Small Fires (standard:romance, 4099 words)
Author: Colombianito	Added: Jan 04 2008	Views/Reads: 3098/2120	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A fire starts burning in a young heart and is extinguished prematurely

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

the morning but I was usually knocking on Elias' door some time around 
six in the morning. His house was a little more than a block away from 
mine and that morning walk was at once invigorating and dreadful. I was 
uplifted by the cold morning air and the sight of a dark pink sky that 
at dawn was background to blue and black hills to the East of the city, 
but my trance was abruptly broken when Elias would open the door 
wearing his yellow robe, his black crest ruffled and his face covered 
in random patches of black and silver stubble. The first time he 
welcomed me in this fashion I was sure that his shriveled neck wasn't 
much thicker than my wrist. Together, we would head toward the 
backyard, passing through the kitchen, where I learned to look for 
clues of whether he had coffee or hot cocoa ready for me, which was 
frequently the case. The old man's tenderness and consideration toward 
me made the eight or nine-hour scorching shift easier to tolerate. 

It wasn't entirely clear to me why Elias was no longer making the cones
himself, though the signs of his frailty (his shaky hands, his lack of 
strength, his slouched posture) were apparent enough to allay my 
curiosity. Every day, after brining me a cup of coffee or chocolate, he 
would retreat into what I could only guess was another part of the 
house where I couldn't hear him or see him, unless the occasional 
burner caught on fire and his acute instincts summoned him to the 
rescue. I would spend the rest of my work day making the cones, filling 
the gas tanks, and searching for some form of refreshment among expired 
milk bottles and various plastic and paper bags stuffed with mysterious 
contents in the refrigerator. 

Then came Paloma. She was the younger of Elias' two daughters. The older
daughter, Marcela, had come by the house a handful of times while I was 
there. "The doctor is coming to check on me", he said to me once, 
referring to Marcela's upcoming visit, and I knew this was a loaded 
statement as he had earlier told me that Marcela worked as a secretary 
of some sort, not as a doctor. Marcela was an icicle of a woman. Her 
stern gaze and unadorned straight hair watered down her vague 
handsomeness and gave her an air of inappropriate strictness, like the 
incarnate caricature of a catholic school librarian. During one of her 
visits, she asked me with apparent concern for details about Elias' 
daily routine, which I was able to offer only to a limited degree. 
"He's usually awake by the time I come in and then I think he goes into 
another part of the house," I said cautiously, as I didn't want to say 
anything that might cause unnecessary concern; "and some times he comes 
to check on me throughout the day, but not every day necessarily," I 
concluded. It was two weeks or so after that mysterious interrogatory 
that Paloma moved in. 

The post-Paloma days started in much the same way they did before and
Elias continued to greet me at the door in all his dawn splendor, but 
by ten or so, after he had retreated into nowhere, Paloma would call me 
into the dining room for an invariable breakfast of two fried eggs over 
easy, served in the tiny pan they were fried in and still floating in a 
shallow pool of warm oil, a white corn pancake on the side, and a large 
cup of hot chocolate. I used what manners I knew to eat the much 
welcomed treat, though manners only mattered when Paloma walked by the 
room on her way to one chore or another because for the rest of the 
meal, I was always the only person at the immense table. The first time 
she offered to make me breakfast I felt my cheeks flush, however hot 
they already were from standing near the burners. She had been pulling 
weeds from around the base of a small and naked fossil of a bush that 
stood in the corner across from the cone-making area. I was mortified 
by the urge to make small talk, which seemed appropriate and necessary 
given that the width of the yard - or the distance between us - was no 
more than fifteen feet, but I was plagued with insecurity and didn't 
think it physiologically possible for my pubescent intellect to 
construct a thought compelling enough to engage a mature woman in her 
late twenties. I was also intimidated by her intense beauty. Unlike 
Marcela, Paloma's handsomeness was magnified by inebriating grace and 
charm. Her round face was framed by a square jaw and by a mane of 
layered, chestnut colored hair that she let hang unfettered and flow in 
and out of her face as she went about her chores. Her gaze was locked 
into a permanent expression of wonderment by her gracefully arched 
brow. And her eyes dazed me. They were slightly slanted, sleepy, and 
their dark brown irises were set off by her milky white skin. Paloma 
seemed almost too stately and delicate to be the daughter of a sugar 
cone maker and to be on her hands and knees on the dirt, behind me, 
pulling weeds from the ground. My hands felt cold, and judging from the 
spoon I used for pouring flour mix, they were also shaking. I 
considered asking her how long she was staying for or where she had 
been living before, but the answer to either question would require an 
endless string of follow-up questions and reactions that I was in no 
way equipped to handle. Then she tapped my shoulder. My sweaty and 
stinky shoulder. As I turned to look, my heart beating in my throat, 
she was already moving toward my right side, and stopped not two feet 
away from my crumbling body. "How about some breakfast?" she asked as 
she wiped off her hands, the dirt nearly missing the freshly made bowl 
of mix I had sitting on the counter, and all I could think about was 
the fortunate fact that we were the same height, as by then it had 
become apparent to me that I was destined to be a short man. "You need 
some fuel, just like those damn burners!" I took her face in, quickly 
scanning her thin and smirking lips and up toward her expecting eyes, 
and I was barely able to mutter a shaky "that would be nice, thank 
you". 

