The Final Solstice

⚘ | Prologue

⋇ ⋆ 𖤓 ⋆ ⋇
Somewhere in Southern Spain, 1974
Ana

                Erma Bombeck said that children make you want to start your life over.
I always interpreted it as figurative, but after withstanding 44 748 seconds of being chained to a bed with doctors prodding me like a lab sample and fluorescent lights pounding into me harder than what it took to get pregnant, it was definitely meant in the literal sense: and not willingly. In the past 12 hours of labour, I've taken the liberty of modifying her take on it, because whether you like it or not, children make your life start over. If not mentally, then literally, because they will be the death of you.

If not now, then later, with their childish antics.

If you were to ask me what it was like being pregnant behind bars, I'd say it was mediocre at best. I remember when I was 16 and teachers would ask me where I saw myself 10 years into the future. I always thought I'd amount to something rather interesting. A baker, maybe. I had hoped to open up a bakery in Andalusia. My fantasy of the inauguration of my 2-story yellow bricked building got me through most of high school, for I wanted nothing more. I took up a part-time job, saving every cent I could. La Panadería Andaluza, I would name it. Lots of people found it absurd, though I always found baking to be quite fulfilling. For as long as I can remember, I've been the sentimental type, and baking is the most passionate thing I could do. It's the memories of my family sitting together trying my fifth strawberry tart recipe that's made it so dear to me.

Whilst everyone else wanted to make a name for themselves and become doctors or celebrities, I just wanted to live a simple life in a simple town. The thought of making my name known to the world and changing the game never really appealed to me because deep down, I'm not interested in making something out of myself. My happiness wasn't my national success but opening my bakery, which in a way is a success in itself. Oftentimes at school when I brought up the idea, people would laugh. But I let them, and they'd laugh away, despite not progressing with their own ambitions. I guess that's the problem with limiting yourself to what you know, you can't excel peoples expectations, but only graze past them.

"You limit yourself to what you know, is that it?" my mom would ask.

"Yes, it's exactly that." I respond with a simple nod.

She glances at my savings jar gathering dust on the counter.

It was a child's dream, that's what I convinced myself. I would say for years that the minute I graduated high school I'd buy a one-way train ticket out of Madrid, taking my savings along with me to start my bakery. But when the time came, I couldn't. I was scared. Though, I wasn't scared of starting my bakery, I was scared of failing it. Of leaving the only place I knew and practically throwing myself into an abyss with no plan and nothing but a simple dream. My dream wasn't enough.

So I gave up.
My mom told me never to leave a job half-finished, but this one doesn't count since technically I didn't start it at all. One simple reality check was all it took for me to realize that my dream was nothing more than just a dream: an intimate fantasy I concocted to cope with my ailing reality.

"You're really not gonna do it?" my mom continued to press.

"No, I don't think so."

She got quiet for a moment.

"Why not?"

"Because it won't work."