Thinkingoutsidethecoop.weebly.com



Bitter SweetsThe corner store was a small, brick rectangle marked with graffiti, bird poop, and one broken window covered with cardboard. It squatted on the edge of the sidewalk like it was about to fall over onto the street. But to my brother and I, it was Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. We made it our mission to convince our parents, or uncle, at least once a week to allow us to come here. We’d clean our rooms, do the dishes, eat our vegetables, and not complain when we had to turn off the television and go to bed.In the store, everywhere we looked we saw the brightly colored candies, twinkling on the brown shelves like jewels. My brother and I would play a game where whoever could empty a shelf of canned peas onto the floor, then put everything back the quickest, because we wouldn’t want to the store owner to yell at us, got one extra candy than the other person. My brother usually won, but that day I was really close. “You’re not going to win forever,” I whispered to him as we stood in line.“Haven’t you been saying that forever?” he asked, laughing at me. When we left the store, our pockets were weighed down with Skittles, Hershey's Kisses, Kit Kats, Twizzlers, Sour Patch Kids, Gummy Bears, M&M’s…We could already feel the sugar coursing through our bodies. We rushed to get home so we could sit on the floor of the living room, our favorite blankets laid out beneath us, stuffing our faces as we watched reruns of Spongebob. That’s what we did every day, but it never got old to us. Plus, we had nothing better to do. As we entered the house, we heard the television set on in my parent’s room. When we left, our parents and uncle were sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of wine open in the middle of the table, laughing over a funny memory from when they were kids. All I heard was something about a goat. The light was still on in the kitchen and their glasses littered the tabletop, but they were gone. “A devastating earthquake has hit the country of Haiti.” We found our uncle and parents hypnotized by the images on the television screen. Homes made of brick and stone were crumbled into messy heaps and buildings leaned precariously to the side, some were ripped apart right down the middle, all of their insides pouring out onto the street. They didn’t notice us. Even when I pulled on my uncle’s shirt to show him what I’d bought. He was always so interested in the candy I’d gotten because I’d let him have a taste of each kind. But today he ignored me. “This is one of the largest earthquakes to hit Haiti in over a century,” the newscaster said with a blank face, hands folded neatly in front of her on the table. “Isn’t that-” My brother was interrupted by the phone ringing in the kitchen.“I’ll get it,” I said, running to the kitchen. “Did you hear the news?” Leila, my older cousin, asked, “About Haiti?” Her voice was quiet and soft like she was telling me a secret, but she wasn’t. Everyone was acting so weird and I couldn’t understand why.“Yeah, I did,” I said. “Why do you sound so sad?” “Don’t you understand?” Her voice rose.“What-” “Our family is in Haiti! Grandma is there. And she might be dead right now!” Dead? But Grandma told me that she wasn’t going to die for a long time. “I can’t miss the family reunions!” she’d said. The family reunion happened once a year, every February 4th. It didn’t matter if that was a Monday or a Saturday, it was always on that day. The day my grandfather died. I can still remember how my mom screamed and cried when she got the phone call one morning, saying her father was dead. I heard her in my room where I had been asleep. Later on, we went to my grandmother’s house. All of my family members were there. For the entire day, we just sat in our grandmother’s living room, not saying a word. Since there were too many of us to fit on my mother’s two small couches, the little kids and some of the adults had to sit on the ground. Every once in awhile, someone would let out a sob, but usually it was silent.It was the first time I experienced someone in my family dying. After today, it’d be normal to me.“I-” I didn’t know what to say. My life was crumbling before my eyes. I wanted to yell at Leila and the earthquake for doing this. I felt frozen now, unable to do a thing. My uncle walked past me to the living room. He sat in the dark for the rest of the night. My uncle never cried, but I was sure that he was crying now. Crying for his wife and two kids who he’d left in Haiti while he looked for a job and home before they came. He always talked about them. Who would he talk about now?The bag of Skittles I was eating fell from my limp hand, the little skittles scattering across the floor.“Why did this happen?” I managed to whisper.“I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet again. “I thought bad things are only supposed to happen to bad people. Grandma isn’t a bad person.” From my earliest memory, all I can remember is my grandmother always telling me that if you're good then good things will happen to you, “Was she lying?” Leila laughed, but she didn’t sound happy.“Yes, but that’s only because she was trying to protect you.”“From being sad?”“No, from being scared.” ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download