I sat at the table, back and neck straight and hands crossed in front of
my chest, giddy and dizzy with excitement, but also embarrassed and 
self-conscious. I didn't know if we would be eating breakfast together, 
so I was running through as many possible small talk scenarios as I 
could while I waited. "Here you go, sir," and she pushed the hot cup of 
chocolate towards me with her thumbs, like an offering, and then she 
went back to the kitchen to fetch the eggs and the corn pancake, which 
she carefully arranged on a place mat in front of me while I looked her 
in the eye and flashed her the smile of a man happily drunk or mildly 
sedated. "Enjoy," she said as she left the room for a part of the house 
unknown to me. The hot chocolate was a spicy elixir that cleansed me 
and filled my chest with fiery strength and the eggs and corn pancake 
overwhelmed my taste buds with culinary glory. When I finished the 
meal, I brought the dishes to the kitchen and resumed what turned out 
to be a day of particularly high sugar cone output. 

For days after that, I only saw her at breakfast time, though there was
evidence of activity around the house throughout the day. At times, I 
would hear a vacuum cleaner upstairs or the radio coming on in the 
living room, but no Paloma or Elias. Breakfast became the highlight of 
my days, initially, because of the novelty of it and the beauty of its 
maker, and later, simply because of the genuine thoughtfulness of the 
gesture. It all became part of the new routine. Knowing that there was 
someone else in the house in case Elias lay cold and blue, inert in 
some secret room in the house was a bit of a relief. There were rare 
times when Paloma would come into the yard to install a new water hose 
or to shake a rug and she would say thank you for helping her dad out 
or ask me what else I did besides working there, and each of those 
fleeting moments was a treasure. They would replay in my head like 
short movies and removed from my body, I would evaluate my own dialog 
and acting like a bitter critic. I'm such a dork, I would think, or I 
should have said this or that instead, or she thinks I'm cute, smart, 
interesting, I would derive from an innocent remark. The heat baked my 
thoughts into a hard crust of obsession. I wished there were a 
television I could watch to occupy my mind while working. 

Then came the big fire - big by my standards because it spread beyond
the burners to my foot. It was early, a bit after eight, and I had been 
working for less than two hours when a loud puff took me out of my 
morning trance and sent my hand reaching for my rag. I felt flames 
shooting up from the bottom of my right foot. The compromised extremity 
had never been a part of the equation so out of habit, I began to swing 
the rag at the burners while I fruitlessly swung my foot in the air 
without even looking at it. "Ay!" screamed Paloma from the backyard 
door and while I dabbed the last of the stubborn flames, she painfully 
whacked my foot with a doormat she must have been preparing to dust off 
in the yard. With the fires subdued, there was silence, and then 
Paloma's wild laughter. I laughed too, for two or ten seconds, when 
Elias ran in, shirtless. "What the hell is going on?" he asked, 
dumbfounded, like a lost puppy. Paloma put her arms around him, still 
laughing. "A stupid fire, dad. You need to throw those damn burners out 
and close shop, or buy new ones." I must have blushed if that was 
possible. The burners were fine, they just had to be wiped before 
operating them, like Elias had said. "Are you OK, kid?" "Yes, I'm OK, 
thank you." I was an awful kid not to mention a liability, and neither 
Elias nor Paloma knew that. In a secret act of contrition, I wiped the 
tanks religiously from there on. 

The next day, even before breakfast, Paloma came into the yard to greet
me. "How's the foot?" she asked and when she looked down at my foot, 
her permanently surprised look turned into one of panic. "Tell me 
you're not wearing the same shoes as yesterday," she commanded as she 
bent over to grab my leg by the calf and inspect the right shoe 
herself. I hoped my leg was smooth after the fire burned off much of 
the hair on it. This was the first time we touched and I nearly lost my 
balance. "The shoe is fine, just a bit toasty. And the foot is fine 
too" I said coyly. "You're crazy. I love it - I'm glad you're fine", 
she said, and went back into the house. I was glad too, elated. She had 
saved me, touched me. That afternoon, after I finished my shift and 
went home to shower, my mind and my heart soared. I lay in bed, clean 
and relaxed, and fueled by a surge of bubbling hormones, I daydreamed 
about the passionate rendezvous that awaited me with Paloma. She would 
know how to evade Elias in the house and find us a safe place to do all 
the things that I had never done with a woman before. I was going to be 
ushered into manhood by a gorgeous archetype of flesh and blood. I 
would blossom into a man quickly and our secret would make me proud. I 
would impart amatory lesson to my naïve peers, while respecting the 
anonymity and dignity of the lady that made me a man at sixteen. I 
began to love my job. 

