Manuel Badena
I
“I got a lot from my parents. My eyes. My eyebrows. My hair, my teeth, even my toes. I also inherited their lack of magic. Unfortunately, I live in a magic world. There’s magic in jobs, magic in clothes, magic that cures people, magic that makes machines move, magic that makes others move. But there isn’t much magic in my world. My parents can’t use it, neither can my friends. My school teachers say I probably won’t have the affinity for it either, and that I am going to end up looking for metals in some cave or studying the stars in a lab. Despite all of this, I have persevered, and excelled in all of my classes. I know what’s in the books and I know how they’ve been used. I was not born with the affinity, but I have built myself up to be ready to face it. Getting accepted into this elite institution would allow me to try it for myself and refine it with all my abilities. Abilities that those who were born into magic could never imagine.”
“This is a terrible intro, man,” said my friend. “You’re doing a whole lotta telling, not much showing. Plus, it’s all over the place.”
“How am I supposed to show what I haven’t seen,” I replied. “And they love sob stories. Mine is as sobby as it gets.”
“A billion other kids can say that,” he reasoned.
“Hmmm.”
“I’m not trying to insult your writing or anything.”
“You said it was terrible.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well say something nice.”
“I wouldn’t wanna lie to you. Personal statements are annoying but you should definitely try your best.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s just something we gotta do.”
“Mhm.”
“They gotta get to know us so they can see if we fit.”
“You wouldn’t wanna enroll a crazy person.”
“Crazy people come up with the craziest things, though. Like, magic wouldn’t be nearly as powerful without some crazies being born back in the day.”
“Crazy and so-smart-nobody-understands-you aren’t the same.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Well I’m gonna head home now. I’m starving.”
“See you tomorrow.”
On the way home, I thought about change. There were a lot of things I wanted to change. Mainly my personal statement intro, because even though I clearly expressed a disdain to the standard, it was still very much hanging over me. To get into a big name school with lots of resources, I needed to prove myself. I needed to give people I have never met a reason to invest lots of money and time into me, to take me somewhere that wasn’t this rundown slum of a town. That’s why my parents moved here in the first place. Not the town, but the nation. Being a global superpower, there were dreams of opportunity aplenty. They knew they couldn’t get these things back at home, so they took their pregnant belly (at least my mom did, my dad didn’t get his belly until much later) and hopped on over the boundary between wealth and war. Then came along a baby, and another. Eventually, we were one of the millions of migrant households struggling to stay afloat and thrive. But we have survived until now, and because of that it will soon be my job to ensure we continue to flourish and assimilate into money and status. To do this, I need a stronger personal statement that better validates my existence and ambitions.
I also thought about how I could change the world. This big idea covers a lot of ground, so I’d need to break it down a bit more. Let’s focus on three major global problems I want to fix. Billions of people don’t have food on the table every day, or even a table under a roof to eat on. This could be one, poverty and its unequal distribution. Which leads to my next big problem: systemic discrimination. Ask anyone and they’ll either confirm its existence or they’ll lie. A little bit of prejudice and some racism here and there are things we should be able to overcome, but when it seems like every system is organized to facilitate discrimination against certain people, we should probably do some self-reflection. The third big issue that I hate is, and if you were paying attention to my personal statement draft, the inaccessibility of magic.
I made it home and my own self-reflecting came to a pause. Our house isn’t big or pretty. In some rooms, there’s a faint smell like that of stale water or mold. The walls are stained a creamy beige from their original white. The carpets are old and worn, and the floor tiles are cracked and spotted. Still, there’s a calmness that I can only feel when I am within its musty walls. A feeling of family and birthday parties, of home cooking and laughter. My first stop is always my room, a closet-like box littered with clothes and memories. I dropped my backpack next to my desk, which my dad built for me as a birthday present a few years back, sturdy and brown. I changed out of my school uniform, a solid black polo and khakis, and into my cozy red pajama pants and a simple white tee.
With my after school procedures over, I trot to the kitchen to see if there’s any progress on dinner. When I see naught but a crumb, I call upon ol’ reliable. Using techniques passed down through generations, I assemble some of the most coveted ingredients found throughout history to create the mythical ham and cheese with mayo. As I wonder where my mother is because she missed our daily welcome home routine, I look for my little brother. If he’s home, she’s home, and I find him in his room scribbling away in his algebra journal, only a few pages in. “You need anything?” I ask him. “Also, where’s mom?”
