“Man, the neighborhood looks even worse now than when we were kids,” said Carlos. He was tall and muscular, and kept his hair cut in a super short buzz cut. He had been quite the athlete during school, but now he was working for my father, with the intention of one day taking over the construction business.
“Without us around to say anything, the punks around here have really gone wild, huh?” Pedro agreed. He was a bit shorter than Carlos, but no less athletic. He’d used to dream of becoming a professional athlete, but lately, he did landscaping work. He had handsome features, and the top of his head was covered in curly black hair.
“Jeez, there’s dumb looking graffiti everywhere,” said Manuel. “Those kids never learn. I’m glad we’re getting mom, dad, and Lucia out of here.” Manuel was shorter than both of my other brothers. Like the rest of us, he had light brown skin. His black hair was done in cornrows. He’d been a track and field athlete in high school, but in college, he studied art. He wanted to be a painter.
“We gonna be livin’ the peaceful suburban life from now on!” my father announced.
My father was shorter than all of my brothers, and even though his gut was starting to expand a bit now that he was in management, his arms were still plenty muscular. He was going bald, so he wore a baseball cap to hide the top of his head.
The four of them chatted away as they loaded furniture and boxes onto the truck. I was helping too, but mainly with the things from my room.
“Make sure to put these boxes on top of everything else,” I told them. “I don’t want them to get squished.”
“Why, what’s in ’em?” Carlos asked.
“Plushies.”
“Eh, they’re just stuffed animals, why’d you even put ’em in boxes?” said Pedro. “A trash bag would have worked just fine.”
“I’m not gonna treat them like trash. They’re my treasures.”
“You sure are into the cute stuff,” Manuel said. “There’s way more now than before we left.”
“I couldn’t help it, they’re all so precious!”
I hefted another box of superlight stuffed animals into the truck, and as my brothers obediently stacked it on top of everything else, I went back into the house to get the next one. I took a look around at the bare living room, then went to my room to retrieve the next box. As I headed out again, my mother emerged from the kitchen. She was making sandwiches for everyone.
“It’s so good to have the boys around for this,” she said. “They’ve all grown up so dependable.”
She had much darker skin than the rest of the family, and I always envied how beautiful she looked. Her hair was done in long braids. She always told me to be thankful for inheriting my hair from our father, but I thought hers was plenty beautiful too. Now that I was older, she was drilling the secrets of her beauty into me at every opportunity. She didn’t seem at all worried about my brothers, but she wanted me to hurry up and find someone to settle down with.
“They’re at least good enough to carry the heavy stuff,” I replied.
“You should find yourself a nice dependable guy like that. Ahora ve a buscar tu amor.”
“Really, Mom? ‘Go find your love’? I’ll find a great guy after I become an interpreter, just like you did.”
“Oh, now you’re just teasing me.” She always made a big show of being all shy about it when we talked about the way she met Dad. She acted like an innocent maiden.
“Yup, I’m just here to bring up old romantic stuff that embarrasses you.”
I walked out of the house with a smile on my face. As I headed toward the truck with the box in my arms, I could hear some people yelling down the street.
“Those punks are at it again?” spat Carlos.
“Just leave ’em be, they’ll sort themselves out,” my father told him.
The yelling kept up, though. Looking that way, I wasn’t really watching where I was going, and I bumped into Pedro as he was getting off the truck. The box of stuffed animals I was holding fell to the ground and spilled open.
“Ah, they’ll get dirty!” I shouted as I ran to their rescue. They’d fallen onto the lawn, at least; I hoped the grass would shield them from the dirt long enough for me to pack them up again.
“Ah, sorry,” said Pedro, “I wasn’t payin’ attention.”
“It’s all right, I wasn’t either,” I said as I stuffed the plushies back into their box.
The shouting down the street continued as I picked up the box and started walking toward the back of the truck.
Then I heard a loud bang.
It was an unfortunately familiar sound in that awful neighborhood. I remembered waking up to that noise in the middle of the night multiple times in the past. It was the sound of a gunshot.
For some reason, I lost my balance, and fell backward. The box I was carrying fell open again, and my plushies fell out of it, covering my face.
“Lucia!”
“Lucia!”
“Lucia!”
“Lucia!”
My father and brothers were all shouting my name for some reason.
“I can hear you just fine, the gunshot wasn’t that loud.” Or that was what I tried to say, but for some reason, nothing came out. I was on the ground, and for some reason, I couldn’t move. Suddenly, Carlos batted away the plushies covering my face. He looked so worried.
“Lucia! Hey! Hang in there!”
“Hey, don’t be mean to them. You’re gonna get them dirty. Why won’t the sounds come out when I say things?”
“Oh god! She’s bleeding everywhere!”
“Don’t move her!”
“Hello? Yes. My daughter’s been shot, please send help right away.”
Huh? Is dad on the phone? Who’s he talking to? I’m his only daughter, and I haven’t been—
Oh.
Wait.
Yeah, that makes sense. I was just thinking it was getting cold.
Dad’s giving the person on the phone our address. We were supposed to be moving away from here today. We were just a day away from being safe from this kind of thing. Well, relatively safe anyway.
What about my future as an interpreter? Did I really do all of that studying for nothing?
Mom was right, I should have just found a great guy. We could have started a family, had kids by now, if I wasn’t always stuck with my nose in a book.
OH! Lilac! You poor thing. I would have played with you more if I knew this was going to happen. If I could just see her adorable face, I’m sure this awful injury would disappear. That’s the healing power of cuteness. A little adorable goes a long way. My family is gathered around me now. They all look so sad. Hey, don’t kneel on that plushie! You’re smashing it into the ground! Adorable little things like that shouldn’t be mistreated. Why won’t the sounds come out? I need to tell them all to stop crying, get off my plush toy, and get me my tablet so I can see Lilac. The healing power of her adorable face could revive me instantly.
“Lucia! Stay with us!”
Huh? Which brother was that? It’s getting hard to tell.
Am I really going to die from lack of cuteness?
When I go to heaven will there be adorable little cherubs to comfort me? There’d better be, or I’m not going.
It’s so cold. I thought it was summer, why am I freezing?
Lilac? Is that you? Why are you crying? Please don’t be sad, I don’t want to see your sweet little face covered in tears. You’ll miss me? That’s sweet of you. I’ll miss you too. I’ll miss styling your hair, and buying you cute dresses. I’ll miss ordering your adorable little minions around the dungeon, and listening to the cute squeaking sounds they make when they move. Is this what it’s like to say goodbye to your family on your deathbed? My family can’t hear me anymore. Come to think of it, I stopped being able to hear them a while ago too. Am I already moving on to the great beyond? To die, to sleep, perchance to dream, but in that sleep, what dreams may come? That was Shakespeare, right? Well, I guess I’ll either wake up in the hospital, heaven, or not at all. See you then.
That was the last thing I thought before I died. I guess I was a bit confused there at the very end. Maybe I was hallucinating, or maybe it was more than that, but I saw Lilac hovering over me. She was crying. Seeing her cry like that made me sad too.