A.X.Partida
Bio
In a world run by machines and data, nothing will ever replace the blood, flesh, and beauty of trees, petting a stray dog, falling in love, and telling a story.
Stories (12/0)
The Trees My Mother Planted
When I was 20, I came home from college only to find my mom on her hands and knees in the front yard covered in dirt. Oh God, her she goes on her 'dealing with death' therapy, I thought. The land was yellow dry and my grandmother had just died. I felt sorry for my mother and imagined the death of my own mother would devastate me far beyond repair. The seedlings were pathetic. Long bare twigs at best.
By A.X.Partida2 years ago in Families
5:30 a.m.
A lover once asked me as I slipped into clothes before the sun had come up, why I woke up so early. It's 5:30 in the morning, he said as he set the clock back down. The first light of day brightened the blue on the eastern horizon. I could see the outline of his hair sticking up from sleeping on it throughout the night. I smiled in the darkness of the morning and climbed back into bed and into his arms and told him. When I was a girl, I lived with my grandmother. She would get up and I would hear the clanking of plates getting washed in the sink, the coffee kettle being heated up, the opening and closing of the refrigerator door and cabinets. Spoons, knives, forks, blenders. You name it, I heard it. Not only did I hear all of the sounds of a functional kitchen in use, she would hum along with her lemon yellow canary she kept in a large white wicker cage on the Sony stereo in the living room. His beak was flecked with black and white too. She bought him at a flea market years before I could remember anything. There in my bed, I would wrap my head and my ears with an unbendable pillow, trying to deafen out the sounds of the tings and clanks of dishes, silverware, and the songs of an old woman and her bird stirring up a ruckus in the entire front part of the house. It's 5 in the morning, what is she, in the Army? I found myself genuinely annoyed. I would roll miserably in my bed until I finally grew tired of not sleeping and would get up.
By A.X.Partida2 years ago in Families
Insides > Outsides
CHAPTER 1: Mrs. Tigra Teaches the Wrong Lesson Theodore Tigra wasn’t the average little tiger. He wasn’t the captain of the basketball or debate team his father wanted and expected him to grow up to be. But Theodore's parents almost controlled the big decisions in his life. His father, Nigel Tigra, was never around because he spent all of his time working as the President of National University. Nigel was rich and powerful, and married a trophy wife. Everyone expected Theodore to grow up in his father’s footsteps. Although he was tall, intelligent, and strong for his age, he enjoyed more relaxed activities like reading books, watching old black and white films, and cooking in the kitchen with his grandmother.
By A.X.Partida2 years ago in Fiction
When Green Breaks through Ash
Finally, the raining ash and smoke are clearing away. My fire-ravaged state has stopped bleeding. Hills covered in sycamores, walnut, oak, cottonwood, and pine are now graveyards of burned matchstick forests and ash. It took everything inside of me for my heart not to break in half, just looking at what was left of the drive up into the Sierra Nevadas.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Longevity
If You Want to Kill Your Enemy, Go Have a Beer with Him
One day I sat with a few classmates for lunch and a few beers. One is a Christian, the other a Jew, the other a Hindu, and the other a Muslim. We all were pretty western looking and speak California English. We say shit like dude, hella, and yolo. The topic of religion came up and they went around the table asking what religion they were. Waiting for our beers to arrive.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Humans
An Ode to the Boy in a Wheelchair
**Based on a true story and #5 from a collection of short stories... I don’t remember ever meeting Junior. He was always just kind of there, like the trees growing on your block that you never really paid any attention to. As far as my little girl brain can think back, Junior was always in a wheelchair rolling around with his flipper-like legs. They kind of just laid there, were short, totally deformed, and looked like claws. One day, I noticed Junior’s blue eyes following us while we kids played, and it hit me hard in the chest when I realized Junior would never be able to run, jump, or even walk.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Humans
The Barbie Head
Writing prompt: the first memory you ever had. It took me a while to dig back to as far as I could remember. Things that stick out are some things that have some kind of trauma around them: the first time I saw blood, conceived of death, hated something or someone, felt terrible physical pain, etcetera. And before concepts, there were images. Dress hems, dogs tied to their house by a chain, a tall palm tree, the gleam of metallic balloons.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Psyche
Merlot and the 5th Dimension
I died once. Jonas had just cooked pasta with me in the kitchen, and I had been drinking Merlot he picked up at a restaurant before our date. Jonas was a sculptor from Sweden. He was tall, had beautiful bone structure, and a rebellious look about him.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Humans
Heartache on the 5th Floor
There he was, on the football field surrounded by a slew of a mix of futball and basketball players. I knew he wasn't Chinese because he had thick brown sideburned and blue eyes. He looked French or Greek or some kind of exotic that I wasn't familiar with as a Mexican-American woman.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Confessions
When Time is Irrelevant
It seemed so cruel for him to die on such a beautiful blue day. My heart would have been more at ease had the clouds gathered in a fit of gray anger and roared out rain. I prayed, not for my grandfather to die in peace, but for a terrible storm. If veins of lightning ripped across the sky, I might have had something to distract me from knowing this was the last time I would lay mortal eyes on my grandfather.
By A.X.Partida3 years ago in Families
