Jesuit Global Activism Leadership Summit 2021 – 5° Year
30 noviembre, 2021
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1 diciembre, 20217TH graders, 1st year and 2nd year students wrote short stories for the Inter-schools Annual Writing competition organized by Colegio Del Arce. Here are some of them.
THE CHANGE by Mateo Campitelli (7° Grade)
This is the Marcos’s story, the security man at Vicente López’s Park and how his life changed because of the pandemic.
The Park is in Recoleta, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, between Paraná-Montevideo-Juncal and Arenales Streets. It has a lot of green sites and a place for the children to play with hammocks, slides, and seesaws. It is the site where the neighbours can spend time outdoors.
Marcos is forty-five years old; he is tall and thin. He was a bored man, and he always wore the same clothes: a green vest with a long blue t-shirt, he wore blue jeans and black shoes. His days were all the same, he had a monotonous routine, like a loop.
Marcos walked around the park every day. Before the pandemic started, the neighbours didn’t go to the park as he did, they preferred to stay at home and play with electronic games. The Park was lonely, only few people visited it. Marcos was always bored and angry because he didn’t have anybody to talk to. He was alone, he and his solitary soul and the noises of the cars and the buses.
One day, in December 2019 a virus arrived and started to terrify the world. It was the Coronavirus. In March 2020, the restrictions to prevent people from getting the virus started in our country. The Park was closed, and Marcos had to leave his job for a couple of months. Everything changed around the park, but nothing changed in it. Only one thing, Marcos wasn’t there as, like all the other citizens, he had to stay at home. So, the park was an abandoned place that nobody took care of.
When the restrictions relaxed, and the park was reopened, all the people started to go, and Marcos had his job back. But when he came back, nothing was like before the COVID.
All the people left their electronic games and started to go to the park. It seemed to be a good thing, except that Marcos couldn’t control all of them. The people climbed on the trees and electricity poles. The children started to play and run all around, doing just that they wanted, like stepping on the grass and throwing garbage on the floor. For the first time, he had to use his whistle to organize the people inside the park and not the traffic.
Now around June 2021 he finally learnt how to deal with all these things and could just enjoy having all these people around. Not everything was bad. The Park was now alive, and the people slowly learnt to enjoy and take care of it. Marcos finally made a lot of friends and talked to other neighbours he had never talked to.
Now you can see him in the park with a smile on his face. He realised how much he loves his job. There is always a good side in all bad times.
THE UNKNOWN by Pedro Uthurralt (7° Grade)
I am alone, in the middle of space, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I will tell you my story anyways.
It all started when the P.U.S called me, Peter Jackson, a famous scientist who discovered the way to travel at light speed. They asked me if I wanted to go on a very important mission to investigate a new planet called Geo Nexus. The launch was going to be the next year, so I had time to think, it was a difficult choice but at the end I accepted the mission.
I trained for several months and after a year, I went to the place they told me to go. It was huge with lots of buildings, but the best part was the enormous rocket behind the biggest building I had ever seen. I assumed it was the main base. When I passed through the security system, I put the special suit on and went to the spaceship. I was accompanied by some astronauts that would help me complete this mission, they were twenty in total. We sat in our indicated places and some minutes later the countdown started. When it finished, the spaceship took off and some seconds later we were on space.
I don’t want to make this story very long because there are some creatures that want to eat me so, it took us 2 weeks to get to the orbit of Geo Nexus. We were all doing our staff when we heard a big explosion from the back of the spaceship, so we ran as fast as possible to the place of the explosion and when we got there, we saw the ugliest creature he had ever seen in our whole life. It had six arms with large and sharp claws, 4 big red eyes and an enormous, wide mouth with sharp teeth that could cut and eat a human being in one bite.
We were petrified. The creature roared and ate one of the astronauts, and we all started to run as fast as we could. When I looked backwards, I saw more creatures entering the ship!
I went to the arsenal cabinet and grabbed a machine gun, the P.U.S stored some guns for extreme cases to fight unknown creatures, and this was the case. I locked the room and stayed there, I was shocked, I put myself in a corner and stayed there, nothing in the entire world would make me open that door. Minutes later I saw a communication device that I could use to send a message to the P.U.S and inform them about our situation, but suddenly I heard some noises at the other side of the door, it was the creatures. The door couldn’t hold those things for a long time, I had to make a plan. I remembered the escape pods that were very near my room, I had to get there. I took some courage, grabbed my machine gun and opened the door.
I started shooting at the creatures while I was running to the escape pods, I saw the dead bodies of the crew, and it was a scene that I can’t describe. When I got to the escape pods and got into one, I saw those horrible creatures approaching me, but I didn’t have any bullets left. I just prayed. The escape pod started the countdown, but the creatures were very near, and when the creatures were almost over me, the escape pod launched off the spaceship.
So, if you are hearing this, I am probably still in this escape pod in space, please send help, I am running out of food, I don’t know where I am exactly but I can tell you I am between Uranus and Neptune.
Goodbye
THE CURSE OF THE TAYLOR FAMILY by Benjamin Quinterno (1° Year)
Hi, I’m Scott Taylor and this is my story. It happened when I was 16 years old.
I have lived in Wimberley since I was born, and in town, everyone has always believed that we are cursed. They think this is because of how my father died.
The legend says that when my father was 27 years old, he and his brother were exploring the woods when they found something hidden in a tree, a prophecy written on an old paper. The prophecy said that if someone wanted to become rich, they would have to sacrifice their family. It is said that my uncle killed my father, but when he did, he felt so guilty that he moved into an abandoned house at the edge of the town, were nobody could see him. I didn’t care much about the story because, even when I hadn’t met my uncle, it simply couldn’t have occurred, I didn’t believe in fairy tales, until now.
