The Most Important Step
Leaving your house in a superstitious country can be a stressful ritual. Nothing makes a person happier here than finding their door step clear; a great omen that rarely happens, especially if you live near downtown.
Christmas time is a particularly complex season. People are now stressed, oversensitive, and more distrustful than ever. Christmas used to be the best time of the year. People did not spare hospitality and generosity. You might find a drunkard in your door step one morning and just lift him up and offer him breakfast or a cold beer (if he was one of those who believed that the best way to avoid a hangover was staying drunk).
Now, people open their doors carefully and check their door step as if they were walking through a minefield. If they find a cigarette butt, a chewed gum, or a snack wrapper, they start sprinkling holy water and speculating about what kind of spell was cast on them and who might have done it. God forbid they find a vegetable, some branch, or a dead animal. That would be enough to call their favorite santero or brujo and start working on the “work” that was done to them.
From early age, mothers and grandmothers teach the young ones to entrust themselves, their day, to god. They make the sign of the cross, say their favorite prayer and then, only then, do they step outside their homes. If they find a drunkard these days on their doorstep, most likely they will put some holy water on the stove, just in case. Nothing like boiling holy water to scare evil in any of its forms or manifestations.
Doorsteps should not be such dangerous places. They are here. They are the most important step of the day. In fact, your whole future can change if you take it lightly and step on a seemingly harmless object or substance that will end up being responsible for all your life’s tribulations.
Thanks for your reading
This was my entry to @mariannewest and @latino.romano’s 5-Minute Daily Freewrite: Thursday Prompt: DOOR STEP. You can see the details here.
Make sure you visit the Freewrite House!!!