“Nah I don’t and she’s on the phone in their room,” he replies, sounding annoyed I disturbed him. So I start across the hall. As I approach my parent’s bedroom, I hear my mother on the phone. She’s always calling her friends and family members back in her home country. I don’t usually pay attention, but sometimes she makes me say hello to a relative who coincidentally also changed my diapers when I was a baby. You’d think they’d be a little more invested in seeing me in person as a grown-up after the shit I put them through.
But this time, she didn’t have her same cheerful, gossipy tone that schoolgirls and boys have when they talk about crushes inside of school suspension. Her laughs, which were usually hearty enough to uplift the entire neighborhood, were absent. Replaced by muffled sobs and speech almost as alien as her native tongue caused by the breaking of her voice. I knock softly, so as to not alarm her further. When a minute or what felt like a minute passes, I turn the doorknob slowly and peek my head in. Sure enough, my mother looks like she could break into tears the next instant.
“Your dad had an accident at work,” she musters, in her original language. “His boss called, and they’re taking him to the hospital.”
II
Magic came from the earth. In mines deep below the surface, beyond the bedrock, gold, and diamonds, there are crystals. These crystals, as our predecessors discovered, can be used to manipulate reality in incredible ways. It is from them that we derived the tools and processes that sustain life. People have used them to fly, to fight disease, and even to create their own food. In the past few centuries, life expectancy, wealth, and nutrition levels have exponentially increased around the world. Some see magic as a miracle, while others view it as a set of laws and theories to study and understand. Some people don’t see it at all. Magic came from the earth, but its use is exclusive.
I have seen my father’s workplace up close only once before. We carpooled over the freeway with several of his coworkers on a two hour long trip away from the city, racing the sun on its wake. I was on holiday from school, and I decided to spend it with my father who had been taking up unusually long work days that week. My little brother’s birthday was a month away, so I assumed he was saving up for a gift or something. It didn’t matter to me why he was distant, I just wanted to shorten the gap. Upon seeing the mountain at which my father was stationed, I was reminded of the stories of giants and dragons that I cherished throughout my childhood. It inspired in me the drive to conquer, to defeat the foes that corrupt the world and save the lives of millions. However, we were not going to ascend to the heavens up nature’s grand staircase. We were going to descend into the heart of the earth, where there was surprisingly just as much light. This light was not friendly, and the source were crystals that could easily provide a shortcut to heaven, a fact I was reminded of all day. This was no dream of adventure, this was a mundane process natural to our world. This is why I was only allowed to sit in the office lounge where supervisors could arrange meetings and ordain plans of action. I sat in comfort after my father assured me he would tell me all about his day later. Despite my journey to discover my father’s job, I did not truly get to experience his day to day. I only got censored descriptions of the tools and methods they used to extract resource from rock and encouraging words from miners that told me I should stay in school.
My father is a miner. In this day and age, the magic we use requires thousands of workers bravely venturing the earth to find fuel for our magic. They scour dark dungeons with hopes that they’ll survive their expedition, but more importantly with the goal to find more crystals. Sorcerers can then use these beautiful, geometric spectacles to uncover the cosmic secrets of the universe. They use them to develop medicine and improve the quality of agriculture. They use them to prevent natural disasters and stabilize homes. They use them to help people, but not all people.
People like my dad. He is in the hospital, and his life is in the hands of the magic-wielding doctors that admitted him. Their jobs need him to function, but they are in completely different worlds. His world is that of fear and hunger, while theirs is bright and cushy. We can only hope they are merciful.
We asked a family friend who lives a few houses down for a ride. In her little green sedan, all that’s on my mind is magic. We live in a magic world, there’s no way my father, who kinda works for Big Magic, dies today. It would sound absurd that, in our modern era with all of our magic electric cars and hydrogen bombs, we can’t save a few cave miners. The pothole littered roads prevent me from a smooth train of consciousness. Will the person I see in the hospital still resemble the man who raised me? It’s common knowledge that cave mining is a dangerous job. The crystals are highly reactive, and without proper safety precautions, workers face the risk of death every second they interact with them. No matter how much reassurance my parents gave me, I always knew there was the possibility that I would arrive to a fatherless household one day.