A week ago, my brother disappeared. I didn’t know what to think, until it hit me- the prophecy! Without hesitating or telling anyone about it, I decided to go to the abandoned house, but to know where the house was, I needed help, so I asked my mother. She was really depressed because of my brother’s disappearance so, if there was any chance to find him, she would take it, so she told me how to get there and immediately, I went. The road was not easy, but finally, I made it. The house was awful; it had a weird smell, and it was almost demolished. When I opened the gate of the house a Pitbull ran after me and I almost passed out, but I thought quickly and I took a rock from the floor and threw it to the dog, and the dog fainted. Then, I got into the house. That place was horrible, how could anyone live there? I started walking around the house and I heard noises on the second floor. I went up and I heard my brother saying “Please, don’t hurt me, I didn’t do anything”. Then I heard another voice, as cold as ice that said: “I can’t free you, little boy, I rejected a fortune in my past but I’m not going to make that mistake anymore”. Out of desperation, I took a sharp knife that was on a table, and I went into the room. The first
thing I saw was my brother gagged on a chair with several cuts over his body, then I saw a man who clearly was my uncle: he was bold, he only had one leg and a cold look that terrifies me until today. I said, “LET HIM GO” and then he saw me and said, “Great! Another step closer to my fortune, one more, the only one left is your mother”. Without hesitating I grabbed the knife and pointed to my uncle with it. He said: “Don´t worry, if you kill me my spirit will live until sunrise and if you don’t make it back home before that, then you will die, and I will come back to life with a fortune”. I don’t know what happened, maybe I was furious, but the next thing that I know is that I was kneeling with the knife full of blood and my uncle agonizing. His four last words were “You… won’t… make it”
Quickly I untied my brother, and we ran without saying a word. I don’t know for how long we ran but it was a lot. What I do know is that we got home before sunrise. Our mother couldn’t be happier.
One thing that our uncle didn’t tell us is that if we arrived home before sunrise, we would break the curse, which we did. Since then, I have been asking myself what would have happened if we hadn’t. I guess I’m too afraid to find out the answer.
The End
THE UNEXPECTED CHANGE by Ignacio Yaryour (2° Year)
It was rainy on the lonely hill on that summer Friday night. The sky was as dark as the abandoned roads that were nearby the castle. The curtains were covered by large, shiny cobwebs and the shy spiders appeared in short periods when the clock struck a new hour.
I was studying when the storm became stronger and suddenly no other noises could be heard. Then I started hearing thumps coming from the roof. I wasn’t that brave to investigate what was happening, but I was truly horrified.
I have heard a lot of stories about ghosts for a long time from back then, but I was possibly living in one of them now. At that moment, the house seemed to be haunted, all the common things were not common anymore. Suddenly, I saw a white shadow in the broken mirror. It was slowly approaching me, I was shaking.
Never have I felt as scared as then. Suddenly, the house seemed to be the mirror of hell. Every piece of furniture turned demonic; a tense silence took over the house. My eyes were widely opened, but I couldn’t see anything, I didn’t know if it was because of the strong fear that I felt all over my body or the fact that I was going crazy.
After a few minutes the shadow felt unreal. Perhaps, but only perhaps, I was too tired and I was creating things in my mind. All those feelings were interrupted by a tremendous noise, it was not a thunder, it was a rare kind of scream. I turned back and saw, face to face, a ghost! At that moment I realized I was not asleep, I was not crazy, perhaps I was dead.
Now the ghost was running towards me. I couldn’t escape, and I knew it; so, I tried to scare him. Sadly, it didn’t work. I closed my eyes hoping for the best and all of a sudden, the ghost was not there anymore. The house felt peaceful, and it stop raining. I tried to look myself in the mirror, but my reflex seemed to have vanished.
The End
THE RIPPER by Pablo Castelli (2° Year)
Saturday, July 11h 11:59 PM: Dark was the night when Brunilda, a rich woman dressed in the finest silk in the great city of London, was walking drunk in the middle of the sidewalk. When Big Ben hit midnight, Brunilda´s head hit the floor.
Sunday, July 12th 08:34 PM: Detective Jefferson arrived at the crime scene asking for details and proofs, but not a single clue had been found. The only thing that they knew, was the when, the how, and the who. Criminal Jack the Ripper was the only one that could have done this, everyone said, and everyone agreed. When Detective Jefferson approached the yellow and black tape, he searched for anything that could be of any help. There was nothing on the dress except for dust and blood. The alleyway was empty except for one or two cigarettes on the ground, near the deceased body lying in the pool of blood. Over the pavement, Jefferson found a knife and a message on it that read: Exhibition of my next work of art. And the name of a filthy street.
Sunday, July 12th 09:57 PM: Jefferson and his team rushed to the location left on the message, bursting through the door to find a man with a pocket full of bloody knives, hanging from his neck with a confession note too blurry to be read. The fire had already turned to embers and the wax from the only candlestick in the room had already run out. With nothing left to do, everyone left the room. Some of them were smiling and others trembled in fear. But everyone thought about the same thing, yet nobody spoke.
Sunday, July 12th 11:59 PM: Dark was the night when Detective Jefferson was walking down the streets of beautiful London. He was smoking a cigarette while humming with joy, with his new badge made of pride. After all, he had solved the hardest of all crimes. When Big Ben hit midnight, Jefferson´s head hit the floor.
THE END
