‘Searching’ Archives
Searching ”“ A Serial Novelle Chapter 33: In Their Unknowing Grew A Great Joy
The procession was led by a group of children, dressed in bright red vests and carrying the most beautiful stars on thin poles. Each star had a face, and each face had a story. Ahead, the bright star on the church tower grew bigger and bigger. A guitar and the words of a Christmas bolero floated from the tower. All around them, Angel and Luz could see the faces of people illuminated by their candles, and as they prepared to cross 28th Street, the police stopped the traffic and waved the freezing pilgrims through. All around the church steps, brown lunch bags with candles growing. The crowd passed underneath a large banner that said only “¡Bienvenidos!” and entered into the old church. You could almost hear each body release the cold as they stepped into the warm. Luz and Angel intended to sit in the back. Angel had been to church only once in the past few years, for the funeral of his friend Andres, who was shot down in plain daylight on Lake [...]
Searching ”“ A Serial Novelle Chapter 32: Crossing the Bridge
By Patrick Cabello Hansel The next night, the longest and coldest of the year, Luz and Angel were out on the streets walking. Their plans had only extended to meeting at the Mercado Central for dinner, but as they sat in the dining area””Angel eating a Sandwich Cubano from Manny”'s, Luz finishing off her Sweet Corn Tamal and Champurrado from La Loma””they noticed the exhibit of children”'s photographs on the wall. It had beautiful photos of children smiling and butterflies, and strange ones of shadows, feet, and junk in the alley. “Hey, look Luz,” Angel said. “It”'s called ”˜God”'s Backyard”'. What a weird name for a show!” “I think it”'s cute,” Luz replied. “Besides, isn”'t the backyard where things happen: barbecues, toddlers swimming in tiny pools, little gardens of tomatoes and chiles?” “Do you think we”'re in God”'s Backyard?” Angel asked, [...]
Searching ”“ A Serial Novelle Chapter 31: Towards the Unkown
By Patrick Cabello Hansel We use the phrase “love birds” to describe a couple in love who seem to have grown wings of joy. They can be 18 or 19, 80 or 90. It is the quality of their embrace that lifts them off the ordinary ground. When Luz and Angel kissed in the deep snow at the cemetery, they were the love birds we love. When they got up and walked, hand in hand, toward their evil and their freedom, they were birds of a deeper, stranger love. There are no paths in a cemetery after a heavy snow. There are only the stones and the white wilderness. They followed the flight of the hawk they had seen, and walked through knee deep snow towards the center of the holy ground. Without a word, they both stopped at the place they felt they had to. “I don”'t see the hawk””el halcón,” Angel said. “Nor do I.” Then both of them looked up and to the east, and there on a bare branch rested the whitest bird they [...]
