Emerald: A Compilation Of Short Stories

Thiago

The light emitting from the creases of the curtains lit up the room. I watched as the light traveled from the smallest crease to the biggest wall in my room. I watched as the light went from one place to another, missing many corners of the room. I had heard the water flushing down into its destiny coming from across the hall. My mom was awake. That had woken me up. It had woken me up from my deep sleep that I cannot try to fall into again. I watched the silent room from my bed calmly until the sound of a faint, almost gasp-like noise filled the room. Was someone in the room? I looked left to right rapidly until the sound of my mom's room's door unlatch reached my ears, and I went back to my original position and acted like I was asleep.

After my mom "woke" me up, I stared at the window, almost like if I was in a trance and totally forgot about the gasp-like noise. On the other side of the window, a group of trees swayed in the wind. I imagined them as a family, dancing together; a family that I don't have. I felt mellow for a few seconds, but I felt a sudden urge to be confident and happy. So, I got up out of my bed, and walked out of my room with my head raised and my shoulders lifted with the weird, but calming feeling that someone was behind me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sat down at my seat at the dinner table and casually chatted with my family while we waited for my mom to come downstairs. In that time, we were talking about unity and I gave my weekly monologue of something I had recently learned:

"So, I recently learned about the hardships of the world and they mainly consist of disease, lack of a substance, and lack of education. And, there are also wars between countries and within those countries, there are wars between their own citizens. Why do we always keep fighting? Yes, we may have disagreements and maybe we just don't like each other, but is this the correct option for the Earth? The amount of damage to natural resources, landscapes, and just civilization in general is so vast that the next generation's children will live on a disgusting planet. We need to do something. We should give back to our communities and the globe and promote love. I bought the Just One Africa shirt, which gives 5 people in Africa water for life. More humans need to do stuff like this and promote positivity than create wars over reasons that could be solved without violence." I exclaimed. My sister and dad were happy that I said that because they believed it was a real issue too.

After my mom walked down the stairs and got to her seat, she told us a speech that let us know that my grandma was very glad that we were trying to stay positive through tough times. She said something in her speech and our conversation after that stood out to me and made me shocked:

My mom talked about emeralds and how that represented unity and how my parents were bringing my aunt and my cousins to America for a better life. I loved that she said this, but I was shocked because of something that happened earlier that day. Earlier that morning, I had a dream about us eating dinner at a restaurant with my cousins. At this restaurant, however, the windows and glass decorations were made with emeralds. The more I thought about the dream, the more I wanted to make sure that those windows and decorations were polished and had not one crack in them.