Baby Obese (in English and Spanish)

The slow morning clouds swerved on. It would be first light, the crack of dawn after a while, and he would be asking for his coffee, plain, strong and dark, but that would be in a few hours yet, he was now only cold, and remaining under his two blankets, as he tried to go back to sleep, which would cure that. His breathing appeared to be with less effortless now, in the thin mountain air, and then he decided to get up and walk about his first floor apartment, and he looked out the window, he knew it was near daybreak, the night almost ended. He could tell that from the streetlights and the bushes and flowers in the garden outside his window, everything had shadows now; the inky like night had turned into a light gradation of grays. Cars and other vehicles were starting to become constant and ceaseless on the street beyond his garden bushes, thus, giving over to the hummingbirds dancing over the tall foliage, next to his pantry window. He had got up, and stared out the window. He was a little stiff, his old bones, and muscles, he needed to stretch them out, walk to cure that cold inside them, and soon he knew there'd be sun. He went on outside with his wife to catch a taxi, toward the corner, where they sold the papers in a little cubicle, and there were many neighborhood voices, and bird calls, unending-all these quick and vital thumping hearts ready to meet the early July morning. He did not look anywhichway.
By the time they got to the café, it was too late to eat breakfast. The old man grasped his belt, behind him the taxi had quickly taken off, his young wife by his side, holding his elbow; he had fallen three times in two days, lost his balance. He thought for a moment of pulling his arm away, but he did know himself, if he did, he could lose his balance again. So he looked down toward the ground and walked slowly to the café door entrance. His pulse and breathe racing; presently he was in the road, about to step up onto the sidewalk. He could hear the movement of vehicles on the two crossroads, as if they were almost upon him, but he didn't look; he had to make sure he kept his balance, and even then he knew his ankles might give out, as if the body knew his very urgent need in that moment, if only he had wings, so he thought. He looked around him, it was a weed and rock choked road.
Once inside the Mia Mamma Café, he saw in an instant in the far-off distance, the colorful silhouette of Mini, the chef. The early summer light, and coolness of the sky had not vanished, and shinned outward as if running from the glass doors to the kitchen, pausing now without knowing on two figures, Nancy and Mini, then on a third figure, but only on his back (Enrique).
"Hola, Hola!" he said, in Spanish.
His back towards the back doors, his face toward what he knew to be the café kitchen, knowing behind the wall of the kitchen was the café garden where he'd eat today, he was hugging his books, he was brave he thought, he didn't fall for the forth time in two days, God forbid.
Mini and Nancy gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he stumbled forward on his feet, looking for, the child he called the Little Elephant, a child, whom he was a Great Uncle to. His wife went to go fetch him. He was huge for six months old, much living meat and volume and weight as to any two children he had ever seen. He feared to hold him, lest he drop him. He had an astonishing high voice he thought, like the fighting call of Bruce Lee, that karate man of the movies. And when he returned the same call back to the child, troubled features appeared on his face. And this day, it was no different; when he first saw him this forenoon, the child only showed an expression of ox-like interest, when he saw the old man. Thereafter, his little arms were reaching for the old man's wife's neck, for security. His little heart and lungs drumming, as if they were looking for a safe-house; he almost burst into tears, sobbing for speech. He saw the astonished face of the old man, without knowing who he was, or perhaps knew who he was, and that in itself was the reason for his behavior.
"What?" the old man said in the café kitchen. "Yes, the boy cries when I imitate him."
"Take him," his wife told him.
But it was too late this time too. The baby elefante, as the old man referred to the child, was being carried away, back through the door of the kitchen, near screaming.
Behind him, were the soups and hot dishes being prepared for lunch, it was 12:05 p.m., he lifted up the covers of the pots to smell the aroma, squatting beside them, as if he wanted to dive inside the big pots deliberately, if not for the aroma, to get away from the baby elefante.

Article written by Dennis Siluk Ed.D.