The Two Sides of Yourself

By G.A. Segovia

If you find yourself as a main character in any of these stories, you are only human.

If you don’t, you are in denial.

This intriguing and powerful collection of prose reflects on the many complex facets of the human experience. The diverse narratives, perspectives, and characters in the stories touch on a number of experiences and emotions that everyone will relate to at one point or another in their lives, which is what makes the stories so captivating.

From family to love to loss to religion, the stories are sure to draw readers in and allow them to truly contemplate about what it means to be human, and the many shared experiences and emotions we have that make us so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781638295082

G.A. Segovia

I am a man from the south who hardly speaks and understands your dialect. I’m invisible to you but you are real to me. My biography is the assimilation of your assumption and expectations. The emotional state of your life decisions. My work is the reflection of what you are. A short story of what you are and what you want to be. I’m your spectator.

Book preview

The Conversation

After the snow has melted, the crystalline water runs in temporary rivers. The sun patiently displays its long and laborious job of drying what has been washed. The dormant trees and bushes compete by sprouting their fragile leaves, and the beginning of spring appears with colorful flowers. The perfumes will awaken the lazy creatures, announcing that it is time to participate in the sublime party that well-honed creation.

I have seen this enigmatic event, time after time. The miracle of life unfolds, revealing the interdependence of all living things.

The butterfly complains, I have been working so hard but there are so many flowers to pollinate. They are all beautiful, but after you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. I think that my job is the most important one in the world.

The tree responds, How could such a small living thing be so arrogant and so blind when her life is so short? Can you possibly imagine a world without plants? You would not be alive. You would not have reason to exist. I am the most important being because I support life. Being life myself, you are also lucky, luckier than the rock. There isn’t any reason for the rock’s existence, only the eternal silence of its presence.

The rock argues, I mark the eternity of time from the present to the past. I preserve the ground and make the building of this world by dividing the water and the earth. I don’t need to move, I hold within my entrails all the elements that would create what you would understand as life. My silence is the knowledge that time has brought to me. I come from a time directly and proportionally equal to the arrogant life of a butterfly and the blindness of a tree. I don’t need to rationalize. I am a monument of creation.

The rock returned to his original state. The tree was ashamed of his pretensions, and the butterfly went back to work, thinking one more time that it is not important to exist forever. What only really matters is to be alive and to fulfill what we really are.

The Cuban Cigars

It was the decade of the sixties. The United States had extended the panorama of war among Viet Nam, the Cuban Revolution, the Cold War, and the Space Race…War. Internally a different conflict was taking place among a very large family that questioned the legality and benefits of the Vietnam War. The Space Race cost, against the participation and distribution of wealth among the underclasses and the sincere desire of many people to go back to a simple form of social organization called communes. The generation gap has never been deeper and the new generation questions its destiny. There was an abyss between humanities and sciences, between what man feel and what man does. Feelings and thoughts were two parallel worlds unable to occupy either the same space or to function in the same dimension.

It was about this time when Mr. Marco Soto arrived in the United States and made his residence in the city of Los Angeles, California. It is only fair to say that Mr. Soto decided that hot dogs and hamburgers were not enough to fulfill his culinary appetites. He discovered that the Cuban menu was delicious, the ambience incomparable and he became fond of the Cuban people. My story doesn’t have anything to do with the social and political turn out of the sixties only, the facts that occurred in this particular time and in this historical land of Los Angeles, California.

It was traveling by bus from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The passenger sitting beside me was a gentleman in his late fifties, polite and well groomed, he was displaying an aura of tolerance to the rest of the world. His name was Marco Soto. It was a real pleasure to talk to Mr. Soto. Unfortunately, the bus ride always directed me to my early childhood in which my mom was probably rocking a chair to put me to sleep. I excused myself and drifted into a state of relaxation trying to enter into the world of Orpheus and recover some of my energy after visiting San Francisco. Mr. Soto understood my weakness and went ahead with his book reading. I was immediately accepted into the pseudo reality zone. I fell into a deep sleep.

