A short story

Once upon a time,

there was a never-read story. It dealt with the silence of a mother and the imperceptible shout of her son. She never realized how much love he felt for her. Sure, he was blind, and dumb: a sweet heritage which made him stronger than all the other people in the world.

She had never heard her son’s voice, but she used to talk to him, at every single moment of the day, to make him acquainted with the sounds of the world. Especially during the night, when she used to tell him tales, she felt so proud watching her son’s eyes dancing with delight. In this way, she realized he was happy. And she was happy too.

You won’t know anything about his father, in this story. You will just know that he threw away the choice to live with them, when he knew about his son’s handicap. And he ran away, moving to Colombia. He just sent them a postcard, for his son’s 7 birthday, attaching a box full of cigars. “Take care of everything. John”. The most pathetic postcard they had ever received.

The mother worked really hard during the years to pay for her son’s “Braille” lessons. She worked night and day in an iron factory, just to let her son’s fingers flow across the papers. And she was able to discover such a great happiness, in the sweet eyes of her son. After five years of lessons, he was able to write stories, he loved writing stories and his mother was so proud of him.

She left the earth during the Thanksgiving Day in 1979. From that point on of his life, the son started writing everything concerned with the beauty of life, becoming one of the most important writers of his country, ending all his books with this sentence: “Thank you, mum, to have tought me how to see life”.

He felt alone. He felt like a child, without his favourite toy. He felt like the sea without his marvellous waves. This is why he decided to start writing a never-read story. A story that deals with the silence of a mother and the imperceptible shout of her son.

And how much love he felt for her.

D.D.