them about talking and trying to get things straight. She still wants to do that and has tried to get it done but they won’t have time for her, not for now at least. She decided to let them live their lives, just as done before. She’ll probably be blamed for that too but she doesn’t care anymore because, for once, she knows she was in the right. She knows now, in this precise moment in time, that she has done everything possible without being a bother to herself or them. That’s as much as she can do right now and, to be fair, she couldn’t say if she would do more.

 That’s one group, the largest one. The others are the kind that just wants her close in case they want something from Max. Maybe they want her body or her connections or her talent for a while, possibly for free. They don’t talk often either and they always seem ashamed when she talks to them and wonders why they don’t talk more often. In that case, she’s not the one to blame, almost the opposite. And that’s not a great position either because they make her feel just as bad, one way or the other.

 This group is manageable and most of them are mostly honest about how their relationship works with Maxine. They both know who they are in those connections and it mostly goes fine, without any annoying moments. They just happen to be people that know each other and that play the game of knowing each other well and liking each other’s lives. It requires a bit of acting but, as it doesn’t really happen that often, it isn’t really a big deal. It’s just one of those human things.

 The last group, being the least crowded one, is the made up by real friends. People that just don’t care what about or when you talked to them. They always have time and words of support. They say the truth, which can sometimes be hard, but they do it because they know that might be the best way to keep a friendship in its best shape possible. They don’t really care what shape their connection takes, they just want to be close to their friends, to Maxine in this case.

 Anyway, people are people and things always find a way to work out eventually. Maxine soon learned that worrying about everything didn’t really help at all and that making all of that take a toll on her could only be harmful to herself and destroy her own life in the long run. Nothing is more important than taking care of yourself, so Maxine decided to do things in her life as she saw fit. If others agreed with her or not, that was their decision to make and she would have to accept changes.


 You simply cannot please everyone. That’s just not possible.

viernes, 6 de octubre de 2017

The golden carp

   Fishing had always been the way to live for Lin and his friends. Fro ma very young age, their parents had taught them the best parts on the river and the ocean where they could easily catch a vast array of fish and other living being from the ocean’s floor. They even had a friend named Chen, who lived his life by diving on the ocean and fishing things that many net couldn’t pull away from the sea. When he was lucky enough to find pearls, he would sell them and stop working for a month or so.

 However, the rest of them could never take a day off or anything like that. They had to work every single day for many hours, from dusk till dawn, no matter how tired and bored they sometimes got. The youngest one of them was Sun, who had only started the year before. He had being made to leave school but, after a very vivid argument, his mother had managed to convince the father to let him stay in school. So Sun had to wake up really early to fish for a while with his father and then he would go back at it in the afternoon.

 It was a hard life for such a young person but it wasn’t a unique thing for anyone on that region. They all had to do things that they didn’t really want for themselves. Most young people, for example, had the ambition to travel to big city, any of them, and being able to live the lives they sometimes saw on advertisements or on the television set, when people had one. It was a matter of doing what was needed to be able to reach that moment when they could choose their own path.

 When in his family’s boat, Sun would often try to do his homework but the fishing rods that he put on the edge would always move in the precise moment he was concentrating, on the verge of getting to a point where he would advance in his studies. He was doing poorly on some of his assignments and he really needed to get better soon if he wanted to get ahead in life. He knew the only way to get out of his town would be to learn more than others, to be smarter than any of the people he knew.

 Suddenly, one of the rods moved violently and then it was pulled into the water. It didn’t float for a moment or anything; it just disappeared in the blink of an eye. Sun leaned over the boat and tried to fish for the rod but the only thing he got out of it was a powerful bit from a huge carp that suddenly came out of the water. Normally, a fish bite wouldn’t really hurt but this one left a red mark on Sun’s hand. However, the weirdest thing was to see the carp looking back at him, almost as if it was staring. Then, out of nowhere, the carp spoke with a deep voice.

 He moved his mouth very differently than a human would but it was obvious that it was the one who was speaking. There were no other boats in the vicinity and Sun was too stunned to produce any words. The fish wanted to know where he was, as he had been following a current for some days and now it seemed he had found himself on the opposite side of the current. He apologized to Sun for biting him, but he explained he had been very scared when looking up and watching a hand reach for something.

