Short stories 1 | What Parents Want

When the inevitable news came that he would be born, the first choice that would determine the rest of his life was taken from him. His father was the kind of man who wanted sons, because daughters would pay for everything he had done to those who were already ghosts of a life of debauchery; so that he could speak of them as one might admire a dusty prize; and so that they could play the sport they were both good at, without either of them ending up ashamed.

His mother was the kind of woman who wanted daughters to comb their hair and dress them as she herself would have wanted to keep dressing and grooming herself, while staring, empty, into the mirror. Also so she could tell them all the things they would be able to do if they did not marry a piece-of-shit man.

The night his first cry was heard, his father’s wishes came true, and his mother cursed her own womb. When his tastes began to blossom, he paid for them as though he were a daughter, with a man who destroyed the love she had saved for him. And, to confuse his mother, he dressed the way she had always wanted him to and ended up with a piece-of-shit man.

From Quina, anthology where I participate.

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