Max

Here, son, in this very house, dwelt a child called Max, a few years ago. He
was a little cheerful boy; it seemed that nothing could worry him. He used
to laugh and shout and play all day; and every night, when his dad came
back from work, he used to sit in his favourite sofa, while Max came running
towards him to be told a story before going to bed. Max usually sat on his
knees, just like you are right now, and listen carefully to every single word
that came out from his father’s mouth. The tales he told Max were not so
usual. Actually they were traditional tales, but riddled with particular
changes invented by him, and sometimes they were a mix of some different
yarns. The one Max loved the most was The day Peter Pan decided to visit
Wonderland and then tried to convince Alice to took her to Neverland, so he
frequently made his father repeat it once and twice and thrice, then both of
them went to bed so late.

Not so much time passed by until something started to change. The stories
were unreasonably losing their magic. Max thought something bad was
going to happen. Or it was already happening. Dad tried to show him that
everything was alright, despite Max’s suspicions.

A few days later, he heard his parents arguing downstairs, and then he
realised there was a really big problem. Day by day, dad started to become
a really discouraged person, even Max was not so excited at night time. And
the amount of arguments between his parents was increasing more and
more.

One of those nights, Max opened cautiously his bedroom’s door, walked
quietly to the stairs and tried to guess why mum and dad were so angry
with each other. He heard something about his job, and his mother said ‘It’s
not worth the fuss to do that frigging work for that little salary!’

So finally Max could understand what the problem was about; his father
was making so much effort and starting to get sick and his mum wanted
him to leave that. For the first time, Max was worried. He was not so
cheerful, he didn’t laugh and shout and play the same as before… but
everybody was busy enough to notice it.

Do you want to know what happened at last, son? You should know that it’s
not a very nice part… So, do you really want to know? Well, dad fell ill and
he had to be in bed during six long months, up ‘til he died. It was a really
unfortunate event, but at least Max could be with him at every moment,
spending each minute he had with him. And before he stopped living, he
gave his son his very last words: ‘You’ll always succeed in life unless you
lose your most powerful tool: your humble heart.’
Glossary:
• amount (noun): cantidad.

• cautiously (adverb): cautelosamente

• despite (preposition): a pesar de.

• discouraged (adjective): desanimado.

• dwell (verb): vivir, habitar, morar.

• frigging (adjective): puto/-a, jodido/-a. Sinónimo de “fucking”.

• it’s not worth the fuss (interjection): no merece la pena

• riddled with sth (past participle): plagado, lleno, repleto de algo.

• suspicion (noun): sospecha.

• thrice (adverb): tres veces. Está en desuso. Suele encontrarse más

comúnmente como “three times”.

• tool (noun): herramienta.

• towards (preposition): hacia, en dirección a.

• unless (conjunction): a menos que, a no ser que.

• up ‘til (conjunction): hasta. Variante de “until”.

• very (adverb): en el caso de el contexto en el que aquí se encuentra,

significa “misma”, y no “muy”.

• yarn (noun): cuento. Sinónimo de “tale”.