Twilight's Flash Fiction / Relatos cortos crepusculares

 Ann Ann travelled to Spain on holiday after spending part of her childhood in Madrid. Ever since her father, a distinguished diplomat, had been posted to Spain, the Middle Ages had become her greatest passion. His stories had fired the little girl's imagination, and she had never forgotten those visits to silent, imposing castles that seemed to guard unspeakable secrets. After landing, she went straight to her hotel. That very afternoon she had arranged to visit the Romanesque Castle of Loarre, in the province of Huesca. She took the photographs from her bag and studied them once again. In the most important one, an enigmatic suit of armour stood at the entrance to a magnificent hall. She had examined that photograph countless times because one almost imperceptible detail had caught her attention. Behind the narrow slits of the helmet, something seemed to glow. Could they be eyes? She had travelled all that way for one reason alone: to see the armour up close, although she was con...

  The Cradle In the dim light at the centre of the room stood the magnificent cradle. Aquamarines gleamed from the black ebony of its headboard. A wandering ray of sunlight came to illuminate the hidden faces of the sleeping twins. The cradle was astonished. It had remained alone in that attic for more than forty years, after cradling every child born into the family. Once again, it was the centre of the universe. Such happiness made it hold them close... Closer... Closer still. Until the twins stopped breathing.   La cuna En el centro de la estancia, envuelta en penumbra, se alzaba la espléndida cuna. Las aguamarinas incrustadas en el negro ébano del cabecero brillaban tenuemente. Un rayo de sol perdido vino a iluminar las escondidas caritas de los gemelos, que dormían plácidamente. La cuna se sorprendió. Hacía más de cuarenta años que permanecía sola en aquel desván, después de haber acunado a todos los vástagos de la familia. De nuevo... era el centro del un...

  Sparrow The other day a sparrow came to visit me. He surprised me because these little beings always keep their distance. However, he settled on my shoulder and with his beak seemed to want to tell me something. Without making a sound, he would open his beak wide and his eyes fixed on mine with an inquisitive and pleading look. After a moment, the sparrow took off and flew out the window. That was the prelude to sporadic encounters that took place over several days. The sparrow repeated the same actions every time he came to visit me, and sometimes his trills brightened up my eternal sad moments. But one day that look shone in a special way. The reason was two small tears that left his eyes. The sparrow lowered his head, following with his eyes how those tears fell until they collided with the palm of my hand. Then he looked at me with an eternal gaze and left. I never received a visit from him again until a long time later he came to say goodbye. He perched on my bedroom...

  Rain On sad Autumn days, the rain whispers to me. Every drop confidences me. She tells me where she has been in ancient times and tells me where she will be in a million years. Some, the smallest, are singsong, and sneak into the nests that time weaves with the lives of melancholic souls. Others, almost gigantic, pass by, giving themselves importance, although later they return and caress you. In the end, some return to the oceans. Others are dropped on the ground and when they reach the depths they agree with the gnomes and the beings of the forest their future.   Lluvia En los tristes días del otoño, la lluvia me susurra. Cada gota me hace confidencias. Me dice donde ha estado en épocas remotas y me confiesa donde estará dentro de un millón de años. Algunas, las más pequeñas, son cantarinas, y se cuelan entre los nidos que entreteje el tiempo con las vidas de las almas melancólicas. Otras, casi gigantes, pasan de largo, dándose importancia, aunque luego vuelven y t...

The Bridge A peaceful autumn day. The sweet colors of the withered leaves of the trees on the ground accompanied us as we strolled down the hill. They were trees acclimated to the unrepentant lunar solitude that, together with the brilliant image of the Earth's surface, reminded us of our childhood on Earth. We had recently purchased a building in the complex located on the Sea of ​​Serenity. The complex had been baptized with the name of "The Bridge", referring to the flexible tubular structure that linked the Earth with the Moon. We had used the bridge very often to travel to Earth, and access to it was an imposing transparent hemisphere sealed from the outside. That morning, after our walk, we decided to visit the hemisphere, within which all kinds of businesses proliferated, to try to buy some luminous flying gadgets for our house. The surprise was unspeakable. We barely had time to close the gates, outer space became a solid, impenetrable mass and the possibility...

