The Gifts by Toni Castillo Girona (read an ebook week .txt) 📖

sort of relationship they had had. It seemed unthinkable to me imaging these two having sex; or being at a gig, or whatever plans normally involved a couple of lovers. No; I knew then, and I think I know now, that my friend never touched her. According to that thought, I watched her moving around the flat, looking here and there, as if that one was the first time she was right there. She was a stranger. So was I.
Over here

, she screamed, waving at me. I reached her and I saw an opened drawer, quite huge, containing some boxes. They looked like gifts, indeed. We picked them up, and put them on the dining room table. There were a total amount of four boxes, more or less looking the same. Well, that's it. There, open them

, I said to her. She looked at me horrified, and I could understand why. Until then, we were more or less merely spectators, some sort of audience attending some bizarre event, but then, inside that flat with all those boxes around, we knew we were about to take part in it.
I love her

, I recalled he told me some years ago, while having dinner I can barely remember where. I really do

. That had to be true, I think. Yes; she froze in front of those boxes, trying to make such a decision. I stared at her, trying to make a move but not being capable of. What do I do now?

, she asked. I dunno

, I think I answered, mumbling. It was obvious: she had to open all those boxes. But there was something impeding her from doing that, and whatever it was that thing, it was impeding me from making her to do that, indeed.
He travelled a lot while being alive. The first place he went was London; then he decided to pay Prague a visit. Each time he came back, he brought some kind of gift for all of us. Something for his mama, something for his papa, something for me, and, of course, something for her

. What I had never come to realize was that all of those gifts were hidden in his flat, inside a drawer, well-preserved, but untouched. And not to mention the mere idea of knowing that, as a matter of fact, what he felt inside was quite different from what she felt inside, so I could at that very moment understand why he killed himself, after all. It was a matter of not being loved, I was positive about that theory. I love her too much. I mean it. I really do

. Yeah, he did. Those four boxes were placed on that table, awaiting us to do something. She picked one and studied it intensively. It was a common box. Go ahead, open it

, I encouraged her. She looked at me as if she realized I was there for the first time, and then her gaze went back to that box she was holding. Okay, I will

.
It was a gift from London. A red telephone booth.
I'm not sure at all, but maybe we both were waiting for something really special to happen, I don't know what, and seeing that so-common red telephone booth, that friend of mine, somehow, had let us down.
The rest of those gifts turned out to be more or less the same, just some kinda sort of foolish things coming from different foreign countries. She looked tired and disappointed. And is that all?

, she said to no one in particular. I fear it is so, yes

.

4

I told you all; he was a stranger. She left the gifts where they were, and got out without looking back. I let her go. I stared for a while at those foolish things he bought somewhere, sometime, and I tried to think what they had meant to him, how he had chosen them all, and why. For he had decided to buy them for some reason, some reason I didn't even understand. I could even imagine him buying them in some kind of shop, smiling while doing so, thinking about the day he would be able to give them to her. I could see that anxiety of his, that odd feeling of being in love, and that made me sick.
I tossed all those gifts back inside that drawer. I got out of the flat, shutting the door behind me. Then, I locked it using the key I still had. I went downstairs, until I could reach the street. It was still raining, and it was cold and windy. I walked for a while, thinking, getting wet. I didn't care. After a couple of minutes, I picked that key up from my pocket and gazed at it intensely. Finally, I threw it out, not even worrying where it landed, in case it did.

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Publication Date: 06-15-2010

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