The mosquito / Talking books

Literary Excellence Programme finalists uncover the secret of the janitors' curious nightmares
the secret of the curious nightmares of school caretakers and reflect on the
and reflect on the feel of words and the colour of their silence.
and the colour of their silence.

THE MOSQUITO

-Could you come here, please?... A boy has vomited in the dining room.

The porter nodded reluctantly, but immediately set off towards the cleaning room, making his way through the amalgam of late arrivals at class.

Inside the tiny room, he filled the mop bucket and looked around for the bottle of liquid soap. Suddenly he felt a buzzing behind him.

"Aha...! So here we have the last of the winter mosquitoes...", he thought as he spotted the insect, which was bumping against the light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

He grabbed a rag, ready to crush it, but as he was about to raise the weapon, the bulb melted.

"Another power cut," he protested inwardly. It was the third of the week.

He groped blindly for the knob, without success. At that moment he noticed the buzzing sound again, going back and forth around his head. He took the lighter out of his pocket and lit it with a click.

The flame cast a large shadowy silhouette on the wall. The porter heard a shriek that made him lose his balance and fall to the ground.

He sat up in the darkness, confused and dizzy, as the buzzing sound seemed to roar unintelligible words. Once on his feet, gasping, he waved his hands to shoo away whatever it was. Suddenly, however, a scratch came across his face, wounding his ear and neck as well. There was a slight silence before something sharp stabbed into the back of his neck.

The alarm clock made him open his eyes. He stared at the last mosquito of January, which had landed on his arm, determined to feast.

Jesús Montalbán
high school Mulhacén (Granada)
First award, story. 15th edition

THE BOOKS THAT SPEAK

Books speak to me. Real books, of course; those that keep a unique story alive because they get the inky characters written in the reader's heart, or the reader telling the story to an interior begging for words. As you prefer.

Books tell me, quietly, what the wind of imagination told the writer. They make me dizzy as they carry me through time and space, without applying the formulas of physics. They whisper goodnight to my eyelids and make me fall into the endless spiral of reading, reading and reading.

They also speak to me about myself. I feel tired when not even reading meeting is enjoyable. Then I realise what a small victory it is to get through just one more chapter. The books will tell an attentive observer that perhaps my bad mood is because I don't have a new novel on my bedside table, or that the book I'm reading leaves me empty. Because I need characters whose smiles I can imagine. I spend so many hours with them that their thoughts and feelings are like those of a good friend: they stick with me. During the reading I stop being Irene and become Jo, Daddy Long Legs, Liesel or Kvothe. And a window opens for me through which the touch of the words, the colour of silence, the taste of illusion and... everyone can insert what they like best.

Therefore, books tell me about other people. In a moment of despair, the secret that remains hidden between the cover of degree scroll and the back cover lets me see the best and the worst side of people: their illusions, fears, hopes and weaknesses, which seep through the scent of new ink. What I don't get to sense in those around me, the books shout out to me - can we hide our worries from a good novel? It always finds answers and gives them to us, even if we don't always like them.

Finally, and especially, each book speaks to me about the person who brought it to me. After having finished reading a novel left to me by a friend, I know a little better her aspirations and her way of understanding reality. In other words, I understand her better. So, in order to get to know others better, it is good to exchange books. As the pages turn, we discover hidden bits and pieces of that person, characteristics that not even the person in question knows he or she has.

May we hear the voice of books to be written all over the world.

Irene Pola
high school La Vall (Barcelona)
Second award ex aequo article of opinion. XV Edition