Elias was clean-shaven and dressed in a dark grey suit, no tie, when I
came to work the next day. "What's the occasion?" I asked and he said 
he had to go to court, and he didn't seem to welcome follow-up 
questions. I didn't see Paloma all day though Elias had left breakfast 
for me on the table. "Heat it up if you need to" he said before he 
left. I was tempted to explore the secret caverns and passages of the 
house, find where Paloma's bedroom was and where Elias retreated to 
when he left me to my own devices at the mini-factory, but I felt 
compelled to honor their trust in me by leaving me in the house by 
myself and I also thought it possible that there was someone else in 
the house that I didn't know of and who could discover me snooping 
around. 

On Friday, we kissed. Paloma greeted me at the door and offered me
coffee. I was thrilled to see her become more a part of the routine and 
less Elias. "Dad is sleeping," she explained. Instead of calling me to 
the kitchen to grab my cup of coffee like Elias always did, Paloma 
brought it out to me. "You're not planning on any fires today, are 
you?" she asked and I was taken aback by the question, feeling exposed 
and defensive. "What do you mean?" I asked with an intentional hint of 
indignation. "Chill out, I'm kidding" and she grabbed both my cheeks 
between her thumb and index fingers and squeezed. I was weightless and 
covered in goose bumps. Happy. 

At ten, breakfast. When I sat down at my usual place, there were two
steaming cups of chocolate on the table. I felt faint. She had touched 
me again and now we were going to share a meal. My stomach balled 
itself into a fist. Then she appeared carrying a tray with hers and my 
eggs and corn pancake. She set the tray down, took the pan with her 
eggs and the plate with her corn pancake out of the tray and put them 
on top of her place mat. She took a bite of her pancake. "I thought I'd 
keep you company for a change". This was richer and more endearing than 
any of the wild fantasies I had interweaved two days before. We ate and 
talked. Or mostly I talked. She asked me many questions about school, 
home, and girlfriends - some of whom I made up on the fly - and we had 
a lovely meal. And the fires came up again. "I was very impressed at 
how you handled that fire," she remarked. I took the compliment humbly 
but felt a stab of remorse for being the very cause of the crisis. 
"Honestly Paloma, I feel partly responsible," I confessed, "Elias has 
shown me many times how to clean the burners but maybe I'm not doing it 
as well as I could," and as I uttered that last word, I felt liberated. 
"Don't be silly," she said, "dad shouldn't be running those ancient 
things in the first place and I'll bet you they'd catch on fire just 
from sitting there by themselves." I was most definitely in love. "You 
are as brave as you're cute". She squeezed my cheeks again. Something 
grew in my crotch and I had to remain seated well after she had picked 
up the table for us. 

I felt like whistling and bobbing my head like one of the seven dwarfs,
happy at work. My prospects were bright and lovely. At five, after 
cleaning up my workspace, I washed my hands with hot water and scrubbed 
the caked-on flour off my hands and fingers. Then I dried them with an 
old towel and as I descended the five or six steps to the living room 
to reach the front door, I noticed that Paloma was sitting on the 
couch, leaning into the radio as if intently trying to tune into an 
evasive radio station. When she saw me, she gave me her biggest smile 
and I froze. "I'll walk you out," she said getting up and walking in my 
direction. Together, we walked to the door, which she opened for me. 
"Have a good weekend", we said at the same time, and she put her left 
hand between my shoulders and motioned to kiss me in the cheek. I 
leaned forward and planted a dry and awkward peck on her right cheek. 
Then she moved the hand she had on my back toward my face and brought 
my face back toward hers, and kissed me in the lips. My knees buckled. 
"I'm sorry," I said as if I had just crossed some sacred boundary. In 
my fantasies, I had been the dominant initiator, so it was a reflex 
that made me react like I would if I made an advance that was 
unwelcome. "What are you sorry for?" she comforted me, "have a good 
weekend, silly!" 

I did nothing all weekend besides thinking about Paloma and compulsively
relieving my pent up desire for her. I counted the hours until Monday 
rolled in and we could resume our love dance, which I hadn't realized 
she was leading. I was filled with excitement and dread for the 
culmination of our mating ritual when I wouldn't know what to do or how 
to act, but I was prepared to run away after the act and never see her 
again if I could hold on to the honor of being in her naked presence. 

On Monday, I had showered and gotten dressed well before the alarm went
off. I walked to Elias' house, shaking from the morning cold and from 
pure sexual madness. I inhaled a deep cold breath and knocked on the 
door. Marcela - not Paloma or Elias - opened it. She was dressed in the 
same drab white lady suit she was wearing the last time I saw her. I 
was confused, disoriented, and I exhaled all my sexual rage in one big 
puff and was left deflated. "Hi, Ruben" Marcela said with 
uncharacteristic warmth, perhaps noticing my confusion. "I'm sorry my 
dad didn't get a chance to tell you this, but we're closing shop". 
"Where is Paloma?" was all I seemed to care to ask. "She and her 
husband went back home on Saturday, so I'm moving in with my dad. This 
is from my dad and again, he's very sorry" and she presented me with an 
envelope containing the equivalent of four week's pay, four weeks being 
what was left of my school break. 

After I left, I circled the block for a few minutes, perhaps expecting
to wake up and find things back where I left them on Friday. Then, I 
sat on the curb in the corner down the street from Elias and looked up 
at the sky to the East, and saw the sun, starting to burn the clouds 
from pink into bright orange.


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