___________________________________ Excerpt from “Caramelo” – a…

kaitokenichi ___________________________________ Excerpt from “Caramelo” – a…___________________________________ Excerpt from “Caramelo” – a novel by Sandra Cisneros _______________________________ We’re all little in the photograph above Father’s bed. We were little in Acapulco. We will always be little. For him we are just as we were then. Here are the Acapulco waters lapping just behind us, and here we are sitting on the lip of land and water. The little kids, Lolo and Memo, making devil horns behind each other’s head; the Awful Grandmother holding them even though she never held them in real life. Mother seated as far from her as politely possible; Toto slouched beside her. The big boys, Rafa, Ito, and Tikis, stand under the roof of Father’s skinny arms. Aunty Light-Skin hugging Antonieta Araceli to her belly. Aunty shutting her eyes when the shutter clicks, as if she chooses not to remember the future, the house on Destiny Street sold, the move north to Monterrey. Here is Father squinting that same squint I always make when I’m photographed. He isn’t acabado yet. He isn’t finished, worn from working, from worrying, from smoking too many packs of cigarettes. There isn’t anything on his face but his face, and a tidy, thin mustache, like Pedro Infante, like Clark Gable. Father’s skin pulpy and soft, pale as the belly side of a shark. The Awful Grandmother has the same light skin as Father, but in elephant folds, stuffed into a bathing suit the color of an old umbrella with an amber handle. I’m not here. They’ve forgotten about me when the photographer walking along the beach proposes a portrait, un recuerdo, a remembrance literally. No one notices I’m off playing by myself building sand houses. They won’t realize I’m missing until the photographer delivers the portrait to Catita’s house, and I look at it for the first time and ask,—When was this taken? Where? Then everyone realizes the portrait is incomplete. It’s as if I didn’t exist. It’s as if I’m the photographer walking along the beach with the tripod camera on my shoulder asking.—¿Un recuerdo? A souvenir? A memory? A short personal narrative account in which you describe a childhood experience – positive, or negative. Try to use vivid verbs and adjectives to create a sense of setting for the readers.  Use dialogue in a couple of places, and emotion wherever necessary. Specific details about the experience, including people, songs, tastes, smells, etc. will help us imagine the scene.Arts & HumanitiesEnglish