“When did you start to read?”

El que viene a continuación es el cuento (una versión en inglés y ligeramente más extensa de uno que ya publiqué por aquí) que he presentado al concurso de relato breve de la EOI a la que asisto. El resultado ha sido infructuoso, pero aún así creo que merece ser publicado (qué coño, que este es mi blog y pongo lo que me da la gana, jejeje) así que ahí va:

 

"When you become a father, you are frightened expecting your children will harass you with tricky questions like where babies come from or what happens when you die. However there are also other questions that you find very pleasant to answer and make you feel great. That was what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, when I went to pick up my nine years old son from school and, on our way coming back home, he asked me when I had started to read. "When I read my grandpa Benito’s book", I answered him. 

I was about my son's age when, after a long illness, my grandfather died. It was then, during the awkward sharing out of belongings of the deceased, when my grandmother told me, putting a book in my hands: "I'm pretty sure that your grandfather would have wanted you to keep it". I was left almost speechless and the only thing I got to mumble while I looked at its cover was a quick and quiet "thank you". 

That night I could not sleep wondering how that likable old man who had not ever gone to school and could not write a complete sentence without spelling errors, had been able to write himself an entire book. And yet there it was, maybe worn and very old, but a book written by his own hands. 

Although I wasn't used to read anything but comics, I began to read that book because I had the feeling that I was indebted to my grandpa somehow. I devoured its pages, basically because it was a very fun and amazing story with characters impossible to forget. That was the first book I read and it was thereafter when I got hooked on reading, a hobby that I still have nowadays.

The funny thing is that it took me several years to realize that those fascinating adventures on a trip around the world had been written by Jules Verne."