Hemingway's curse by Alexandra Pereira - A short story

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I’ve moved off the hotel that same night, just as I had forecasted: Ilodged in a more modest place, without a private bathroom, and in a differentisland from that one where the house-museum could be found.I woke up very early in the next morning to visit the Sloppy Joe’s Bar, amust-place which the ghost had advised to me without any doubt: onceinside the bar, I could not discern more than one hundred tourist heads,as busy clicking the photographic machines around them as withdrawingthe present locals quietness, who they insistently massacred with derisivequestions about a bearded American who had passed there in the lastcentury’s thirties decade, when most of the people there wouldn’t surelyeven be born yet.This scenario both saddened and galvanized me – by filling my heartwith an incredible anger that was increasing all day long, helping me sothat I could later satisfy, without vacillating for a brief second, the sordidwish the phantom had asked me for. I’ve spent the whole afternoon onthe beach taming the ire as I could and sinking my legs in the spume ofdifferent tides; I bought a ticket aboard the passage boat to the followingdawn and waited for the sun to quench his flaming hairs on the AtlanticOcean, on a vibrant party.I then went to get the luggage to that humble hotel and brought themto a boarding house even worse, in the city where the house-museumwas placed, having the caution of lodging myself under a fake name in aground floor room, and paying in advance for the sleeping night. I did notundo my suitcases; I locked the room door on the inside and immediatelyjumped out to the street through the room’s front window, which I leftopened in the lock.I was sauntering relaxed down the sidewalk relishing the night coolnesson my face and bearing a small backpack, in the interior of which Iwas carrying six conserve cans and used yoghurt bottles, full with gasoline,a box with six matches inside and two fuses of six meters each one(following to the scratch the ghost indications, the number six was imposedthanks to superstition, wisdom or any other reason still unknownto me).
It was not difficult to accomplish successfully the plan, neither to returnthe boarding house, get the luggage on my hands and leave in thatsame daybreak on board of the passage boat to a luxurious golf courseplanted amidst the Caribbean Sea, thus taking advantage of what was stillleft to me of that exceptional vacation package.THE END
Page 1 and 2: Hemingway’sCurseAlexandra Pereira
Page 3 and 4: « Fire destroys Hemingway museum i
Page 5 and 6: nivorous teeth showing themselves i
Page 7 and 8: 2.Everything begun two months ago,
Page 9 and 10: of a leak dropping blood on the dia
Page 11 and 12: request: it was a very simple one,
Page 13 and 14: And what a surprise I didn’t have
Page 15 and 16: place, or a fishing rod stuck in th
Page 17 and 18: 4.The next morning, after having a
Page 19: of them and a Dutchman squeezed bet
Page 23 and 24: Hemingway’s Curse1st edition: Jan

Hemingway's curse by Alexandra Pereira - A short story

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