Dead Awake: The Last Crossing by hades Read Free Book Online Page B

good and gone, so I waited and gave it
a few extra minutes.
    Blanca was in the kitchen
cooking something for me. I didn’t know what it was, but it sure
smelled appealing. I would be glad to eat with her, now that all
this Malagra business was over. Unfortunately, as I found out, it
wasn’t. As soon as I asked her something about it, she professed
Irvin’s incompetence, when earlier she would have been happy at my
decision to get a second opinion. Now she cried because of how
foolish the man had been.
    He had probably been
drinking and gotten his eyes clouded on some cute girl, she said,
because his interpretation was absurd. She pointed out that there
hadn’t even been a slight reference of any girl in the poem, so how
could he have come up with such a tail about some destined love if
he had not been preoccupied on some barmaid?
    “ An off the wall reading
and translation. It was all rubbish. Basura!” She was crying, even
more so now, because instead of helping me see the light, that old
fool had sent me to an abyss of deceit where the truth would be
screened from me, and there was no way of making me see it now. I
tried explaining it to her. I told her that it was all a mistake,
that there had been another poem, of the same kind, which I had not
told her about because I had just received it. This was the one I
had given to the man, instead of the first, and this one did
mention a girl in it.
    A look of appalling concern
came over her face, and then I thought I shouldn’t have told her
about the other poem. She shook her hands to me in warning defense.
“It is the Malagra! Dons you see. Dis is why he no tell you toos. I
so stupid, mi Tupa. Why you not tell me there is more dan wan note?
He no see. Don’t you see, if you tells him der is more than wan,
then he tells you the same as me.”
    “ Blanca, again with that.
What difference is it if there is one or two? They are both written
the same. There is no mention of bad in either one of
them.”
    “ Yes, but you no see, it
makes a difference. Plis sir, do dis for me. Let Irvin see the
first and he tells it too yous, too.”
    There was no concern in my
part about the matter, and it all had been resolved to my complete
satisfaction. The whole ordeal had been made to calm the poor lady
down, and it had not, so I decided to agree with whatever it was
that she wanted me to do. I most likely wouldn’t go back to
stinky-man, as she said, to get my fortune re-told; but I’d tell
her I would. A small fib wouldn’t hurt in the line of it being used
for something good.
    Her look of trepidation
frightened me. For a moment, I thought that I might give heed to
her warning and believe that there might be something to this.
Anyone would have been scared by the look of that lady. She looked
scarier than any Halloween spook I’d ever seen, so I’m not ashamed
of any momentary lack of reason; but I came to my senses, brushing
it off gingerly.
    Certainly there was nothing
alarming nor disturbing written in either of the two poems. On the
contrary, they were what Irvin had made them out to be: both
beautiful and full of good luck, if nothing else. Thus I set off to
find someone else to translate the new poem into English for me,
seeing as Blanca was so set on being superstitious; but told her
that I was off to find Irvin again.
    Even though I had lied to
her for her own good, I couldn’t stop feeling a little guilty when
looking on her face. The expression told that she felt a little
better and that she held her confidence in me.
    A little while later I
arrived at a bar where I found someone to help me with the
translation of the poem. I would have second-guessed any man’s
translation, but fortunately I found an English teacher from the
local elementary, who had decided to play hooky for the day. He
only charged me three dollars for the task, and had it ready for me
to read by my second glass. I must admit, it made for good reading
with my drink and the strange snacks they had