 A little bit calmer, Sun rubbed his eyes and moved his hair around: he was obviously surprised but also very skeptical that it was actually happening. It seemed much more probable that he had fallen asleep in the boat and the sun on his head had created some kind of illusions or nightmares. It was very uncomfortable for that to happen, because of the response his parents would have if they looked at him sleeping on the boat. Yet again, he wasn’t very close to the beach.

 So Sun decided to play with the moment and just decided to ask the carp more questions, in order to really understand what was happening. Sun asked the fish where he wanted to go. The animal named a bay that he had never heard about. It had to be somewhere very far, so he just told the carp the name of the river that was nearby and the one of the bay they were talking on. The carp then did something even more unexpected than asking: it yelled, very loud, a very harsh curse word.

 The carp told Sun he really needed to go where he wanted because his whole family was reuniting for a very special event. He explained that he was part of a very special kind of carps that turned golden after a certain amount of time. When that happened, they were allowed to join a special school of fishes that could travel the ocean at fast speeds and could also grant wishes to anyone, human or animal, that came across them. It was a special thing that only they could do.

 Sun then interjected. He was very interested by that story because his mother had told him about how his maternal grandmother had come across a golden carp when she was young. Apparently, the fish had healed her from a very powerful disease that was creeping its way through her young body. The wish had made her well, and even better, it had made her a very vivacious woman until her last day. He remembered her from his toddler years and asked the carp if it was possible to know which carp had granted that wish, in order to give his thanks.

 The carp moved his head from side to side. He explained that golden carps never returned to the same place twice, so it was rather difficult to know which carp had granted which wish. Then, it started swimming back and forth. It was obvious he was really upset by the fact he was going to miss the best and most unique event in his life. Sun realized that, illusion or not, he should help the fish just because he had been the cause of him existing. No grandmother would have meant no Sun.

 He proposed the fish to jump on the boat in order to help him get somewhere, anywhere he wanted. Maybe there were other carps nearby that could help him get to the place he wanted to go. The carp was a bit skeptical of the plan but it really wanted to get to the event so he asked Sun to take him to a place where he could talk to many other fish. Maybe in such a hub he would be able to get some information on how to get where he needed to be. Time was of the essence.

 So Sun pulled the rods into the boat, a net filled with only water and then turned on the engine. The carp told him it would follow from underwater. Sun tried to remember the place where his father would fish every single day but then he realized the place would be crowded and all other fishermen would see the talking carp. Sun still believed he was asleep or maybe delusional, but it wasn’t enough to make him do such a stupid thing. They would capture the carp and kill it or maybe sell it because of its abilities.

 He stopped the boat at least three times; changing courses frequently because he remembered people would be there. Maybe even his friends who would taunt him. When the carp swam to the front and asked why he appeared to be so indecisive, Sun realized he wasn’t dreaming at all. He started taking it more seriously, less like a weird dream and more like something that was really important to do. He turned to the carp and was about to say he was sorry about not being able to help but then he remembered Chen.

 He was a good friend and had told him once where he fished for oysters and other animals. Sun turned on the engine again and in a matter of only minutes they were in the spot used by Chen to have his leisurely life. Then, Sun jumped out of the boat and indicated the carp to follow him.


 The carp followed and they found a colony of mollusks on the ocean floor. The carp started communicating with them and Sun went back to his boat. The carp surfaced later on, thanking him for his help. When the carp left, smaller fish appeared out of nowhere and jumped into the boat. Sun’s family was very surprised by his success.

miércoles, 27 de septiembre de 2017

Words from within

   I have found myself without words, without a real need to speak out, to talk to anyone. I find every person to be utterly dull, to be devoid of anything really interesting to say, of anything that means something to me. Granted, it is my fault and my perception. I cannot explain why it happens and exactly how, but I realize it is something that is part of me and I cannot shake it off and continue my path through this world. Is not as simple as many people things. Demons are stronger, always.

