Sandra Tena Cole
Stories (17/0)
Statue as I am
I’d left Torreon only days after it happened. I’ve tried to forget and move on; I’ve tried to assure myself that it was only my imagination playing tricks on me, but the memories are too real, and those images which I saw with my own eyes play again and again in my mind. The stories still circulate today, popping up online or on TV, as if they’re intent to follow me all across the continent. I’ve moved to Monterrey, Mexico City, Vancouver, L. A., New York. Nowhere is far or big enough to hide after my season in the production of Don Juan Tenorio in Torreon. The role I’d landed was Brígida, Doña Inés’ maid, shared with another which I preferred: a graveyard statue that turns into a ghost and kills Don Juan along with the other statues during the legendary climactic scene. That is, I preferred it most until opening night. I’ve managed better roles as I move from city to city, but the shadow keeps following me because of my relation to Javier. I have recurring nightmares because of the news I read every week. I fear that it’ll soon be my turn, because she’s ticking us off one by one.
By Sandra Tena Cole2 years ago in Fiction
Frozen Flower
Frozen. Like my heart, he says. He’s ridiculous. Like he knows my heart. Why would I trust him? He’s a man, unworthy of trust, like all other men. He’s said that he appreciates me plenty, but I’m just the girl who works for him in the bookshop, that’s all. He’s a prying bastard, anyway. The other day he just picked up my affirmations notebook and started reading, like it was nothing. I just had to pull it away from his hands; none of his business, I said.
By Sandra Tena Cole3 years ago in Fiction
How to make your own wedding cake and eat it too
Start early, say at twelve, with Chris O’Donnell sword-fighting on the screen and your heart beating as you think, So this is a man. This is when you start making the design of your wedding cake, made up of the first illusion of love and everything that it implies. You think about the layers, the flavour, the filling, the icing, and the decorations. Five layers seem too tall and ominous, and three is for a girl’s quinceañera, the big 15th birthday ball that every Mexican girl dreams of. You can always go for five on an expanded array, like your aunt Cora’s, but you already have this image of three roses climbing up over the layers of the cake, so you go for a respectable four layers and add a sparkle of sugar pearls. Not too many, otherwise it would look tacky and people would ooh at you and whisper how distasteful you are behind your back. Maybe thirty-three, one for each one of the traits you wish for in your future husband. Vanilla is the reasonable flavour, because it’s white and neutral; the filling: strawberries and cream, to add a touch of red inside and tartness to the sweet.
By Sandra Tena Cole3 years ago in Fiction
The Vast Ending
I don’t know how it happened, but one night, before the Sun came out, or maybe it was midday, I found myself walking along a series of ceaseless Borgesian forking paths. I have not been able to come out from there since. The walls that flank the paths are three times my height; I can’t see to one side or another, just to the front and the back; the pink and violet skies above my head give away an ever-setting Sun. Night will never come, and I need to sleep.
By Sandra Tena Cole3 years ago in Fiction