Chapter IV A rude sailor

Whims

Angeline and Mindy the afternoon they met for the first time, they felt that they were united by a rude sailor with whom Mindy only shared with him the first days of her childhood, for which she did not remember anything of her life at that time. Thomas already old and tired is that he came to meet her after her mother passed away, however she received him affectionately since despite her absence her mother had always spoken wonders about her father.

One of the whims that his father had brought from his stay on the island was that of handling toothpicks in a coconut, to her that daily habit of he caught her attention and was one of the inexplicable things for her that he did.

(End 5 minutes)

When the sisters began the conversation, they both wanted to know more about their father's hidden personality. To break the ice, the first one who raised her doubts was Mindy, who still kept one of the objects that had toothpicks in a coconut as a souvenir. So when she told her sister, she was excited because she also had one of those memories there on the island where she lived. She explained that he loved playing with toothpicks in a coconut since it made him remember his days as a sailor in which he set the course of the ship taking into account the orientation given by the stars. This had been explained to her several times by her father, so much so that he tried to train her in those arts of navigation without being able to understand it.

Occurrences

With the most relaxed conversation, Angeline began to narrate the days that her father spent on the island from the time she was little until the moment she returned to her country, He was a wonderful, kind man, lover of the sea and fishing, Always in the afternoons before sunset, he would approach the seaport of the city to see the last rays of the day shine on the horizon, he always approached the sailors who came from other places to give them advice on how to carry out their profession with ease and enthusiasm. He always identified with them, so much so that they frequently drank beers at a bar near the port.

Mindy listened attentively to her sister Angeline's account of her father's life on that island, one of the things she wanted was saw her photos of him of that time.

She then extracted a pocket album from her wallet in which she treasured several of those moments, Mindy when seeing the photos caught her attention how handsome her father looked for those times, one of the things that most caught his attention is that as the years passed he looked fatter in those photos, then she asked why he had done that, Angeline replied:

"Well, one of the jobs that my father had on the island was that of security guard, however, the company he worked for wanted the profile of the worker to be like that of a fat bodyguard"

Hearing that explanation, Mindy laughed, exclaiming:

"To think that when he returned to the city he was already very thin and some of his clothes gave the impression that the size of these did not correspond to him"

They both nodded, knowing that they had great affection and respect for him. At that moment the waiter approached them to take their order.

Both asked as a slush lemonade drink to quench their thirst, he showed him the letter in which the different presentations of sandwiches appeared, they selected one that consisted of tomato slices and cucumber sprinkled with pepper. Something that came mind their is that this was one of their father's favorite dishes.

The innkeeper after taking their order, took about fifteen minutes to bring it, meanwhile, they continued talking about the life of his father on that island. When the waiter returned seeing that they were both absorbed in the conversation, he quietly served her the dishes, so Angeline reacting said:

"Friend, don't worry, we're talking about family memories and you're not disturbing us at all"

He then said to them:

"Well I always try to make my customers satisfied, so I am attentive to the details."

After he retired, they both began to consume the sandwiches and the juice, sometimes laughing at the occurrences that Angeline told about her father.

It seemed unusual to Mindy that her father had spent her days on that island in that way, her mother always spoke wonders of the rude sailor who had shared a few years with her of which they had a daughter in common. When she asked her mother about him, she never said bad things about him, she was always building him up.

However, she began to feel sad as she did not understand why she had not shared those happy years with her father, but did so when she was older.

Seeing her change her face, Angeline consoled her, saying that not everything she said really happened, but only that in her heart she kept the happiest moments of her father's life on the island and discarded the memory that he lived in anguish and desperation to be paying sentence on the island where they lived.

Those bad memories removed them from his mind since they did not bring him joy and his mother, his father's partner, had to deal with these situations on many occasions. She always told him that the only thing left for him to do was to have patience since time and distance solved everything.

Listening to that reasoning, Mindy realized that Angeline was a woman with a good heart and an excellent intelligence. Commenting on it, Angeline said:

"Don't worry, that's not why I feel different, my father always raised me with solid principles and values"

Hearing all that, Mindy stopped talking and told her that she had to leave since that day she had listened enough and had no heart to continue listening more details about her father's life.

Both of them said goodbye with a hug and agreed to meet again.

Reflections

Angeline after saying goodbye to Mindy, I wait a while longer sitting in that place, she felt that she was beginning to take a weight off her since she was fulfilling her father's wishes that she meet her half-sister.

She was found, a simple and hard-working woman who until that moment wished that her life had no problems, however, like her the one who until now had carried most of the conversation really for her was still a stranger so in her mind still qualified her as her father's daughter.

She saw that her father had been right to return to meet her and try to make up for some of the lost years that he had spent both as a sailor and condemned on that island, this led her to think that complete happiness could never be achieved unless he intended improve your education and finish your specialization studies.

Being in that city still unknown to her was representing her fighting to achieve new ideals. And maybe Mindy could help her since when she kept some of her father's belongings there they could find the keys that he always mentioned to her about a hidden treasure that he kept in a secret place.

The return to the hotel

After thinking about all this, her head began to spin, feeling a little dizzy from the exhaustion she decided it was time to return to the hotel.

She was already beginning to feel at home, despite the bustle of the city, her senses began to adapt to the noise and smells that came out of the restaurants and the smog of the cars. She entered the subway station, this time she already knew how to buy her return ticket, she took the ticket, went through the control machine and waited on the platform. When the train arrived, she entered the train until after several stops the speaker indicated the stop where she had to stay.

When she left there, her hurried walk to the hotel did not reveal how tired she was, she had to do it that way because she was located in a neighborhood unknown to her and it was a bit late.

After entering the hotel lobby at the reception, she asked for her room key, the manager at the time gave her a sealed envelope telling her that she should open it when she was alone. She felt at that moment that her life now began to have mysteries to unveil.

(the story continues)

© 2020, Felix Garcia P. All rights reserved

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As today is the fifth day of the challenge, I have completed 1449 words.

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