 That does not mean they win every single time. It means the battles are always hard, filled with blood and sweat. And you will lose some of them, hopefully the ones that don’t really matter. If you lose, you learn. And that’s always good but not really. Because when you learn you have to have a good brain inside your skull. If you don’t, well, learning all you want won’t change a thing. You will always have a narrow-minded view of the world and that may not be the best in your life.

 I have learned a lot of things, I believe, both useful and useless. I know the names of all countries in the world and their capital cities but I have no idea how to use numbers beyond the most essential calculations. I know some things, here and there, about some of the world’s personalities, about animals and things all over the cosmos. But I have no idea what love is or what responsibility means for most of the people. I don’t even know if I want to know, but it’s clearly frowned upon.

 Not talking in a world that yells at you every single second of the day could even be dangerous. How to counter all of that crap that enters your ears and body? By talking, by having opinions and thinking. I do all that except the talking because I have found myself noticing there’s no one there to actually listen. And talking is only worth something when someone is listening and maybe they change their views on a subject because of what you said. That’s not happening to me.

 Granted, I’m not saying every single thing I say is worth something, anything for that matter. But I have realized that, as humans, we do need to be listened and for people to care, in any way possible. We need to feel we matter, that the world would be different if we suddenly disappeared. Sadly enough, the world wouldn’t really change if I died now, only a small fraction of it and only for a small amount of time. That’s not drama but a reality and the truth is not always something we want to listen to. But truth does not care about us, only about what is.

 Yet, I may be too much of a drama queen. Maybe every single thing that I’m thinking and writing right now is just in my mind. Maybe I’m worth much more than I feel to, maybe the world would change if I died right this moment. But something in me does not think so. Something inside of me, in my heart or brain or lungs, is trying to tell me that I’m hollow and that I simply don’t matter. Because another truth is that we don’t all matter and we’re just too afraid to realize that.

 So many billions of humans have lived, many more are alive right now and others are being born right now and in the future. Of all that cluster of human souls, only some of them really matter in some way. Maybe they discovered something or they made feel people good. It is possible they fought wars or their love, branded by words, transcended the borders of speech and time and truth. But those people are such a small group in such a vast amount of people. Just people.

 Yes, we all matter to someone, in a way. We all have parents and sisters and brothers and more family. Many have daughters and sons, lovers and pets. There’s always someone that remembers you. However, that may not be enough to some of us, especially when life has decided to make your life different, to make you the one to go through a path that not many people travel. And you don’t feel honored at all because it pisses you off how you feel like a gamble.

 I don’t speak that much because I hate my life. I don’t hate the people in it, because they have done their best. That’s another truth. But I do fucking hate that I have learned so much and really know so little. I hate that this world doesn’t seem to have a place for me. Each second that passes the air around me seems to be getting thinner and thinner. In some ways, I feel like an astronaut that has started drifting away from the spaceship and only has a limit amount of time left.

 I hear the clock ticking and ticking, passing too fast. Because people think there’s torture when time goes slow but that’s not the real nightmare. It is much worse when hours and minutes and days and years pass in the blink of an eye and you feel you’re still in the exact same place, as everyone else moved around and achieved so much. And you, me in this case, are drifting away more and more. Alarms make sounds all around you but there’s nothing really you can do besides waiting. You try to reach, to live, but life doesn’t really want you anymore.

 That’s how it feels. It feels as if you’re drowning slowly and no one should live through that. Not physically or figuratively. We don’t deserve to be killed in the slowest of fashions, as the world looks at us and judges us for not being brave enough to do things that we have no idea how to do. This world is wild, is a rabid animal that has to be tamed. It’s just a savage beast that wants more and more and more and we cannot all comply with its wishes. Maybe we’re too weak.

 That’s a factor, I guess. We might be too weak for this life or, at least, for the way we handle ourselves and everything around us. I find myself to weak write anything more right now. Every single thing takes a toll on our heads and it’s just too difficult to try to handle everything at the same time. It’s too hard and we’re not the same people that before, year ago. Those rugged men and women are not here anymore, maybe in some places thought. Most of us surrendered to our feelings.

 I just wanted you to think a little bit about the state of your mind, about how you really feel and how you live. Reality is a bitch but it’s the one we have to live in for the time we remain on this planet.


 If you can, help someone else live through this. If you can, help me.