As the car reached its destination, my life collapsed. I was suddenly experiencing the gravity of Jupiter on Earth. Every molecule of my body felt inclined to touch the ground, and a thick fog rolled in my brain. Walking in, the lights were sickening. Every sound sent a shock through my limbs telling them to give up and curl. We approached the front desk, and asked about a specific cave miner who suffered a work accident. Every step I took felt impossible. I was scared I would cause the elevator to fail and we’d be unable to reach his floor. The ride up was an eternal limbo of paranoia and the mutilation of my mind. Soon, we were at his door.
My mom went in first, and my brother and I followed. The first thing I noticed were his legs. Disfigured and purple, the worst had come to happen. They looked like tree branches after a hurricane, but somehow still attached. Then I saw his torso and his arms. They were mostly what they usually were, but with the same discoloration found on his new legs. Whatever happened in the cave, it was worse than anything I imagined on the ride to the hospital. Lastly, I met his gaze. The weight on my shoulders turned into a pressure in my chest. My eyes almost immediately gave, and I saw myself crying as I rushed to his side, where my mom was. He had the same proud smile he wore anytime he cut his finger or pulled a muscle, like it didn’t phase him. You could always tell it did.
“How was school?” he inquired, to my mother’s immediate breakdown.
“You’re broken!” she observed.
“I can see that,” he jested. He always had to make light of any situation. Like nothing couldn’t be resolved. He was stoic but reassuring. He was proud of being a man and understood his responsibilities. He wanted to set an example for my brother and I to follow. Because of the nature of his job, he wanted to ensure we could handle ourselves in case something like this occurred. But even now, when the only expectation is for him to lay defeated at death’s door, he perseveres. He continues to be a beacon of hard-work and confidence. He sees death and taunts it. I guess that’s what it means to be a man.
After a few hours, my mom and brother left to eat dinner. They did not share my initiative when it came to resolving hunger. They were not aware of the magic of sandwiches. I could not bring myself to leave my father’s side. The doctors said he was stable. They said he should be on track to recover. Should. I sat in a chair as my father slept. I heard a faint hum in my brain, like TV static. I couldn’t think, yet I was paralyzed in reflection. Hopeless isn’t a strong enough word. Then, my dad woke up.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked, impatiently.
“Like I got crushed by magic crystals.” He replied, in that same witty tone. It was getting on my nerves. “I don’t even know what went wrong. It happened so quickly.”
“Was anyone else with you?”
“No, I was off by myself in my strip. Had just eaten lunch when I heard a loud bellow coming from deeper in. Must’ve been a new guy who hit the wrong rock. Then it all turned black.”
“Thank god you didn’t get pancaked,” I commented, trying to match his tone. But he didn’t respond. The atmosphere was changing. His usual macho vibe was shifting to something I had never seen from him. He held a frown so genuine I thought he may actually be bothered by something. His eyes, averting mine, looked lost and introspective, as if trying to read something that wasn’t in front of him. Then he started crying.
“I almost died,” he tried. “I almost died, and I almost killed this family.” What could he mean? Would we all perish if he did? Were our souls linked in that way? “I’m sorry, son. I really don’t want to cry in front of you.”
“It’s okay, dad. It’s okay.” I struggled to find words. Usually, I look to him to bring me back, to give me the answer, but now we’re both stranded in space, our oxygen tanks quickly running out.
“You know, I used to want to be a sorcerer,” he declared, after minutes of silence.
“Really?”
“Yes. I wanted to study hard and fly. I wanted to help others and change the world.”
“That’s…kinda cool.”
“You should do it. You should do whatever you want and whatever makes you happy. You should find the thing that drives you. The thing that you wake up thinking about and go to sleep to find it in your dreams. Please, son.”
I was speechless. I thought I was talking to my mom for a moment. She was always the one to tell me to follow my dreams. She would sit with my brother and I before bed and tell us stories. Stories that inspired adventure and ambition. My father was always the realist. He was our rock, he kept us grounded, kept us alive. Dreams were merely children’s stories, what mattered was action.
“Thank you, dad. I know what you mean. I promise you I will do what I want,” I said, finally. The silence was deafening. I could almost hear his thoughts before he spoke them.
“If anything happens…if I don’t get better…” he started.
“You will get better.”
“Son…promise me, please. Promise me you’ll take care of your mom and your little brother.”
I felt whiplash. First he wanted me to follow my dreams, then he wanted me to protect my family. He was starting to state the obvious, it seemed. He was saying what I knew about myself since I was born. He was telling me to be a man. An adventurous, glory-seeking, benevolent man who could carry reality on his shoulders.