Mohammad Shaban He only has the imagination, the memory of what his eyes saw before he lost them. Mohammad is a handsome boy. His cheeks declare his love for life. He has not lost his smile, nor has he lost the illusion for so many things that he has to live in the future, his future. Someday somewhere, someone will return his sight and he, grateful, will continue to smile at the world and forgive, if forgiveness is possible in this difficult world. From @AndredeVegte6 https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1427002637384404995/photo/1   Mohammad Shaban Solo le queda la imaginación, el recuerdo que lo que sus ojos veían antes de perderlos. Mohammad es un niño guapo. Sus mejillas declaran su amor por la vida. No ha perdido la sonrisa, ni ha perdido la ilusión por tantas cosas que tiene que vivir. Algún día en algún lugar, alguien le devolverá la vista y él, agradecido, seguirá sonriendo al mundo y perdonando, si es que en este mundo difícil cabe el perdón. De @AndredeV...

Motherhood We were crossing Sherwood Forest when Marian, my wife, went into labor. We were on our way to Edwinstowe to join William I's army. The dark night made it impossible to tell how close we were to Edwinstowe. Marian, in severe pain, leaned against the base of a tree. I, with the help of a torch, tried to help her give birth. After an interminable moment, something detached itself from her body. It was a kind of shiny oval stone. Stunned, I didn't know how to explain it to Marian. She stared at me and looked at what she hoped was a newborn. Her features transformed and she began to scream and cry bitterly. Then she lost her mind. She picked up the thing and caressed it, wrapped it in a blanket and kissed it. Dawn surprised us exhausted. Marian had not slept. Next to her face rested that shiny stone. As if she were a baby, she sang and kissed it, moving her hand as if something invisible was caressing her. I decided we couldn't get to Edwinstowe so we stayed the...

 Purgatory and Nothingness Two soulmates were planning how to escape together from purgatory. They observed that every day during the change of guard of the couple formed by the angel and the devil who guarded the great exit doors, that the doors, awake almost twenty-four hours, fell asleep for a minute, until the new pair of guards appeared. They dressed in their best clothes and with the greatest stealth they crossed the space that separated purgatory from nothingness. When they fell into nothingness they did not know what to do and tried to return to purgatory. Impossible! The doors no longer existed. Then the nothingness asked them about the feelings that united them. One of the souls blushed. Nothingness got as close as it could to the other soul. It gave off so much light that nothing dared to touch it, and nothingness was surprised that a soul that had just escaped from purgatory was so extraordinarily bright. The verb escape is not a kind word and leaves a trail of question...

Sadness I am in the waiting room of a hospital. My wife, Sara, has had a heart attack. She's is in the operating room since more than three hours. After trying to find out something by asking the nurses, she finally approaches the surgeon. I'm shaking. The uncertainty does not let me speak. "Are you Sara's husband?" "Yes. Is she OK?" "We have saved her in extremis. The images we took of her heart before the operation showed something undefined moving towards the right atrium. When I opened her chest, and entered the vena cava, something was trying to hide. I used tweezers and managed to catch what looked like a piece of paper. And it was amazing, it had the word 'sadness' printed on it. If we had waited a few hours, sadness would have entered his heart and surely he would have died. Please take care of her and don't let something like this happen to her again in the future." Tristeza Estoy en la sala de espera de un hospital. Mi muj...

  A Little Bouquet of Flowers Several poor sentiments were trying to reach the shores of the country of rich thoughts by boat. When they were very close to reaching their dream, the boat capsized and most of the sentiments drowned. One of them managed to reach the shore. There some thoughts with life jackets were waiting for him. As feelings know the language of flowers, when he reached the shore, the feeling offered one of the pansies a little bouquet of flowers that he had been taking care of during the whole trip. As feelings and thoughts speak different languages, the thought did not know what to say. A day later, the sprig of flowers had been left scattered on the sand and the sentiment was returned to its country inmediately. Un ramito de flores Varios sentimientos pobres intentaban llegar en patera a las costas del país de los pensamientos ricos. Cuando estaban muy cerca de alcanzar su sueño, la patera zozobró y la mayoría de los sentimientos murieron ahogados. Uno de ...