The Little Park of Memories

    

On the banks of the Rio Turabo, right near Juan Bobo’s house, there was a strange cemetery.

 

Juan called it the Little Park of Memories, but he never told anyone about it. He wasn’t sure anyone would believe him. He wasn’t even sure the cemetery even existed.

 

 

The Little Park of Memories 

Many of the gravestones told how the person had died, and the stories were most unusual.

 

Dylcia Pagán (1918-1962) had spontaneously combusted while eating a ham sandwich. Petra Allende (1929-1963) gave birth to twins with a pig’s tail. José Jimenez (1931-1970) kept repeating his name, five times a minute, for eight years.

 

Jose Jimenez 

Puchi Pirandello (1946-1976) burned down a post office. Sísifo de Corinto (1937-1984) became convinced that the same day was repeating itself over and over, and hung himself during a Reagan speech.

 

Hung himself during a Reagan speech

Every night that he visited the cemetery, Juan would see a tiny green light on the far side of the Rio Turabo.

 

It looked like a useless traffic light, granting some permission that no one had asked for, and nobody needed…certainly no one from the Little Park of Memories.

 

The next morning like every morning, the cemetery would disappear, the green light was gone, and Juan’s memories faded with the light of dawn.

 

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