“Dad, you’re gonna be fine. The doctor said-”
“The doctor said magic could save me. He said he had the cure. But the cure has a price. And I’m scared I won’t be able to pay it.”
“Won’t your company cover it? There’s no way you’re at fault here.”
“Right. But even so, you need to prepare for the worst.”
“You are GOING to be okay.” I felt my voice elevate. I was starting to yell at my dying dad.
“Okay, son.”
III
I knew we weren’t well off. I knew that if something happened, we could lose everything. Our position here was so fragile that every day we faced the risk of it falling apart. We’ve been lucky enough to avoid this for the most part. Every trail meets its end, though. And ours was in the form of a hospital bill.
As it turns out, my father’s accident was not simply physical trauma from the weight of a million year old rock formation. The magic crystals passively emit harmful radiation when cracked, and the accident exposed my father to this radiation for several minutes. His body was like a sponge to a cosmic poison. It was actively killing him, and there was no direct treatment. The doctors could prescribe him a spell stone – a modified crystal inscribed with instructions for how to manipulate its environment – that could continuously fix him as the radiation left his body. Being top of the line magic, it was obvious we could not afford it. My father did not have insurance, a sad reality for many like him. I once again felt hopeless. There was no way we could convince my father to accept the cost.
So he didn’t.
And we went home. With our broken hearts and his broken body.
IV
It happened only a few days after. We all knew it would, but it shattered everything around us nonetheless. You can’t really prepare for something like that. You look around and know something is missing but you can’t think about it because your head starts spinning again. You become obsessed with the question of what has been lost. For a while, nothing else matters. There is only one stream of thoughts in your head, one constant buzz, and the pain is so hollow and so deep that you want to puke every second that you aren’t numb.
Day after day, all I could do was drown out the noise. I could hear his words running still and without stopping. I could sense his smile and feel the clamp of his calloused hand on my shoulder. I could feel his presence reassuring me, telling me that things will get better if I keep moving forward. How could I keep moving forward when he was left behind?
My mother cried only twice. The night that it happened, and the day he was buried. Still, she woke up every morning to make breakfast and drop us off at school with a kiss on our faces. Every night, we conjured what seemed to be endless rivers of tears as she held us tight and told us stories about being strong. Soon after, she found a second job. Now that he was gone, it was up to her to figure out our expenses and maintain the household income. She had to make sure we had a roof over our heads and stayed in school, or his sacrifice would be in vain. She had to keep food on the table. She had to remain composed to guide us towards resilience. She had to be the man of the house. She was always great at this. What a failure I was.
I no longer leave school to the warm dream of resilience my home once housed. Now the nightly breeze that sneaks past our tattered walls pierces me on a cellular level, in the freezing silence that follows the sun’s set. No more parties or lively dinners, only a partial family overwhelmed by grief. Our family is the object of the neighborhood’s pity, seen as just more victims of a freak accident in an unforgiving reality. I do not see it that way.
I began to wonder if my mother had dreams of her own. My father’s came to light only in his dying moments. She was also a migrant. She had also left behind a home and a life in search of a new one. She was also doing her best, now as a single mother, to raise two children in foreign lands.
In this land, it is up to me to find my place. I finished my personal statement, a story about my family and about magic. In the months after these events, I found myself looking for a job. My mother should not be the only one to carry the burden, for she may have dreams of her own. I need to fulfill my duty as an older brother and as a son. I need to protect my family. As I await my college letters, I will begin to work in a cave, a job that always has an opening.
I should be proud of the struggle. I should be proud of the pain that comes with it. I should be proud because I am a man and I should be strong, which means working until my body drops. A noble idea passed down from father to son. I don’t blame my dad for leaving us. He died of an occupational hazard. He chose the life that led to his death, and he was proud of what he did. If he had stopped working, we would’ve lost the house. My mom wouldn’t have been able to feed my brother and I, and I wouldn’t be applying to colleges far away from here. What man wouldn’t be proud of providing for his home? It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t there for my graduation. It was just a thing that happens sometimes. He watched me take my first steps as a baby, but he couldn’t see my first steps as an adult. Because of that, these first steps will mark a path toward a better lifestyle for people like him. I will take it upon myself to carry the burden of their well-being because that is what they do for us. I will live, work, and die for this culture. That is my inheritance.