My mom stopped rocking the chair and with an uncontrollable feeling of betrayal, I screamed. I was suddenly awake, disoriented, and confused victimized by the bus stop that had robbed me of the pleasure of the sweet dream. I saw a man walking out of the bus and heard his display of obscenities that were coming from his mouth like water from a fountain. I couldn’t decide at this moment if I was having a nightmare or this was the cruel reality of a madman. I was paralyzed in terror. Slowly my composure returned, and I shared the weird silence with the rest of the passengers on the bus.

Our journey would continue but I couldn’t sleep anymore. The animation of the people had gradually returned, and they we’re talking about what had happened as if they were family that needed to express to each other their own point of views. I asked Mr. Soto to fill me in with what I had missed, and he added that sometimes it is better to sleep through the storm than to see the struggles. He explained that the man who caused the disturbance was a chain smoker who had refused to put out his cigarette. The bus driver showed him the no smoking sign posted inside of the bus and he got angry, lost his temper and verbally abused the driver who gave him the choice of leaving the bus willingly or face a citizen’s arrest. The bus was delayed until the smoker understood that the driver was serious in his ultimatum and that the smoker didn’t have anything to win. This is when I woke up and I was showered with the smoker’s frustrations. Mr. Soto concluded his report with his personal opinion that stated that smoking cigarettes was a nasty addiction but that smoking a Cuban cigar is a mystical ceremony.

I immediately replied to Mr. Soto, I think your opinion is misleading. The fact that cigars, like cigarettes are tobacco products and that smoking them is an addiction.

He reflected for a long period of time before he replied to me, What do you know about the Cuban cigars?

Well, that they are very expensive.

He then asked, Do you know how they are made?

I quickly said, From tobacco.

I got control of the conversation and asked Mr. Soto, Are you a tobacco salesman by any chance?

Oh, no! he answered, Only a connoisseur of pleasures.

There was another long reflection interrupted only by another of my questions. Tell me, Mr. Soto, what is so special about Cuban cigars?

Mr. Soto looked at me in a very compassionate way as if he knew my degree of ignorance and was forgiving me for it.

He replied, Allow me to tell you a story that was told to me by my former employer.

Go ahead, I said. I’m all ears.

It was 1960, the year that I started working as a chauffeur for a very prominent Cuban business man. His name was Luis Serra. I was referred to the job by the chef of the Cuban restaurant where I was eating. To be more specific, I think that I was adopted by this colony of Cuban immigrants. Mr. Serra and his fernery never treated me as an employee although I never forgot my respect, loyalty, and gratitude for my Mecenas. I think it was in the spring of 1967 when one morning, he gave me directions to an address in the Beverly Hills area. He asked me to carry a box wrapped in manila paper no larger than eighteen by twelve inches and relatively light. Mr. Serra never carried anything in his hands. That was my job.

Were you his bodyguard? I asked.

No, he didn’t need to ask me for my life. He knew, I would fight for his without any hesitation. I was unconditionally loyal to him.

Sorry for the interruption.

"Anyway, the address belonged to a friend of his from college. He mentioned once that he had graduated from an Ivy League University and that he had kept in touch with this, a gentleman for a lifetime. I don’t recall at this moment the gentleman’s name although I learned that he was a supreme court justice.

Once we arrived at the judge’s residence, the formality of the social and professional life disappeared and was witnessing a surprise visit by Mr. Serra to a very special friend. The visit was brief and the package exchanged hands from mine to Mr. Serra and from him to the judge who, like a child, immediately opened it.

Mr. Soto breathed deeply knowing that he had caught my curiosity and waited until I humbly asked, What was in the package?

Aha! All along I was thinking that I was carrying a bomb.

Not really. During the sixties this was an everyday business to solve political problems in the international arena, my friend.

Mr. Soto continued his narration that was getting more interesting, moment by moment.

"The package contained a beautiful silver filigree case that a humidor and inside was a special edition of Cuban cigars. The present was in commemoration of judge’s nomination twenty years before for a successful career as a bastion of the supreme court of the law